Hydraulic mining
![A miner using a hydraulic jet to mine for gold in California, from The Century Magazine January 1883](/Images/godic/202501/19/Henry_Sandham_-_The_Monitor5346.jpg")
![Panoramic view of Las Médulas](/Images/godic/202501/19/Panorámica_de_Las_Médulas5346.jpg")
![Gold miners excavate an eroded bluff with jets of water at a placer mine in Dutch Flat, California sometime between 1857 and 1870.](/Images/godic/202501/19/X-600725346.jpg")
![A man leans over a wooden sluice. Rocks line the outside of the wood boards that create the sluice.](/Images/godic/202501/19/P-12525346.jpg")
Hydraulic mining, or hydraulicking, is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment. In the placer mining of gold or tin, the resulting water-sediment slurry is directed through sluice boxes to remove the gold. It is also used in mining kaolin and coal.