Prospecting & Detecting
Back to Basics--Finding Gold With a Pan and a Sluice
April 2019 by Chris Ralph
Don’t hunker down and just keep digging in one spot where there is very little or no gold—if you don’t find it, you’ve got to get up and move on!
Northwestern Alaska Mineral Resources
Gold and jade are actually only minor mineral resources for the Northwestern Alaska region as a whole. Modern prospecting has focused more on base metal than precious metal resources.
Gold Placers of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
The biggest obstacle is that like many streams on the Kenai Peninsula, high water during the summer months from snow melt and rain can make dredging nearly impossible. The best dredging is in the colder months of the year.
Blackberries and Gold
There were iron stains all over and even a few places where I could see iron trash sticking out of the bedrock. These would be ideal spots to start with as the gold travels with the iron and lead.
Uncovering the Find of a Lifetime
• The 75-ounce Butte County nugget is the largest found in California since the 156-ounce Mojave nugget in the 1970s...
Twenty Minutes on a Five-inch Dredge
The first thing I realized was this was not a toy—this thing had power and I needed to really pay attention. I got into position, took a deep breath, and pushed that monster into the hard pack.
Panning for Gold on Canyon Creek
I was able to remove the gravels with the assistance of a crowbar and I scooped them up with a garden trowel. This gravel contained over a pennyweight of gold and there were several 2-grain and 3-grain pieces…
Sierra County Gold—Part I
...this county contained some of the richest placer ground found in all of California and still produces some pretty impressive finds to this day.
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