Prospecting & Detecting
Advantages of Modern Prospectors
May 2013 by Jim Halloran
Modern-day placer miners have many advantages over the prospectors of the gold rush days. Our prospectors can reap many benefits from accumulated knowledge of the last 100 to 150 years, which is a long and impressive list.WWII Vet & Prospector Still Going Strong
Lately I’ve been having success utilizing two types of detectors in succession. The first is a pulse induction (PI) detector with a blanket-style antennae, and I follow it up with a very low frequency (VLF) detector.
Placer Channel Sampling
Sampling gold placers can be rewarding, but remember to treat the samples so you are not high grading or low grading your results. Learn the rules and apply them so your samples are accurate.
Detecting: Getting Away From The Heat And Into The Gold
Within a very few minutes, I had my first nice sounding target. It turned out to be a nice earring-size gold piece that was about a half a gram.
It's Not Always El Dorado
This was “pocket” country. All around were “pockets” that had been hand dug by old and new miners.
The Alaska Highway and Beyond
My first clean-up showed that my efforts were not in vain. There was considerable color with some good-sized nuggets in the riffle trap.
Moore Creek, Alaska—Then and Now
The gold was very chunky and much of it had quartz attached. Even back then I knew that the gold was very close to its source.
Silverton's Gold
Within this area, about two million ounces of gold and fifty million ounces of silver have been mined. Faults, dikes, veins and fissures that carry the ore form a concentric radial pattern—like spokes on a wagon wheel—around the caldera core.
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The Bawl Mill
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• Find of a Lifetime
• All About Quartz—Part I
• Over the Divide
• Your Guide to Prospecting in Alaska
• Shallow Water Crevicing Can Bring Big Rewards
• A Father and Son Prospecting Adventure
• Home Office Deductions
• Searchers' Dreams
• Gold in Unlikely Places
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
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