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Comment by 7980

Requires 245 Mining

Comment by flamebait

I love being a miner/herbalist in winterspring. I run the same path through the zone over and over and regularly make around 40-50g/hour, depending on whether or not I'm lucky enough to get the black lotus nodes or an arcane crystal. Icecap and mountain silversage are a nice regular source of money.

Comment by 7786

If you have a good UI mod, you can mark your map with the locations of each vein you find. Eventually, you'll find a good pattern to follow to mine them. If I'm on a thorium farming trip, I'll run from the North (near Marshall's Refuge) along the mountainside to the South, then up the middle past the mountain. If you're able to mine them, a couple of rich thorium veins pop up on the eges of Fire Plume Ridge.

Comment by 15711

This might seem very nice for mining The small nodes in Blasted Land.. but alliance players cant mine the veins inside the nethergard keep armory so dont go here if you need to lvl your mining as an alliance...

Comment by 33892

Agree, Blasted Land was nice.

Comment by Leprikon

Blasted lands was the best for me. i went from 255 to 275 in about an hour...

Comment by Aggrot

If u want the addon Truenos talked about search for Gatherer at www.curse-gaming.com

Comment by 39290

Once you hit 245 head to the Blasted Lands. It is hands down the best place to mine from 245 to 300. If you look at the map posted here you can see a bunch of nodes that were farmed in an area above Nethergarde Keep, they appear to be in Swamp of Sorrows. This is not the case, those nodes are indeed in The Blasted Lands. There is a relatively large mine (the two entrances of which are located on the map as well) that has a very good concentration of Small Thorium Veins and Mithril Deposits in it. It is called Garrison Armory.

Again, this area is BY FAR the best place to lvl your mining from 245 to 300 due to the fast respawn rate and the size of the mine that the nodes are located in.

NOTE: There are mobs that range roughly between lvls 46 and 48 located in this mine, this may pose a slight problem for those in a similar lvl range, however, the mineral yield is well worth the effort and who knows you may just get a lvl or so while farming.

I tried Silithus, Un'Goro, and Tanaris and this area has lvld my mining much faster than any of those. I get at least 2-3 lvls in about a 5 min time period. I am currently 289 and climbing.

Comment by 5060

WPL worked fine for me... I more or less cruised between the two plaguelands all the way from 245-300.

Comment by mraverage

well i did mine here and my skill went from 240 till 275 just by alt tabbing to this page and look where the veins are there quite precies works fine for me no need for addons ;)

Comment by 80358

Blasted Lands suck for minerals. Just wanted to express that since someone posted that it's "ideal" or whatever to level to 300. It isn't. Don't waste your time.

Comment by 68342

Small Thorium Veins turn yellow at 270 mining skill.

Green at 295 mining skill.

Comment by 85634

Here is my gatherer report after going from 250-285 mining skill in the blasted lands.

http://s215.photobucket.com/albums/cc132/Jadrack_wow/?action=view&current=WoWScrnShot_091307_142603.jpg

The armory (Caves) at the top of the map are nice, but I found that I gathered just as much thorium/mithril from doing a loop around the area and especially in the serpents coil on the east part of the map.

Hope this helps

Comment by 101214

As a level 70 Alliance I found that to level from 245 to 300 WPL and EPL provided the best small throium vein yield. Also, when you hit 275 you can start doing full loops of EPL that provide many skillups and tons of thorium you can later sell.

Comment by 1515

Just farmed EPL for an hour. What did I find?

- 2 Small Thorium Veins
- 2 Rich Thorium Veins
- 1 Gold Vein

I circled around the ENTIRE zone and was very annoyed, since I couldn't even mine the rich veins. You're probably better off in the Blasted Lands

Comment by Krelios

There are only 2 or 3 nodes in the Nethergarde Mine and they don't respawn quickly at all. I got six points very quickly but then no respawns for almost 10 minutes.

Comment by dehumanize

I was just in the mine earlier today for about 45 minutes. Was able to get 7 Thorium and 5 mithril nodes. Went in at 263, and walked out at 275. Taking a stack of thorium, and over half stack of mithriil. I'd say the mine is well worth it. Two or three more trips in there will get me to 300, without stepping foot in OL.

