[laurencerowe]

The profitability will depend on the production costs for each mine. Those at the margin set the price. If it stays high long enough new mines will open or too low and unprofitable mines will close. The excess profits earned by those that have easily accessible high quality ore are known as 'resource rents' but eventually they will be fully exploited and have to close.

Apparently a great uncle of mine found gold on his family farm in Scotland, but it was never profitable to exploit so saw no benefit from it!