Traditional mining, also known as old-school mining, relies on manual tools like shovels, pickaxes, hammers, chisels, and pans for extraction, both in surface and underground environments. Widely practiced worldwide until the early 1900s, it continues in certain countries such as Colombia, Peru (South America), and Niger (Africa). In traditional gold mining, hammers, chisels, pickaxes, and shovels are utilized, with minecarts for material transport and pans for placer operations like gold panning. Fire-setting, heating rocks with fire and then quenching with water, was a common rock-breaking method until Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite in 1867. Traditional mining operations have left significant marks on Earth, including the Big Hole open pit mine in South Africa, purportedly the largest hand-excavated hole globally.
