The response from the jewelry industry to a campaign for ethically sourced gold as a case study in the power of business in global environmental politics. Gold mining can be a dirty business. It creates immense amounts of toxic materials that are difficult to dispose of. Mines are often developed without community consent, and working conditions for miners can be poor. Income from gold has funded wars. And consumers buy wedding rings and gold chains not knowing about any of this. In Dirty Gold, Michael Bloomfield shows what happened when Earthworks, a small Washington-based NGO, launched a campaign for ethically sourced gold in the consumer jewelry market, targeting Tiffany and other major firms. The unfolding of the campaign and its effect on the jewelry industry offer a lesson in the growing influence of business in global environmental politics. Earthworks planned a “shame” campaign, aimed at the companies' brands and reputations, betting that firms like Tiffany would not want to be associated with pollution, violence, and exploitation. As it happened, Tiffany contacted Earthworks before they could launch the campaign; the company was already looking for partners in finding ethically sourced gold. Bloomfield examines the responses of three companies to “No Dirty Gold” activism: Tiffany, Wal-Mart, and Brilliant Earth, a small company selling ethical jewelry. He finds they offer a case study in how firms respond to activist pressure and what happens when businesses participate in such private governance schemes as the “Golden Rules” and the “Conflict-Free Gold Standard.” Taking a firm-level view, Bloomfield examines the different opportunities for and constraints on corporate political mobilization within the industry.

Details how Newmont Mining revolutionized the gold mining industry and remains the second largest gold miner in the world Jack H. Morris asserts that Newmont is the link between early gold mining and today’s technology-driven industry. We learn how the company’s founder and several early leaders grew up in gold camps and how, in 1917, the company helped finance South Africa’s largest gold company and later owned famous gold mines in California and Colorado. In the 1960s the company developed the process to capture “invisible gold” from small distributions of the metal in large quantities of rock, thereby opening up the rich gold field at Carlin, Nevada. Modern gold mining has all the excitement and historic significance of the metal’s colorful past. Instead of panning for ready nuggets, today’s corporate miners must face heavy odds by extracting value from ores containing as little as one-hundredth of an ounce per ton. In often-remote locations, where the capital cost of a new mine can top $2 billion, 250-ton trucks crawl from half mile deep pits and ascend, beetle-like, loaded with ore for extraction of the minute quantities of gold locked inside. Morris had unique access to company records and the cooperation of more than 80 executives and employees of the firm, but the company exercised no control over content. The author tells a story of discovery and scientific breakthrough; strong-willed, flamboyant leaders like founder Boyce Thompson; corporate raiders such as T. Boone Pickens and Jimmy Goldsmith; shakedowns by the Indonesian government and monumental battles with the French over the richest mine in Peru; and learning to operate in the present environmental regulatory climate. This is a fascinating story of the metal that has ignited passions for centuries and now sells for over $1,000 an ounce.

GOLD MINING IN THE 1990's--This one book outlines EVERYTHING a beginner will need & want to know about getting started at gold mining today, either as a hobby or as a small-scale commercial activity. In easy to understand language, supported by clear photographs & graphic demonstrations, this book covers all of the important subjects--including what gold is & looks like, where it comes from & where to find it, how gold deposits & how to find & recover it, & also touches on the legal aspects of how to claim the gold for yourself. The book covers the up-to-date mining procedures of panning gold, sluicing, dredging, high-banking, drywashing, electronic probing, hardrock mining, basic refining techniques, cleaning procedures, selling gold, & much, much more. Herein lies the most comprehensive & thorough work on electronic prospecting techniques (locating gold with metal detectors) available in any publication on the market today. Virtually an encyclopedia of modern gold mining techniques, there is no other book available more up to date, more simple to understand, or which covers the entire subject as thoroughly as this manual.

Gold Dredge No. 8 is one of the most significant relics of mining history in Alaska. Currently located at her final resting place, just north of Fairbanks, dredge No. 8 was dubbed the "Queen of the Fleet" during her years of operation in the Goldstream Valley. Gold Dredge No. 8 is the only landmark of its kind that is open to the public. Every summer, she provides a wonderful experience to thousands of visitors who come to Fairbanks looking for adventure and the chance to experience firsthand the history for which Fairbanks's mining pioneers are renowned. Author Maria Reeves explores the history of Gold Dredge No. 8 as well as visionary men, lie Norman C. Stines and James M. Davidson, who made dredging in the Fairbanks district not only a reality, but also provided enough economic stability to bring the struggling town of Fairbanks back to life. Gold Dredge No. 8 was a placer mine that drew water from another local engineering landmark, the Davidson Ditch. In this book, you'll learn about the crew that operated Gold Dredge No. 8 as well as the hardships these dredge men faced on a daily basis. You'll be able to take a photographic tour of Gold Dredge No. 8 as she is now, and learn about efforts to preserve Pleistocene fossil remains that were unearthed during the stripping process. You'll learn why the gold standard initially helped mining and find out why Gold Dredge No. 8 was shut down in 1959.

Honorable Mention for the Society for the Anthropology of Work (SAW) Book Prize The many dimensions of gold in a shadow economy People employ various methods to extract gold in the rainforests of the Chocó, in northwest Colombia: Rural Afro-Colombian artisanal miners work hillsides with hand tools or dredge mud from river bottoms. Migrant miners level the landscape with excavators, then trap gold with mercury. Canadian mining companies prospect for open-pit mega-mines. Drug traffickers launder cocaine profits by smuggling gold into Colombia and claiming it came from fictitious small-scale mines. Through an ethnography of gold that examines the movement of people, commodities, and capital, Shifting Livelihoods investigates how resource extraction reshapes a place. In the Chocó, gold enables forms of “shift” (rebusque)—a metaphor for the fluid livelihood strategy adopted by forest dwellers and migrant gold miners alike as they seek informal work amid a drug war. Mining’s effects on rural people, corporations, and politics are on view in this fine-grained account of daily life in a regional economy dominated by gold and cocaine.

The book presents the historical evolution of gold mining activities in the Egyptian and Nubian Desert (Sudan) from about 4000 BC until the Early Islamic Period (~800–1350 AD), subdivided into the main classical epochs including the Early Dynastic – Old and Middle Kingdoms – New Kingdom (including Kushitic) – Ptolemaic – Roman and Early Islamic. It is illustrated with many informative colour images, maps and drawings. An up to date comprehensive geological introduction gives a general overview on the gold production zones in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and northern (Nubian) Sudan, including the various formation processes of the gold bearing quartz veins mined in these ancient periods. The more than 250 gold production sites presented, are described both, from their archaeological (as far as surface inventory is concerned) and geological environmental conditions, resulting in an evolution scheme of prospection and mining methods within the main periods of mining activities. The book offers for the first time a complete catalogue of the many gold production sites in Egypt and Nubia under geological and archaeological aspects. It provides information about the importance of gold for the Pharaohs and the spectacular gold rush in Early Arab times.