Comment by 116731

Now after TBC thorium is a grade crossing to reach the fel iron ,than the adamantite many competitive zones like Silithus, EPL are empty.

I lvled from 245-275 in blasted lands in Garrison Armory(and i confirm its a gr8 place to skillup)
than i tried EPL and Silithus: the first was good but nothing special found 5 rich thorium ore in around 60 mins, the second,Silithus, amazed me, in each Hive u can find from 2-to 3 rich Thorium(if ur lucky ofc) and also in zones around hives u can find both rich and small thorium ore,plus now all insects are non elìte so easly killable.

A good suggestion would be to run with horse over the hives so u can see if there is any ore inside without going down.

Comment by H4rb0rSkum

DON'T neglect your enchants! +5 points in mining can mean a skill up or another circuit and loss of time and money. I put Advanced Mining ( http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=13841 ) on a pair of shotty gray gloves around 230 mining and was to hit veins I would otherwise have to pass up if I were a few points shy. I recommend starting out with a pair of gloves with mining on them. They came in REAL handy at 240 when I went to Garrisons Armory in Blasted Lands. FAST skill-ups!

Comment by Krynoraxian

An interesting note: Due to the increased drop rate of arcane crystals in all thorium veins. For a very short time(275-280) Arcanite Keys can be a good substitute for Imperial Plate bracers for getting some skill up.

Transmute Arcanite is:
Thorium Bar x1
Arcane Crystal x1

Arcanite Key x2 is:
Arcanite Bar x1
Dense Grinding Stone x1 (4 Dense Stone)

This compared to...

Imperial Plate bracers:
Thorium Bar x12

It should be noted Arcanite keys are of yellow difficulty when you train them at 275, but for those 5 blacksmithing levels its well worth the risk over the orange skill Imperial Plate bracers to save yourself some money/time.

Comment by 129663

The number of small thorium veins in tanaris is wrong. I mined there about 30 veins. Aspecially at the east cost and around the cavarn of time.

Comment by 104949

I thought Un'Goro Crater was the best, i went to Garrison Armory in Blasted lands like all the above posts said, i purposely got myself lost in there looking for mines and i got one, maybe 2 mines in about 15-20 minutes of looking around. I'm not sure why, it seems like everyone in this thread agrees that Garrison Armory is the best place. I was convinced that somebody must've gotten there before me so i went back in, same result. Came out about 15 minutes later frustrated, i decided to give it one last shot, again same result. I got angry and hearthed to Crossroads.

From Crossroads i went to the next closest zone with thorium veins, Winterspring. It was just as bad ,went down south and found 0-1 in only half a run, i did not wanna go through what i went through in blasted lands so i gave up there and went to Feralas

I didn't stay long at Felwood i just went to the corrupted moonwell and found 1 thorium mine and left because by looking at the wowhead map found posted above here of Felwood all the condensed places where there were mines were occupied by mobs. So i flew all the way down to un'goro, it seemed like a good place acording to the wowhead map here. Damn...10 minute flight time :(

At Un'Goro i ran around the right side of the crater and found maybe 1-2 veins a run which is terrible but it was better then the other zones i visited.
If you do go to Un'Goro be sure to stop by the gorilla cave near the town, then make a left and look to your right and you should see a small narrow path, sometimes theres a vein there and take every ramp up, and hug the cliffs.
Also be sure to take that small path into tanaris and look around that area, where the dots are located.
The Slithering Scar where the bugs are located also spawns a vein outside.

I was a a level 60 hunter when i did this with an epic mount and i still speant almost 6 hours trrying to level my mining from 250-300 it was HELL!

Long story shot:
Badlands - I hated it 10 points an hour for me
Winterspring - Mobs are too high, better for rich thoriums.
Felwood - I guess its an alright place, although i wasn't here long because you really need to fight to get the mines.
Un'Goro Crater - Hated this place too but it was the best out of the rest of them. It had about half small thorium & half rich thorium and a few mitheral, iron & gold deposits which are rare. (you should still mine them anyway because a thorium can replace them and the extra gold is nice)
- Be sure to go into Tenaris while your circling around Un'Goro
- Be sure to visit the Gorilla cave near the town, make a left and on your right there should be a narrow path, a vein sometimes spawns there.
- In the middle there is a fast spawning rich thorium
- Check the Slithering Scar also(the bug place), sometimes a vein spawns outside
- It seems like on the left side is mostly rich veins and on the right is small veins, in the middle is mixed.

