Gold Rush
Sudden wealth underground. California in 1849, the Klondike and Witwatersrand, the panning and the claim, boomtowns built and abandoned in a decade, and the artisanal gold miners still going down on ropes today.
Part of Underground
13 moments in this segment.
- - Group of prospectors on the Colorado River in Glen Canyon up from Lee's Ferry, Grand Canyo. 1900 Photograph of a group of five prospectors on the Colorado River in Glen Canyon up from Lee's Ferry. Period photograph.
- - Interior view of mine and miners in the Mohawk Mine, Goldfield, Nevada, ca.1900. 1905 Photograph of the interior view of mine, miners and $80,000 to the ton in gold sitting on the ledge in the Mohawk M. Period photograph.
- - Cradle of Gold: Hiram Bingham and Machu Picchu. Historian Christopher Heaney on Bingham's 1911 expedition and the dispute over the artefacts he removed.
- - Ore Deposits 101: Carlin-Type Gold. How the Carlin gold deposits of Nevada formed, from a course on economic geology.
- - Down the Abandoned Gold Mines of Durban Deep. Unreported World follows informal miners descending into the closed workings of a South African gold mine an hour from Johannesburg.
- - The California gold rush (educational film). Mid-century classroom film on the 1848 find at Sutter's mill and the 300,000 who followed, which propelled California to statehood.
- - The biogenic origin of Witwatersrand gold. Geological Society of South Africa lecture by Professor Hartwig Frimmel on how the Witwatersrand reefs, source of much of the world's gold, were formed.
- - Lithium: New Gold Rush in the Andes. DW on the brine deposits beneath the Andean salars and the extraction now targeting them.
- - The early days of Johannesburg and Witwatersrand gold mining. Talk by Katherine James-Kleynhans on the 1886 discovery on the Witwatersrand and the mining camp that became Johannesburg.
- - Mponeng, the world's deepest mine. How the Mponeng gold mine west of Johannesburg is worked, and what it takes to keep men alive nearly four kilometres below the surface.
- - Hydraulic mining and the California gold rush. Museum explainer on how placer panning gave way to hydraulic monitors that stripped whole hillsides into the rivers.
- - Buried secrets of the gold rush. National Geographic on the California and Klondike gold rushes and the wrecked ships that carried men and gold west.
- - South Africa opens its first new underground gold mine in fifteen years. West Wits Mining opens a shaft in Johannesburg, betting that high gold prices make old deposits viable again while illegal mining continues.