All Articles
Basic Geology for the Independent Miner—Part II Recognizing and Understanding Rock Formations (Petrology)
February 2006 by Chris Ralph
Rocks are an aggregate formed from the accumulation of minerals. Minerals form under various conditions, and when the minerals come together in mass, they form rocks.
Montana's Virginia City Has Golden Legacy
The discovery of gold at Alder Creek, centrally located in Madison County, Montana, was unusually well documented, with the date and time placed at May 26th, 1863, at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. A group of six miners had been searching the area with little luck until the leader, Bill Fairweather, spotted an exposed area of promising bedrock. He dug up a shovel full of dirt and put it in Henry Edgar’s pan for washing. About the same time that Edgar was busy washing out the pan, Fairweather was poking around the bedrock with his pocketknife. Both spotted the color of gold at once.
Man's Best Friend
Adam’s condition had been deteriorating every step of the way. At times, I could only coax him ten or twenty feet before he laid down again. He refused to eat or drink. At this point, I realized we might not get out of the canyon by dark and might need help getting Adam out at all.
Company Notes
• Great Basin Gold
• Hecla Mining Company
• Newmont Mining Corp.
• U.S. Gold Corp.
• X-Cal Resources Ltd.
• Pan American Silver Corp.
• Corner Bay Silver Inc.
Finding Gold With Copper and Turquoise
The signs of copper, which the prospector most commonly sees in the field in outcrops and on the surface, are secondary minerals caused by the action of air and water on the original copper-bearing sulfides that were deposited deep...
Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Endangered Species Act reform
• Extremist groups blamed for catastrophic wildfires
• EPA revisists TMDL
• National Heritage Act seeks to take control of lands away from local government
Zeballos Gold Camp, British Columbia
The mining and logging camp of Zeballos (pop. 272) is located on an arm of Esperanza Inlet, on the southwest side of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Vancouver Island is 301 miles, by road, and reaches elevations as high as 7,249 feet.
Silver Mining Returning to Texas
Today, a Canadian company is reviving the mine to take advantage of silver prices that have tripled since 2009, giving the few dozen residents still living in the area more action than they’ve seen in decades.
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The Bawl Mill
• January Issues Delayed For Weeks As USPS Searches Their Facility
• The Rocks That Burn: Is Oil Shale the Answer?—Part I
• Feds Move Oil Shale to Front Burner
• The Circle Goldfields
• New Montana Board Moves to Halt Mining
• Newmont Looks to Ghana
• PLP President Intervenes on Behalf of Dredgers
• Samuel Franklin Hunt Nevada’s “Rio Tinto”
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
