I am behind the times, why is it a good thing if he has found Mercury ?
Need some advice
- Thread starter DALEO8
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The presence of mercury would indicate that what he has found is amalgam and hence it would contain some gold.
Not necessarily Grubstake (although one might hope near a shaft). But mercury also forms amalgam with copper, lead, zinc, aluminium etc. and was relatively cheap in those days and got splashed around (well under 1c per oz when gold was around $9 per oz). (00 tonnes are thought to have been lost in Victorian streams.
Ohhh... 
Thank you
Thank you
Exactly, as gold amalgamated on the surface of copper plates was how the crushing plants recovered fine gold, with the plates subsequently scraped to recover smeltable material. So the presence of copper in an amalgam would be very positive for a lucky modern finder.
Mercury may well have been cheap back in the day, but its usage in the goldfields was solely for the purpose of recovering gold, so the fact that chemically it may also form an amalgam with other metals not related to gold recovery, is of academic interest only.
I meant that mercury would ultimately amalgamate with any metal that it was tossed onto in a dump, so its presence does not have to mean gold - but it is irrelevant anyway because that is not amalgam
Question
Why did they not use Gallium instead of Mercury ?
I dont know the exact properties of this metal but it does seem to form amalgam with other metals, as far as I know.
Why did they not use Gallium instead of Mercury ?
I dont know the exact properties of this metal but it does seem to form amalgam with other metals, as far as I know.
- The solubility of gold in solid gallium can be considered to be zero (it readily forms an amalgam with aluminium).
- It is a solid below 30 degrees C (well above the temperature of water in most gold pans)
- It costs ten times as much as mercury
- It also forms toxic compounds in the environment (e.g. will stuff up your kidneys)
My mind went to the process of melting a metal lock with gallium applied to it.
But with new eyes I suspect that the locks are made of aluminium or an alloy of.
But with new eyes I suspect that the locks are made of aluminium or an alloy of.
Interestingly I don't think pure gallium metal is toxic at all, just compounds of gallium. We actually extract it primarily from aluminium ores (bauxite) because of their similar chemistry. I used to work in a mine that had gallium sulphide minerals - very rare indeed (gallite).
Gallium forms amalgam with many other metals (even with pure copper, contrary to what this video shows). It amalgamates well with platinum. It has been looked at for dental fillings but has not been accepted by the industry.
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