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.
Understanding and Prospecting Benches
The most obvious benches are usually near the valley floor, but they can be thousands of feet above the valley floor. Since benches were made by streams, they can contain placer deposits.
Associated Gold Placers of the Comstock
What many people don’t realize is that the Comstock Lode produced over 8,000,000 ounces of gold…
The Paragenesis of Gold & Silver Deposits
…if you are game for digging in and learning more about the intricate details of how gold deposits form, then let’s jump right in.
How Rich Must My Ore Be?
How rich does a hard rock ore have to be for it to be worthwhile to process and extract the gold?
The Mysterious Telluride Minerals
…let’s dive in and take a closer look at these rich gold and silver-bearing minerals to find out what they are, where they form, and how to identify them.
Gold of Plumas County
Plumas County has a rich heritage of gold mining, much of it from placer deposits that can still be searched and panned today. Being at the far northern end of California’s famed Mother Lode, it is quite often overlooked by those searching for gold today—really a well-kept secret after all of these years!
The Golden Days of Julian, California
Some scattered reports say that gold may have been washed from streams here as early as the 1840s, but the undisputed major discovery came in 1870.
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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