I say try badlands first, if the first 1-2 runs don't go well then head to Un'Goro

Comment by 153244

I suggest downloading the latest version of the Gatherer addon, and then download the wowhead.com database for ores/herbs/treasures. Works like wonders. You can find both the addon and the database at http://www.gathereraddon.com/dl/ You install both of them as a normal addon. Then u open up WoW and check at the "addon" button that they are working. Then you enter one of your characters and press the gatherer button at your minimap (right-click) then you press config. Then just bove the "HUD" tab you press the "Database tab" and import the data. Have fun and good luck! =)

Comment by 146445

As of patch 2.4 Truesilver Veins can take the place of small, rich, small ooze covered, and rich ooze covered thorium veins.

Comment by 122941

i think the veins in garrison armoury has been reduced or sth. like the above posters, 30 min no veins. found a mithril one though
i think it got nerfed in 2.4.2 or sth

Comment by 156207

Blasted Lands is wierd now when im starting to mine thorium all the vein disapear for me... Now its only mithril...

Comment by 193443

Blasted lands is awesoem for mithrill,gold, sometiems ture silver, and small thorium veins. I suggest downloading gatherther it can create a route for you because of such fast re spawns. The mine at the north has huge amounts of veins in it and can onyl be mined by horde as far as i know

Comment by 194868

Tanaris has one surprising place I found that is somewhat neglected according to the map. The region around Caverns of Time (not actually inside it, of course) has several Thorium nodes, including around the pirate camp on the other side. There is also a few mithril deposits and several iron deposits.

Comment by Icebebi

I found that mining the Thorium is easy in the mine up north in Blasted Lands (entrance: 53,12 and 57,14) ... but then again I am mining as lvl 64 cause I did not wanna focus on my professions before... but inthere you get Thorium, Milthril and a few golds too ... have fun ;)

Comment by Ertis

Just walked through the Armory in BL; nothing was mineable.

Comment by 218350

isn't that considered a hack?

Comment by 241670

Haven't been mining in the Garrison Armory before Wotlk really, but I tried there earlier today, three Small thorium veins, and that's it. Nothing. Seems like the respawn spawner has been raised or something. That place was a complete waste of time for me.

The Plaguelands, EPL and WPL both seemed a success though.

Comment by 103021

I wonder if the decline in available nodes has to do with the influx of Death Knights needing to skill up professions before Outland. I, too, visited the Garrison Armory and found 1 Small Thorium node and that was all. I ended up traveling around the Blasted Lands for a little bit as well and didn't come upon any nodes, so someone must be clearing them out before me. Just a thought.

Comment by 39477

I can confirm the fact that Garrison Armory cave in northeast Blasted Lands is filled with veins at times but you are not able to mine from them if you are Alliance :(

"I've taken a peek. This works as following. If you're Horde and you wander into an Alliance NPC mining establishment, such as the Garrison Armory, you're able to mine the nodes present there, but the NPC's will engage you of course, making the mining a chore (so to speak). Alliance cannot mine there as the task would be trivial and too easy to do. The same works vice versa in Horde NPC mining caves. I cannot think of one off the top of my head, but if you can, I will be willing to test and prove this theory. :)

Xaldavan. "

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html;jsessionid=06B9FC701508BC682A0A1EB16C214C46.app06_03?topicId=3778840435&sid=1

EDIT:
Got this from an ingame ticket

: According to the records I can find, it is a bug, but let me check further for you.
: Thank you
: The only information I can find on it says it is a known issue and to be fixed soon, but no dates attached.
: Ok, last blue post I've found that claimed it working as intended was 03/05/2008, but thanks alot for contacting me. I'll mine elsewhere..:)
: Sorry I could not help more, is there anything else I can do while I am here?
: Nah, I'm ok, thx!
: Then farewell, ******. Thank you very much for your time, and take care on your journeys around Azeroth and beyond!

Comment by 305661

Hmm... I prospected hundreds of thorium ore packs and sometimes got outland crystals. Could they be found in thorium veins?

