Prospecting & Detecting
An Alaskan in the Lower 48
July 2013 by Steve Herschbach
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.
Fault Zones and Prospects
As we walked back we were just reaching the point of where the faulting should be and there, covered with deep grass, was very faint evidence of an old road going up the mountainside! What was that old road doing there?
Ask The Experts
• Making a noisy dredge more quiet
Nevada Miners: Check Your Claim Markers
The Nevada Senate introduced SB108 in 2009 to prohibit PVC piping utilized by miners to stake mining claims.
Resurrecting An Old Hard Rock Mine
There were nice sections of vein material at the end of several drifts, like they just stopped work one day and walked away.
A New Prospecting Spot
Once indicators start showing up along or below a contact I start to get excited. When I have shale, and outcroppings of diorite with iron-red, gritty soil and some clay thrown in, I really get lightheaded. I may be a mile away from the nearest diggings but that’s okay. I just found a spot that could provide some nice nugget hunting.
Uphill Battle Continues for California Dredgers
There are currently three controlling agencies or entities over suction dredging in California—and you can make that four if the state legislature decides to further muddy the waters with additional legislation to block suction gold dredging in the state.
So, Where's The Gold?—Finding Gold Detectors Miss
We decided to run a detector over each piece. If we got a decent signal we placed the piece into a high-grade pile and the rest went into another pile to be worked on later. This high-grade pile wasn’t that large—maybe 25 pounds...
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