History & Geology
Ask The Experts
June 2015 by Chris Ralph
Sulfides and oxides—what's the difference between the two?All About Minerals
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.
Placer Gold Deposits of Utah
The placer deposits of Utah occur in two distinct types of environments. These are 1) placers found adjacent to, and derived from, gold, silver and base-metal deposits; and 2) placers found in major rivers and derived from unknown, distant sources.
Electrum: Gold and Silver Together
...if you are out prospecting and find something that looks very much like a nugget but has an odd greenish-gray cast to it, don’t be too quick to simply toss it aside as junk.
Alaska's Cripple Creek Mining District
If developed with metal detecting in mind, this virgin ground could be a bonanza for nugget hunting.
Alaska Gold: Lisianski Inlet's First Bonanza
In 1967, a local resident showed me a pouch of small gold nuggets and flakes. Several years later I asked the same person where that gold was found. He responded, “From the streambed below the old stamp mill at Apex.”
The Birimian Greenstone Belts of West Africa
A few years ago I had a tremendous opportunity to visit Australia and hunt for gold there. The geology of the gold deposits there was somewhat different from what I was used to here in the US. I learned a lot about greenstone belt gold deposits while prospecting them in person, and it was an amazing trip.
Weathering, Erosion and Placers
The big interest to prospectors thinking about the effect of erosion is not what might happen long into the future, but what they might find in the rivers later this summer when the water levels go down.
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