Comment by Liquids

Since patch 2.4 or so, it is possible to skill mining by smelting Thorium:

Yellow at 250
Green at 270
Grey at 290

This makes it easier to skill up mining than solely hunting thorium veins.

Comment by Ayrianna

I tried out the garrison, and it really disappointed me. I saw 3 nodes in half an hour. As soon as I went to Un'goro, though, I was running into them all over the place.

I highly recommend using Gatherer in conjunction with Alpha Map. It's so much more clear than the default HUD that comes with gatherer.

Comment by 320952

I just went to EPL with zero success. I mined a total of 3 mithril veins and 1 small thorium vein. I looped the whole place. I got my explorer achievement for the zone and was thoroughly disappointed. Off to Un'Goro.

oh, also, i did a /who and i was the only horde player in all of EPL at the time.

Comment by HardDominator

i have to say winterspring seems the most promising.. after you did the small veins you can mine the rich ones, but i buy in and smelt thorium till about 270 and then buy advanced mining enchantment on my gloves and then mine rich thorium till 300

Comment by Ruffachi

I found Silithus to be a very great place to farm thorium, I needed about 15 more to skill up mining to 300, and I got them in about 20-30 min. Maybe it was just luck, but for now on Silithus is my #1 place for thorium farming :)

Comment by 333732

ive seen them pop up in Tanaris in the Thisleshurb Valley before. VERY rare though. Silithus and the Ungoro Crater are your best bet for finding any

EDIT: Burning Steppes are by far the best place to gather thorium. no one except lvl 80's go there so there is very little competition for the ones that do pop up

Comment by Weestarry

So just where is the best place for an Alliance Paladin to mine from 245 to 275?
Someone says Blasted Lands then says Alliance can't mine in Garrison Armory.

Comment by Crystallyne

If you're harvesting in Blasted Lands, then a word of warning... WATCH OUT for Archmage Allistarj in the caves on the east side of the zone, at 67, 29. There is a Small Thorium Vein which spawns very close to him, and I was killed three times trying to get to that Vein. I thought I was just trying to take on too many adds, until I took my time and realized that there was an Elite mob right next to me, and that's why I was dying. The problem? He is UNKILLABLE UNLESS YOU HAVE THE QUEST! >_<

GREAT job Blizzard, absolutely brilliant putting an unkillable Elite mob next to a much needed Thorium vein!

EDIT: After trying one more time, now aware of the unkillable mob, I found that I could move in just close enough to grab the ore without aggroing the mob. Still a pain in the $#@%#@%.

Edit Two: There is another mob very similar at 49, 43. It's not Elite, but it is again Unkillable. Also, as far as I can tell there is no way to get the node. If you have a pet that can keep it distracted then you should be okay to get it. Otherwise, you can't do anything to get the node.

Comment by 354350

Small Thorium Veins Now Require 230 Mining Instead Of 245

Comment by 280323

Apparently, literally dozens of spawn points seem to have been added for these in Un'goro Crater. This may be only a (severe) glitch, but spawn amount and rate are over the top. :O

There are now Small and Rich Thorium Vein spawns all around the edge of Un'goro. I have just finished 2 1/2 round trips (me being the only one there between 3:15 and 4:45 a.m. and came out with:
235x Thorium Ore
325x Dense Stone
13x Arcane Crystal
2x Large Opal
3x Star Ruby
1x Blue Sapphire
1x Azerothian Diamond

Just. Bloody. Amazing. If it stays like this, Un'goro will be the Saronite Basin of the old world. ;)

PS: There were even more veins there but I couldn't get at those because of high-level Elite Stegodons (I'm only lvl 49)

Comment by crashman776

The best thing to do is just follow the mountain side and pick up all of the ore. If somebody hasn't cleared the area already you will get about 2 stacks :)

Comment by ryuzku

blasted lands has alot of this theres a tunnel the entrance is at 53.5, 12.2

Comment by 553011

Two quick runs in Un'Goro Crater, just following the mountainside, got me the following:

Ore:

Thorium Ore: 128
Truesilver Ore: 2

-------------------------
Other:

Star Ruby: 2
Arcane Crystal: 2
Large Opal: 2
Huge Emerald: 5
Azerothian Diamond: 1
Dense Stone: 165

I didn't enter the cave at Lakkari Tar pits, (close to Marshal's Refuge) as two 80's was fighting for two Truesilvers and a Mithril in there.

