Prospecting & Detecting
An Interview with Minelab Engineer Mark Lawrie
January 2018 by Chris Ralph
The design of metal detectors well-suited for prospecting is an interesting process and not necessarily an easy one to achieve. It is a combination that blends the desires of what prospectors would like, the requirements of sales people and dealers, with the science and physics of what the electronics can achieve.
Search Coils and Techniques
This article is intended to try to help someone who is breaking into gold detecting and using a pulse induction (PI) detector.
Procuring Mine Owner Permission at a Mine Site
The first experience involved an overgrown gold mine operated during the 1880s. A razed mill adjoined the mine and could be glimpsed from the isolated public dirt road I was traveling.
Geobotany: Plants Associated With Mineral Deposits
Science has shown, over the past few centuries, that there is a direct correlation between certain plants and their geophysical surroundings.
Critical Minerals: Titanium—Part II
There are both hard rock and beach sand types of titanium deposits, but the hard rock deposits need to be at least 10 percent titanium while the beach sands often are economic with only two or three percent titanium.
A Good Start
We split up in order to cover a larger area and found good color almost everywhere. The bedrock was shallow on both sides of the river, but the inside bend was where we concentrated our prospecting.
Detecting: Small Creek Yields Good Gold
Most of our gold recoveries have been in the cracks of the bedrock. Hot rocks in the form of dikes cross the creek at various locations, causing us to skip those areas.
Turning Hobby Mining into Business Mining
The first thing a person should do is seriously consider whether they want to go mining as a hobby or a business, and the tax implications of the choice.
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