Prospecting & Detecting
A Good Start
July 2011 by Tom Leftwich
We split up in order to cover a larger area and found good color almost everywhere. The bedrock was shallow on both sides of the river, but the inside bend was where we concentrated our prospecting.A Break in the Weather
Back at the entry point of the mine, we took turns slowly crawling down the slope leading into the mine portal with our metal detectors, hard hats and flashlights. The mine was hand dug and is about 75 yards long.
Get The Lead Out!
If you do the math, it equates to about $1,500 of heavy metal value per three-hour dive. This is good wages, and you are doing a service to the environment by removing this toxic metal.
Detecting in the Outback
I have always enjoyed finding things. As a kid and up through college I searched for arrowheads, rocks and fossils. One day I saw an ad for a metal detector in a magazine, and a week later I was digging up everyone’s yard...
Take it to Bedrock
Picking the right spot to placer has to do with years of experience, and a little luck. The textbooks can tell you where it should be, but sometimes the rules just don’t seem to apply.
Quartzsite Gives Up Some Big Gold
There is always an overwhelming feeling when finding gold of any size, but one like this doesn’t come along very often.
An Alaskan in the Lower 48
Our destination was some old hydraulic workings where the old miners had washed literally mountains of material away to expose gold in ancient river channels.
Placer Gold Deposits in the Western States
…to see the huge differences between the gold production amounts of the Western States, let’s look at the gold production—both hard rock and placer—of these 13 states up to the present.
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The Bawl Mill
• Can't We Just Do Something?
• Ask The Experts—14-day camping limit
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Explosives and Mining
• Mother Lode Leaf Gold
• Dredging The Outside Bend
• WWII Vet & Prospector Still Going Strong
• Nevada Gold Value Up Along With Production
• 2011 National Mining Hall of Fame Inductees
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes & Mineral and Metal Prices
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Northern Gold Mining's Garrison Gold Property
• Wyoming's Billion Dollar Nugget—The Trilogy Ends