Picking this road also got me to 300 Mining, as well as 300 Engineering.

TL;DR
Un'Goro Crater is a very sucessfull place to farm Thorium. At least on my server.
I suggest you to check Un'Goro out whenever available, when searching for Thorium.

Note that I ignored every Mithril available, (there were quite a few, fyi) as it goes for a very low price on my server and I already had plenty of it.

edit:
I created a map of the route I took. I basically ran by the edge of the mountainside and entered the few areas accessable between the mountains when I saw them.

You can also (optionally) pick those places that I pinned out on a map. I didn't go there myself, as it would get me away from my route. Who knows, it might held a few veins for you.

Good luck!

Comment by yuoflim

Un'goro Crater is THE best place to farm thorium ever. I tried silithus but I had to kill enemies and run around for only a couple nodes in the caves. I tried Un'goro Crater and I just hugged the sides and I found Rich thorium veins most of the time with some small thorium veins. I get about 3 stacks of thorium ore for one full circuit around Un'goro Crater.

Comment by 570129

Okay, the best i found for farming this is Ungoro Crater, i did a little run with my DK there to see how much i could get, halway through the crater (Starting at FP) i had got myself

58 Thorium Ore

75 Dense Stone

Comment by 219351

As of >^ Ungoro is one of the best spots to mine both small thorium and Rich thorium vein, it is also by far the easiest to remember and you don't have to keep alt-tabbing to Wowhead, just follow the edge of Ungoro and you'll get most of the nodes and avoid most of the elites, there's also a forge in both Silithus(which is closer) and Tanaris(where you should probably fly to if you aren't a DeathKnight).

Whatever you do don't go to Blasted Lands, that place is horrible for mining.

Comment by 45013

despite all of the love for silithus, i would have to say wowhead has it right in putting un'goro first in thorium. i mean, all you do is run around the outside ring of the crater. no dodging mobs, no fighting mobs; just run, mine, run, mine, run mine, run, mine, etc etc.

i made one and a half trips around and i was at 4.5 stacks at least.

Comment by Zenoid

Patch 4.0.3 Swamp of sorrows has decent thorium along the outside mountain ridge just follow it and get nodes at a decent rate and also the cavern at 66,74 i went in and got like 7 nodes so its an awesome cave

Comment by 173035

Swamp of Sorrows at the outer edges is the place to farm if you've got a ground mount. The cave generally has 2 small nodes close to the entrance, further in tends to be rich, so don't bother if you haven't got 255 yet.

For those with a flying mount, the outer ridges of Un'goro are your new heaven. Those without flying mounts should avoid Un'goro like the plague or suffer fits of extreme frustration every time you pass a node you can't reach. There are nodes on the ground, but about 2/3 of them seem to be way on the mountains.

Comment by Thyra

Winterspring is an awesome place to farm Thorium veins!

Comment by Fizzles

Winterspring is, IMO, the best zone for Thorium.
Using the Routes/GatherMate2/GatherMate2_Data Addons, I made a path around Winterspring going through most/all of the Small Thorium, Rich Thorium and Truesilver Veins.
I opted to avoid any caves the path might take me through, and ended up with Here is the path I eventually used.

After about 45 minutes, I had:

314 Dense Stone
231 Thorium Ore
9 Truesilver Ore
8 Arcane Crystal
3 Black Vitriol
1 Azerothian Diamond
1 Blue Sapphire
1 Huge Opal
1 Star Ruby

Here is a picture of my bags once done, if you need proof.

Comment by Pappi

I used Winterspring to level my mining from 230-270. I find that Winterspring is a nice place to find this vein, second only to probably Blasted Lands. (I used Winterspring though because I was closer to it :P)
To level my mining from 230-270, using Small Thorium and Truesilver veins, it took me 17 minutes & 22 seconds. I used an epic flyer, (280% speed), and just the Track Minerals (No addons).

