We could all be billionaeres, if...

For years I have been watching the gold mining programs on TV like "GOLD RUSH". It's really interesting to see the professionals convert many thousands of cubic yards of gold rich dirt and rocks into the small flakes of gold they weigh out. It actually looks like a coarse powder. You see their equipment wash the dirt and rocks and they end up with a few nice sized nuggets, and some "pickers". We all know they are only getting the biggest pieces. But what I've wondered about all these years is, how much gold are they losing? Gold that is possibly too small to be seen with the naked eye? Powdered gold? I suspect most of the gold could be of the micron size. If we could figure out some way to collect the powdered gold from their washings/tailings, we could all be billionaires. The miners wouldn't care if you could collect gold from what they are throwing away, because they have no real way of collecting it themselves. What way could you possibly use to find gold this fine and then concentrate it into a usable volume? Maybe it's all a dream, but something to think about....

There was one episode of Gold Rush where Fred's crew ran some old tailings (from a century ago....) and got several ounces of smaller stuff.

I think the limit theory applies - yes, you could possibly get the finest specks, but the costs would out-strip the finds.

A buddy works as a Chief Chemist for a large municipal water department in their testing lab, and tells me they could filter the water to almost PPB - parts per billion, but filtering to PPM, or Parts per Million only apply, so our water is 100-1000 times "dirtier" than it could be. Costs for PPB treatment go up by about 2-3 times what we now pay, so even water quality is subject to "good enough" cost avoidance.

PPB filtered water is used as nuclear reactor feed water, and in the medical industry, at many dollars a gallon, he tells me. It's apparently distilled and filtered.

The same can be observed in Australia. People come to old mining sites with new better metal detectors and still getting gold. Detectors are getting better every now and then and can find smaller or deeper targets on already explored land.