My dad did some gold panning back in the 70s, and he'd met an old miner up in the hills who gave him some liquid mercury (I believe it's used to help separate gold from other minerals). It was in an old glass Gerber baby food jar, and there was a quite a bit of it (like 1/3rd of the jar). It was a lot of fun to slosh it around and watch the weird ways it moved. I had been snooping around in my dad's old hiking gear in the garage when I found it, and of course, once my dad found out, the jar of mercury disappeared. Just like the Playboys in his nightstand drawer 😢
My chemistry teacher used to have a huge mason jar full of mercury (early 1990s and he was definitely an old-school 1960s/70s era teacher). It was CRAZY how heavy it was and I'm glad no one every dropped it. I don't think this would be allowed now.
Yep you are correct and it's a big big fine if your busted. Especially if you have a copper gold pan I find it ironic that they were using a gold pan in this video. I worked for Gold Divers underwater mining equipment for a few years. If you've ever seen the movie "The Deep" we made that dredge :) And the owner would separate placer using Mercury. But not in the field!
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u/AxelShoes Dec 15 '24
My dad did some gold panning back in the 70s, and he'd met an old miner up in the hills who gave him some liquid mercury (I believe it's used to help separate gold from other minerals). It was in an old glass Gerber baby food jar, and there was a quite a bit of it (like 1/3rd of the jar). It was a lot of fun to slosh it around and watch the weird ways it moved. I had been snooping around in my dad's old hiking gear in the garage when I found it, and of course, once my dad found out, the jar of mercury disappeared. Just like the Playboys in his nightstand drawer 😢