As of October 2020, China's official gold reserves are about 1948 tons, and domestic proved gold reserves are about 12,000 tons. For many years, our country has been the first producer and consumer of gold!
On October 27, 2021, the Henan Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources announced the discovery of an extraordinarily large gold mine in Tongbai County. Preliminary estimates of gold reserves are 31.55 tonnes, with more likely to follow.
As soon as the news came out, many people wondered: is the 31-ton gold mine very large, why is the reaction so exciting?
Don't say it really is!
Gold, as a precious metal, has been cherished since ancient times, and its content in the earth's crust is only 1.1 parts per 100 million.
If you can refine 1-5 grams of gold in a ton of rock. Then it can be called "gold ore" for mining.
So this time the gold mine found in Tongbai County, you can imagine how big it is!
On the periodic table, gold is represented by au, taken from the name of "Aurora, the goddess of dawn."
China has had the process of alchemy and gold making since the Xia and Shang dynasties, but because of the scarcity of production, it has always been regarded as a symbol of status and status.
The reason why the United States can dominate the world is that the Bretton Woods system is the greatest, and this system requires the dollar to be pegged to gold. This shows the influence of gold on the human world!
Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are part of the Bretton Woods system
The gold mine is not easy to come by, and China is located in the eastern part of Eurasia, surrounded by the Indian Ocean Plate, the American Plate and the Pacific Plate. The frequent movement of geological formations and the continuous changes over billions of years have created today's complex geographical environment.
There are many gold-producing areas in China, but most of them are shallow excavations, and the exploration depth is less than 500 meters, accounting for only 7% of the total prospecting workload.
If we continue to explore, then the potential of gold reserves will be further advanced, of which there are 6 "golden dragons" that travel from west to east, which are worth digging deeper.
The Tibetan Plateau is known as the roof of the world and the water tower of Asia, but it is also in the seismic zone, and the geology has undergone great changes. Under the wash of the river, the gold mines buried deep underground will always inadvertently reveal their true faces.
They are mostly distributed along the riverbed, with the most abundant between the Pangong Lake-Nu River suture belt and the Brahmaputra river suture belt.
Topographic map of Tibet
Tibet's gold industry has a long history, and many of the temple decorations and gold used in the panchen tombs of the past are basically locally produced.
However, due to the high altitude and complex geographical environment, the industrial exploitation of this area only began to develop in the late 1980s.
Potala Palace
At present, the initial proven gold reserves in this area are more than 120 tons, and the estimated reserves are more than 500 tons. Moreover, the mineralization conditions in the collection area are superior, but the degree of exploration is low, there are a large number of blank areas, and the future mining potential is huge.
It will be an important golden vein in China, of course, the contradiction between industry and environmental protection also needs to be properly handled.
Located at the junction of Guizhou, Yunnan and Guangxi provinces, it is also located in the compound zone of the Eurasian Plate and the Indian Ocean Plate. This area has a large number of mineral resources, of which tin and tungsten production ranks first in the country.
Nearly 200 gold mines have been discovered here since the 1980s, and like the U.S. state of Nevada, it is home to the world's largest concentration of Carlin-type gold mines.
Located in Shaping Township, Zhenfeng County, Guizhou, the Muddy Gou Gold Mine is the largest gold mine in Southwest Guizhou and a world-class mega gold mine.
The Mud Gully Gold Mine was discovered in 1978, and the preliminary survey of the gold reserves in the mining area reached 110 tons, with an estimated reserve of 130 tons, and 42% of the gold reserves in the mineralization area of Qianxian Prefecture belonged to it.
It is located in the area west of the Qinling Mountains at the junction of Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan. During the Ancient Devonian Period, the uplift and magmatic activity of the Qinling Mountains made the geomorphological structure of this area complex.
Gold mines are mostly located in granite areas about 400 meters underground, especially in the area of Tianshui Plum Garden -Liangdang Sun Temple, as well as in LiXian and Xiahe Counties.
Although the gold exploration work in the northwest region started late, since the new century, there have been more than 300 gold mines found in this area, with an average of 15 new gold resources discovered every year, which shows that the gold deposits here are not too rich!
