Prospecting & Detecting
A Golden Past
July 2021 by Ralph Wetterhahn
My mining partner Keith McBride and I spent a week in May working on a twenty-nine man crew split up into six teams at a couple of “pay to mine” mining camps.
Carr Fire Gold
After burning more than 350 square miles, the Carr Fire near Redding, California, was finally out. Luckily our home was spared, and I had the opportunity to go metal detecting in burned areas previously too overgrown to access.
Gold: Is It Everywhere?
Gold, on the other hand, is super rare, and is one of the rarest elements in the earth’s crust. It averages only 0.000004 percent of the earth’s surface. That is four parts in a billion.
Hard Rock 101: Blasting With Kinepak Explosives
Fortunately, there are products on the market that can address these problems and make a small-scale mining operation feasible.
Route Planning Using GPS
My intention was to end this discussion with waypoints and routes, then I found USGS maps of the Plainfield Quadrangle.
Research and Fieldwork Yield Some Promising Gold

The Highs and Lows of Drywashing

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