Hydraulic Mining - Beyond California

Beyond California

Although often associated with California due to its adoption and widespread use there, the technology was exported widely, to Oregon (Jacksonville in 1856), Colorado (Clear Creek, Central City and Breckenridge in 1860), Montana (Bannack in 1865), Arizona (Lynx Creek in 1868), Idaho (Idaho City in 1863), South Dakota (Deadwood in 1876), Alaska, British Columbia (Canada), and overseas. It was used extensively in Dahlonega, Georgia and continues to be used in developing nations, often with devastating environmental consequences. The devastation caused by this method of mining caused Edwin Carter, the "Log Cabin Naturalist," to switch from mining to collecting wildlife specimens from 1875-1900 in Breckenridge, Colorado, USA.

Hydraulic mining was also used during the Australian gold rushes where it was called hydraulic sluicing. One notable location was at the Oriental Claims near Omeo in Victoria where it was used between the 1850s and early 1900s, with abundant evidence of the damage still being visible today.

Hydraulic mining was used extensively in the Central Otago Gold Rush that took place in the 1860s in the South Island of New Zealand, where it was also known as sluicing.

Starting in the 1870s, hydraulic mining became a mainstay of alluvial tin mining on the Malay Peninsula.

Hydraulicking was formerly used in Polk County, Florida to mine phosphate rock.

Hydraulic mining is the principal way that kaolinite clay is mined in Cornwall and Devon, in South-West England.

In addition to its use in true mining, hydraulic mining can be used as an excavation technique, principally to demolish hills. For example, the Denny Regrade in Seattle was largely accomplished by hydraulic mining.