WordNet
n. mining valuable minerals from a placer by washing or dredging
Wikipedia
Placer mining ( or ) is the mining of stream bed ( alluvial) deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit (also called open-cast mining) or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment.
Placer mining is frequently used for precious metal deposits (particularly gold) and gemstones, both of which are often found in alluvial deposits—deposits of sand and gravel in modern or ancient stream beds, or occasionally glacial deposits. The metal or gemstones, having been moved by stream flow from an original source such as a vein, are typically only a minuscule portion of the total deposit. Since gems and heavy metals like gold are considerably more dense than sand, they tend to accumulate at the base of placer deposits.
The containing material may be too loose to safely mine by tunneling, though it is possible where the ground is permanently frozen. Where water under pressure is available, it may be used to mine, move, and separate the precious material from the deposit, a method known as hydraulic mining, hydraulic sluicing or hydraulicking.
Usage examples of "placer mining".
No signs of mining, no arrastra, no rusted picks or shovels, no evidence of placer mining.
For a while he gave up placer mining and devoted his entire attention to the stream banks, praying that he might find the vein which had produced this splendid gold, but it eluded him.
There were no hydraulic nozzles or sluicing work to indicate placer mining.
Back around 1860 a man named Abe Lee had done some placer mining in California Gulch.
This limited use of the thing to the summer season, when the water needed for placer mining the platinum would not freeze too quickly after the apparatus was shut off to permit workmen to return.
There was placer mining, which involved leveling fair-sized mountains with streams of high-pressure water.