Butte, Montana—The Richest Hill on Earth

December 2017 by Chris Ralph

I recently had the opportunity to spend a day exploring around Butte, Montana and was amazed by the amount of mining that has taken place there. The old-timers called Butte “the richest hill on earth” and had pretty good reasons for doing so.

The Verde Copper-Gold-Silver-Zinc District, Jerome, Arizona

October 2012
When I was a student in the College of Mines at the University of Utah, the Verde district was used as an exploration model for “submarine volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits.” So I looked forward to visiting this district and the town of Jerome in central Arizona in the spring of 2012.

Gold Prospecting With LiDar

November 2023

LiDAR Opens a New Window to the Earth

Understanding Rock Formations: Petrology for Prospectors

February 2021

There are times when being able to recognize a type of rock can make you a much more successful prospector.

Surface Indications Of Quartz Adularia Epithermal Deposits

May 2015
I am going to keep to the basics of surface indications and visual clues in the rocks and minerals themselves that help me find gold-bearing veins in this classification of deposits.

How Far Has That Gold Traveled?

February 2022

Let’s examine why your placer gold looks the way it does and what you can tell about its journey based upon its appearance.

Indicator Minerals for Gold & Silver

April 2011
In this article, we’re going to take a look at the minerals that contain gold and silver, and how you as a prospector can identify them in the field.

Weathering, Erosion and Placers

April 2017
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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