Prospecting & Detecting
All About Trommels and Screens for Placer Gold Recovery
May 2022 by Chris Ralph
The right speed accumulates only the heavy materials and allows all of the lighter stuff to flow through. This optimum speed is dependent on the size of the gravel you need to move through the system.
Prospecting The East Fork San Gabriel Canyon, Southern California
I have found gold more than 200 feet above the river. It was not unusual for nuggets of an ounce or more to be found in these deposits, but fine gold and flakes are much more common.
Fortymile, Alaska Prospecting Adventure

The Highs and Lows of Drywashing

Prospecting Hard Rock

Speed Prospecting for Hard Rock Gold
An online video gave me some ideas, and with a lot of trial and error I developed a reliable method of panning free gold particles down below 35 microns quickly and easily.
The Gold Of Horseshoe Bend

Excavator Testing Wet Placer Ground
The excavator or backhoe has become the tool of choice for testing placer ground. These machines are the best way to explore and sample a placer deposit if the ground is not too wet or frozen and bedrock is not beyond the reach of the machine.
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The Bawl Mill
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Ask The Experts - How are gold veins formed?
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• Ask The Experts - What other indicators are there besides red soils?
• Mineralization, Ground Balance and Metal Detecting
• Gold Prospecting for Better or Worse: Warning Signs
• What To Do With All That Gold?
• Proposed 100-Mile Road in the Yentna Mining District
• Judge Orders FBI to Produce Records on Civil War Gold Hunt
• Strategies for Detecting Heavily Pounded Areas—Pt II
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• Old Water Channels Provide Important Clues
• The Mystery of the Grand Summit Mine
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