In that time, I got:
105 Dense Stone
74 Thorium ore
30 Truesilver ore
1 Arcane Crystal
1 Blue Sapphire
2 Black Vitrol

Comment by 753501

Gathermate 2 is a great add-on (compatible with Cata) that will mark all mining nodes on your map, as well as list the mining skill necessary.

I had the best luck mining this in Winterspring or Un'Goro Crater; I like Un'Goro because I'll make a loop around the perimeter, mining Small Thorium Vein and Rich Thorium Vein, with one or two Mithril Deposits as well (there are oozing thorium veins, but they look to be mostly underground so I ignore them). By the time I get back to the starting point of my loop, most of the nodes have reappeared. I get about five stacks of Thorium Ore per loop, plus assorted gemstones.

Comment by 767683

I farmed mine here, and in an hour I got:

287 Dense Stone
229 Thorium Ore
12 Truesilver Ore
9 Arcane Crystal
5 Azerothian Diamond
4 Star Ruby
2 Blue Sapphire
1 Large Opal
1 Huge Emerald

I found that Mazthoril was a great place to mine for Thorium, and there is also a cave in the Ice Thistle Hills where i mined 6 or 7 Rich Thorium Veins. After I prospected all of the Thorium Ore, I was left with:

17 Large Opal
16 Blue Sapphire
12 Huge Emerald
11 Azerothian Diamond
8 Star Ruby

In Uldum (my realm) I expect to make at least 700g off of all of these in the AH. not bad for an hour : )

Comment by Allyosaugh

Winterspring is by far the best place to farm Thorium. Here are my results after 15 minutes of farming Thorium:
177 x Thorium Ore
8 x Truesilver Ore
216 x Dense Stone
2 x Azerothian Diamond
3 x Star Ruby
2 x Large Opal
3 x Arcane Crystal
2x Blue Sapphire

Comment by Ehtbit

Maybe it's been said before, but umm... why is there no thorium at Thorium Point Searing Gorge ?

Comment by ScottCom

Please note: due to the changes in each zone's level requirements, Thorium now only spawns in Winterspring, Silithus, Un'Goro Crater, Swamp of Sorrows, Blasted Lands , Felwood and The Hinterlands. Diving into the caves is still one of the best ways to access this material, however I prefer to do the Winterspring loop as it's easier imho.

Comment by mmzin

If you are farming these from a 85 char like I am for my BS alt, just go to Hyjal portal and you are 30 seconds from Winterspring, the best place to farm these minerals.

After 15~17 min of farming I got

140 thorium ore.

Comment by Vouksh

If you're just going for straight farming Thorium, Winterspring may be your best bet.

In about 1 full circuit, from taking the Hyjal portal and flying to Winterspring, I collected
Only took about 45 minutes. That's including going in the caves, but sticking to the outer edge.

Comment by Alexianoryuu

Just now, I received only 5 Dense Stone from this vein. No thorium what-so-ever.
Therefore, it appears that there is a very small chance that you won't get thorium on the small ones. Hopefully my Wowhead client will record it.
This is the first time I've gotten it, and this is my second run (Mining on one character, then getting ore for Blacksmithing on another) for this type of ore.

Update: Just got another one that only gave me 4 Dense Stone... and another that gave me only 3 Dense Stone.
Update 2: Just mined a Rich Thorium Vein. Received no thorium - only got 7 Dense Stone.
Update 3: Received ticket response. It would appear that receiving no ore from a vein is as intended, therefore the "100%" chance is not correct (for those who may only look at the percentage values) - use the "Obtained" divided by "Times Mined" to obtain the true chance of obtaining ore.

Comment by 998909

I like to point out for ppl that want to farm thorium, The swamp of sorrows just above the Blasted Lands has been very sweet for me....I made a 6 stacks of thorium per 10 minutes or so going round the outer edge (I was flying 100% speed). There's a village along the route where you can dump your trash (for those not being able to fly).
Also; the cave in the south-west region of the map has a lot of nodes stacked together....it's also a great place to farm Zesty meat for those who also kill the critters in there.

Comment by 949671

The reason Alex probably didn't get any ore from several veins in a row is because someone else mined those veins and just took the ore. Yes, that does prevent the vein from despawning, but someone might have had full bags aside from partial stacks of thorium, or was just being a jerk.

