History & Geology
All About Minerals
November 2015 by Chris Ralph
There are several common ways that new mineral crystals form and grow. Perhaps the simplest is when minerals form through the cooling of molten rock and the atoms bond together into mineral crystals.
Strategic Metals—Part II
There are literally thousands of abandoned wasterock and ore dumps that dot the United States that could hold many tones of strategic metals.
Reno's 1872 Time Capsule Includes Gold Rush Lore
The Reno Masonic Lodge was built along the railroad tracks back when Ulysses S. Grant was president and shortly after the Comstock Lode of gold and silver was struck in Virginia City.
Ask the Experts: VMS ore
Q: Are there any mills that handle VMS ore?
Weathering, Erosion and Placers
The big interest to prospectors thinking about the effect of erosion is not what might happen long into the future, but what they might find in the rivers later this summer when the water levels go down.
Gold Depositiion and Gradients of Placer Streams—Part II
The steeper the gradient is, the more potential erosive power to move gold and other bedload sediments, and the more power to remove obstacles to flow.
Mining Pegmatite Deposits
With successively lower temperatures as the water mixture cools, new sets of minerals are formed and many of those stable at a higher degree of heat became subject to alteration as the temperature progressively moved lower.
Arizona's Vulture Gold Mine and Lost Dutchman
When prospectors and treasure hunters talk of gold in Arizona, it is the Lost Dutchman or Vulture mine they usually think of. The Lost Dutchman gold mine is just that—a myth chalked full of holes that has been embellished over time as any good legend should be.
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The Bawl Mill
• Ask The Experts
• Ask The Experts
• Our Readers Say
• Gold in Tertiary Gravels
• Detecting Clay Seams
• Associated Gold Placers of the Comstock
• MMAC & PLP Update
• Feinstein Pushes for Million-Acre Land Grab
• Prospecting for Liberated Gold
• The Snapshot
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices







