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Handbook of Gold Exploration and Evaluation.

EOIN H. MACDONALD. 647 Pp. Woodhead Publishing Limited, Cambridge, England. ISBN-10: 1–84569–175-X. ISBN-13: 978–1–84569–175–2. 2007. Price US$370.00.

U.S.Geological Survey, Box 25046, MS 973,Denver Federal Center,Denver, Colorado 80225

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This lengthy handbook on many aspects of gold geology and mining attempts to address comprehensively most topics that would interest both researchers on gold ores and workers in the gold mining industry. The material appears to represent a summary of knowledge collected by the author over a 65-year-long career as an international mining engineer with an obvious expertise in alluvial gold projects. The text is divided into nine chapters, each about 70 pages in length.

The first three chapters of the book focus on the geology of gold and are, by far, the weakest part of the book. The first chapter, "Nature and history of gold," contains some interesting material on characteristics and formation of placer grains and nuggets. However, discussions of salinity, pH, redox, and metal complexing of gold-bearing fluids are presented without any mention of pressure or temperature, or the use of any phase diagrams, and thus are far too incomplete. Descriptions of gold grains and gold-bearing veins are disappointingly presented as hand sketches that describe textures and colors, rather than showing these in actual photographs. The classification of gold deposits is . . . [Full Text of this Article]