Silver Mining

10 October 2014

Silver, which is currently valued at around 17 dollars per ounce in the United States, is mined most successfully in Mexico, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Canada, and the US. The largest producer of silver is currently Mexico, which yielded 169.7 million ounces in 2013 (Feldman). Silver hardly ever exists in a pure state in nature, instead forming an amalgam with sulfur, arsenic, antimony, or chlorine. Seeing as it combines with other ores, it usually has to be extracted through amalgamation—“a concentrating process”— or electrolysis—which uses an electric current to drive a chemical reaction and thereby separate it from the other material (Kubach). It can also be extracted from ore through smelting or chemical leaching. Although less lucrative than gold, silver has nevertheless produced “silver rushes” when new deposits are discovered. Silver is commonly used in coins, jewelry, silverware, and electronics. A few lesser-known uses of silver are in solar panels, control rods for nuclear energy, silver wire, and photographic film.

Silver Rush, a Discovery Channel show, documented the journey of sea explorers when they recovered over $500 million worth of silver in 2007 from a shipwreck. Check out the video of their discovery here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVABPFovrLw

Works Cited

Jim, Feldman. "Silver Production." The Silver Institute. Jim Feldman Creative Direction, 2014. Web. 6 Oct. 2014.

Kubach, Charles. "Mercury Amalgamation." Mine-Engineer.com. Mine-Engineer.com, 2012. Web. 6 Oct. 2014.