placer
3
9.9
- noun
- /ˈpleɪsər/
- Specialized
:
placer
- The Taylor Highway moves past bilious streams swollen with the silt of placer mines.
- placer gold
- placer mining
- placer mine
Examples
-
Small-scale miners are generally engaged in placer gold mining.
Academic text (2006) -
This is a placer structure where to look for tin deposits.
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Ben thinks placer mining's all but finished in these parts.
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Let me just say... if they found even just a little placer downstream... they might judge from that that there's a deposit higher up.
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The river had a gradient of thirty feet per mile, ideal for placer gold, with only a six to eight foot overburden over slate-phyllite bedrock.
Fiction book (1997) -
In 1863, Anglo-American prospectors located placer gold in the Prescott highlands and founded Prescott.
Academic text (1998) -
Well-defined thorium deposits, on the other hand, are comparatively rare, being found principally in placer deposits of monazite sands.
Blog text (11) -
The geologist discovered a rich placer of gold along the riverbank.
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After heavy rains, the placer deposits made it easy for miners to find gold in the river.
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Many prospectors visited the area to search for placer gold after hearing about the recent discovery.
Synonyms
Loose soil like sand or clay that a river leaves when it slows
Compounds
- Specialized
A way of removing gold and other minerals from river sand and gravel by washing or digging
Surface Forms
Etymology
Placer comes from Spanish placer, a word miners used for a 'sandbank' or 'gravel left by rivers' where gold gathers. Think of it as a 'place' where small bits of gold collect, which is why a placer means a river deposit that can hold valuable minerals.