Following the discovery of a viable deposit, the gold ore must be extracted from the ground using a variety of mining methods, including open-pit and underground mining. The ore needs to be treattypes of slotsed in order to separate the pure gold metal from the impurities after it has been extracted. In this process, the ore is usually crushed into smaller pieces, and the gold is separated from the other minerals in the ore using chemical processes like flotation or cyanidation. Refinement is the process that follows extraction to remove any remaining impurities and further purify the gold.