Ask The Experts: Equipment to break up heavy clay

January 2017 by Chris Ralph

Q: I am looking for a “trommel machine” that doesn’t separate anything but clay slurry from rock hard clay.

Using Vegetation and Soil Conditions as Prospecting Aids

January 2013
Wouldn’t it be great if you could know if there is gold in the ground without setting foot on the ground? Well you can, to a certain extent, if you can recognize mined ground from unmined.

The Smell of Gold—Part I

June 2015
Some claim they can smell gold. This may be, but when I take a whiff of gold, I smell dirt, rotten eggs, garlic or just nothing: my nose is everything but sensitive.

The PIGMI—a DIY Crevice Tool

April 2017
I’ve had great success using it to gather gold from crevices. I’d like to share the design with all of you gold miners reading this article and hope that you get as much satisfaction building and using it as I did.

Regarding "Good Assays and Bad"

February 2012
Last month I wrote an article entitled “Good Assays and Bad,” which gathered a few comments.

Successful Gold Prospecting

January 2011
There are loads of new gold prospectors attracted by the current high prices, and so I thought it might be a great time to take a look at what makes some prospectors so much more successful than others.

Where Should I Start?

October 2015
Digging in the right spots will produce excellent results, like this group of nuggets taken by the author while metal detecting during the last few months. The biggest nugget is over an ounce.

Pocket Gold

June 2016
Once a seam is found it can be traced for miles in either direction. While you are tracing a clay line, you are looking for indicators. The indicators that I look for are ironstone, hematite, different color clays intermingled with the clay line, and a very iron-rich, brown gritty soil.

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That First Nugget