Gold dredge (Quibdó, Colombia) [ 22 images ]
A gold dredge is a mining machine employing an ancient artisan technique of placer gold mining (based on the different densities of gold and soil/sand) but applied by mechanical/industrial methods to increase the quantity of extracted gold. Today, advances in mining technology allowed the production of small dredges with high operation efficiency, carried easily to a remote location, and so the giant mining dredges are increasingly decommissioned and left to their fate.