Longshang Jiangnan: Tianshui
Among them, the Yangshan Gold Mine in Wenxian County, Gansu, located in the northern section of the Minshan Mountains and the western end of the Qinling Mountains, is the junction of Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan provinces, and after being discovered in 1997, the cumulative amount of gold resources discovered is 308 tons.
A glimpse of the whole leopard, the entire West Qinling region of gold resources, the potential scale of up to 2,000 tons, can be described as the largest gold mining area in northwest China.
It is located in northern Hebei, western Liaoning and southeastern Inner Mongolia, and has been proven to have 17 large and medium-sized gold deposits and 5 gold deposit concentration areas.
Most of them are distributed along the Zhangjiakou-Beijing-Changli area, where the five gold mining areas all have reserves of more than 20 tonnes. Representative ones include Xuanhua, Shihu, Dushan, south of Chifeng, and the Ao Han region.
In addition, the area around Jiapigou in Jilin Province also belongs to the Yanliao Gold Mine Collection Area, and most of the gold mines in this area are rock gold.
Sandwich Ditch Gold Mine
Among them, the Dushan Gold Mine Concentration Area has famous large and medium-sized gold mines such as Jinchangyu, Niuxin Mountain, Yu'erya, etc., and the Changshan Trench Gold Mine located in the northwest of Baotou City, Inner Mongolia, is the largest open-pit gold mine in China.
Luonan County, Tongguan County and Henan Lingbao in Shaanxi are the main gold producing areas in China, and the gold resources are mainly distributed along the Xiaoqinling, Kunshan and Bears Ears Mountains.
As the second largest gold-producing area in China, the Xiaoqinling Gold Mine Belt was born here, it spans the three provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan, bordering Taihua in the west, Kunshan mountain in the east, the Yellow River in the north, and the Qinling Mountains in the south.
Little Qinling
The frequent volcanic activity of the ancient period has made the gold resources here extremely rich, and since the end of the 1970s, a total of 163 gold deposits have been discovered, and the potential reserves have reached 2400 tons.
The newly discovered Tongbai gold ore belt is another major breakthrough in the extension and exploration of gold mines in this area, indicating that there is still a great deal of exploration space in this area in addition to the Wenyu and Yangpanyu ore belts.
The last mention is China's largest "Golden Dragon" and the third largest gold mining area in the world, which is the Jiaodong Gold Mine Collection Area in Shandong.
The area is located in the geological fault zone of Jiaodong Peninsula and Liaodong Peninsula, and the proven gold reserves reach 4,000 tons, accounting for 30% of the national total.
According to the study, if the exploration depth reaches 5,000 meters, the gold reserves here are expected to reach 10,000 tons.
As an early gold producing area for development and utilization, most of the gold mines in Shandong have the ability of comprehensive production such as mineral processing, mining, smelting and manufacturing.
Among them, Linglong Gold Mine, also known as Zhaoyuan Gold Mine, has a long history. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, there were gold mining activities, and Song Zhenzong also sent people to mine it.
During the anti-Japanese period, although Zhaoyuan was controlled by the Japanese Kou, with the efforts of our party branch, the working committee and the anti-Japanese masses, they rubbed gold powder into their hair, hid it in torn cotton clothes, and secretly raised 130,000 taels of gold (about 4 tons) for our party, making outstanding contributions to the cause of the War of Resistance.
Exquisite gold mine
There are also many well-known large gold mines here, and the Sanshan Island Gold Mine is the highest mechanized underground gold mine in the country, with a cumulative production of 48.57 tons of gold in 30 years.
The Xincheng Gold Mine and the Xiadian Gold Mine are also world-renowned gold-rich mines, with proven gold reserves of 63 tons and 71 tons respectively, and the Jiaojia Gold Mine is also remarkable.
The characteristics of gold mines in Jiaodong Peninsula are known for their concentration of resources and shallow veins for easy mining, and there are such rich reserves in the shallow layer, it is no wonder that if they explore below 5,000 meters, the reserves will increase to 10,000 tons.
Shandong gold mine distribution
In addition, there are other well-known gold mines, such as Fujian Purple Mountain Gold Mine, Qinghai Dachaidan Gold Mine, etc., which will not be elaborated here.
In the gold market, China's position is very important, which is inseparable from the support of nature, and we need to take into account sustainable development while obtaining economic benefits.
Golden mountains and silver mountains, we want; green water and green mountains; we also want!