Prospecting & Detecting
Ancestral Yuba River Placer Gold Deposits
November 2020 by David Lawler
The small-scale miner has reasonable opportunity to exploit some of these small, rich placer gold deposits.
Follow the Line
Four nuggets, ranging from one to four pennyweight, had been found originally. All four nuggets were found in a line about ten feet apart from each other.
Hunting for Gold in the Quartzsite Area of Western Arizona

Revisiting the Rocker Box

Trash! A Hindrance Or Hot Spot For Hidden Gold?
I love it when I am in the middle of a high trash area and all the ferrous bars go away, the screen number goes to a three or an eight, and the meter is forty to a hundred. I don’t know for sure that I have found gold, but it narrows the odds down.
Fluorescent Mineral Prospecting
Ultraviolet light is divided into three levels, labeled A, B and C depending on the wavelength, with C having the shortest wavelength and the most energy.
Southern Oregon's Illinois River—A Lesson in Sharing
Our theory was that a dredge would collect far more material in a shorter period of time, leaving us with ounces of gold every day.
Strategies for Detecting Heavily Pounded Areas
The problem is every other nugget hunter and drywash prospector had the same idea. As a result, you can spend days, weeks, and even months detecting these areas and not find a single nugget.
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The Bawl Mill
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