History & Geology
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.
Mass Wasting & Gold Deposits
Not all of these slides and debris flows will produce results, but if you search for these while prospecting in your gold producing areas, then you can increase your odds of finding new gold.
Gold, Quartz & Chalcedony—Part II
The specific gravity of chalcedony is 2.58 to 2.64. This is slightly lower than coarsely crystalline quartz because of slight porosity in chalcedony. Being so light, it will easily wash out of a gold pan.
Associated Gold Placers of the Comstock
What many people don’t realize is that the Comstock Lode produced over 8,000,000 ounces of gold…
Natural Gold Alloys
Natural gold is never 100% pure; all natural nuggets contain at least some impurities. We're going to take a look at just what some of those impurities might be.
Strategic Metals—Part I
A bill was introduced and passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year that should make the exploration and opening of a mining operation faster and easier.
Gold Deposition and Gradients of Placer Streams—Part I
When placer miners from the gold rush era began experimenting with the slope of their sluices, they must have pondered the ideal slope for trapping gold in a creek bed too. Logic suggests the same is true for streams...
Heavy Sands Mining
Lately my mind has been involved with group 4 of the transition elements, namely titanium, zirconium, and hafnium. They all have similar chemical properties. Of greatest interest to economic geologists and miners is that these valuable elements often occur together in sands.
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The Bawl Mill
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• Ask The Experts - Looking for help smelting gold
• Ask The Experts - Chlorine bleach and vinegar makes a deadly combination
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• Watch Out for Split Estates When Filing Your Claim
• Detecting the Fringe Areas
• Conrey Dredge No. 4—Part II
• California: The Land of Big Nuggets—Part I
• Gold Detecting Strategies for Hydraulic Mines and Debris Flows
• New Technology for Extracting Lithium To Be Tested in Nevada
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