Comment by Corronchilejano

New veins now despawn a minute after they've been mined regardless of their current contents, to prevent this.

Comment by Barringa

I find that Silithus is a great place to mine Thorium. I tried it after Ungoro, which I found pretty underwhelming, with only 45 thorium to show after one circle of the basin. In Silithus I just flew around the edges of the zone without bothering to go into hives. Took me 20 minutes and netted me 4 stacks.

Comment by 1137942

This is a great ore to farm, not only because of its abundance in Winterspring, but the gems that come from this.
I farmed 340 ore and sent them to my jewelcrafter to be prospected. Here are the results:
Huge Emerald x32
Large Opal x25
Azerothian Diamond x23
Blue Sapphire x14
Star Ruby x3
32+25+23+14+3=97 Gems ---> 2000g
340 ore ---> 510g
340 bars---> 780g
It is obvious that you will make a lot more money prospecting your leftover thorium ore or having someone do it for you.

Edit: You cannot obtain Arcane Crystal through prospecting. It can only be found while actually mining thorium veins.

Comment by 1205711

Just a bit of useless trivia, I don't think we should be mining this.
From Wikipedia, Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. It was discovered in 1828 by the Norwegian mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark and identified by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius and named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.

Thorium produces a radioactive gas, radon-220, as one of its decay products. Secondary decay products of thorium include radium and actinium. In nature, virtually all thorium is found as thorium-232, which undergoes alpha decay with a half-life of about 14.05 billion years. Other isotopes of thorium are short-lived intermediates in the decay chains of higher elements, and only found in trace amounts. Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust, and is chiefly refined from monazite sands as a by-product of extracting rare earth metals.

Thorium was once commonly used as the light source in gas mantles and as an alloying material, but these applications have declined due to concerns about its radioactivity. Thorium is also used as an alloying element in nonconsumable TIG welding electrodes. It remains popular as a material in high-end optics and scientific instrumentation; thorium and uranium are the only radioactive elements with major commercial applications that do not rely on their radioactivity.

Canada, China, Germany, India, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States have experimented with using thorium as a substitute nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors. When compared to uranium, there is a growing interest in thorium-based nuclear power due to its greater safety benefits, absence of non-fertile isotopes and its higher occurrence and availability. India's three stage nuclear power programme is possibly the most well known and well funded of such efforts.

Comment by 1058385

Idk if it was just like this for me. But I did one full circle around Un'goro Crater, and found only 9 total veins, small and rich. I didn't see any other players so I know it wasn't busy (plus it's 1:30 am, server is pretty low.) I recommend Winterspring, or swamp of sorrows (I find a ton in the southeastern cave, and the area around it.)

Comment by Mookosh

As of WoD, The best place I've found for farming Thorium is Ungoro. Simply make circles along the edge of the crater walls.

By the time you finish your circle, the nodes at the start of your circle will have respawned.

Comment by LenciaRogue

The Small Thorium Vein at 53,33 in Blasted Lands makes me want to tear my hair out. The little hills don't allow you to get close enough to mine this :( I've been able to tag it to enter it into my Gatherer database, by jumping, but it isn't mine-able. Perhaps when I get flying, but by that time I'll be on to Fel Iron in Hellfire... Anyone have success with this node?

Comment by TheWoWExp

As of 8.3
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In-Depth Farmer’s Guide to Thorium Ore
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Profession Required: Mining
Best Serves: Mining, Alchemy, Jewelcrafting

My miner is a Horde druid for faster in-and-out flight.
Each zone was timed for 30 minutes.
Links will take you to maps on my website.

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EASTERN KINGDOMS
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★ Swamp of Sorrows ★
This is a contested zone.

You’re going to want to gather every single mining node you find in this zone, in order for the respawn to kick in after a complete look around the route. Which means you’ll be needing to go into the cave and gather all the ore in there, as well as everything on the outside.

Stay alert for the alliance and horde camps this route comes close to.

Thorium Ore – 218

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KALIMDOR
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★ Silithus ★
This is a contested zone.

I love farming this location because it nets a ton of Thorium Ore. It also has several ore in underground hives that I don't go into. Despite this, the amount of ore you can get in this zone is great. Best of all, you don't get too close to any opposing faction areas.

Thorium Ore – 462

★ Un'Goro Crater ★
This is a contested zone.

And I'm actually kind of surprised that it didn't net as much ore as I'd thought it would. The nodes aren't as clustered and close together as the ones in Silithus, however it's a very simplistic route that circles the border of the zone.

Thorium Ore – 368

★ Winterspring ★
This is a contested zone.

The first route in Winterspring isn't a bad one and can net you a lot of ore. This zone has a lot of trees that could get in the way of your finding one of the ore nodes, but that's the only annoyance.

Thorium Ore – 378

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Happy farming,
- The Gaming Experience

Comment by Chainsa

After having the resolution to get my Vanilla Mining skills to 300, I've done some " research ".

I've decided to mine only Thorium's ore from 1-300, so basically from 1-290 because the Rich Thorium's ore becomes grey at 290. So I have done it, and that's what I got per 100's of levels :

Level 1+6 ( Kultirassian )-100 :

- 114x Thorium Ore ;
- 89x Dense Stone ;
- 3x Arcane Crystal ;
- 1x Blue Sapphire ;
- 1x Large Opal ;
- 1x Azrothian Diamond ;

Level 100-200 :

- 156x Thorium Ore ;
- 176x Dense Stone ;
- 3x Arcane Crystal ;
- 1x Blue Sapphire ;
- 1x Large Opal ;
- 1x Azrothian Diamond ;
- 6x Black Vitriol ;
- 2x Star Ruby ;
- 1x Huge Emerald ;

Level 200-286 ( I didn't have much time to continue further )

*Just to make clear, I think I've mined 100-150 ores that did not give any skill points.* :

- 676x Thorium Ore ;
- 991x Dense Stone ;
- 31x Arcane Crystal ;
- 7x Blue Sapphire ;
- 6x Large Opal ;
- 6x Azrothian Diamond ;
- 3x Black Vitriol ;
- 12x Star Ruby ;
- 7x Huge Emerald.

So we clearly see that higher the Mining Skill is, the more you get gems and Ore from what you mine, which is logical for sure. This farm took me a little less than 2 hours. I believe it's a pretty relevant and probably one of the most profitable way of leveling from 1-300 in Mining Skills for gold. Let's take a look at the total and how much gold I could make on my server.

946x Thorium Ore = 946x Thorium Bar, on my server each bar is 2.5g which means *2 365g* raw.
1256x Dense Stone, on my server the whole pack sells for 50g, not great.
9x Blue Sapphire for 2.75g each, that's 24.75g, not great either.
8x Large Opal for 4g each, that's 32g, not magical.
14x Star Ruby for 1g each, that's obviously not good, 14g.
9x Black Vitriol for 4.5g each, 40.5g.
8x Azrothian Diamond for 9.75g each, 78g, that's already better.
8x Huge Emerald for 30.5g each, that's 244g ! Hey that's good ! ( Just kidding ) It's better at least.

Now lets get in the real goldmaking here :
37x Arcane Crystal, those sell really high as they are used to craft the Bars for Thunderfury. They sells on my server for *1,500g* each, and those sell fast, that's a total of **55,500g** for the whole pack, made in less than 2 hours !

But there's an even better way of making gold out of that farm, and it's crafting Arcanite Bar and selling them like that, which is around 2.300g each, or to use 10 to craft the Enchanted Elementium Bar which requires other mats that are easier to get and which sells for around 24.000g each !

With 40 Arcane Crystal and 40 Thorium Bar you can craft 40 Arcanite Bar, and with all the other needed mats you can craft 4 Enchanted Elementium Bar which would give a total of 96,000g for less than 2 hours of mining ! ( Whitout counting the time taken to get the other mats ).

So anyway that's it for the stats ! I hope this little guide's been usefull to anyone, have a good rest of the day and GGS !

View in 3D Links

Small Thorium Vein

This object can be found in Winterspring (407), Silithus (337), Un'Goro Crater (187), Swamp of Sorrows (172), Blasted Lands (134), Tanaris (8), Felwood (7), Western Plaguelands (7), The Hinterlands (6), Burning Steppes (2), Eastern Plaguelands (2), Searing Gorge (2), and Alterac Valley .

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Small Thorium Vein

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