Prospecting & Detecting
Colorado to California for Gold
January 2022 by Ray Mills
The total after a great day added with the previous days put them up to 9.07 pennyweight—just under a one-half ounce of beautiful California gold.
PLP Update: Back to The 'Swamp' on Behalf of Small Miners
We spent the morning in a meeting with one of the higher-ups at the US Forest Service. I presented him with 412 complaints received from our readers, along with a summary of the complaints to make his job easier.
A Golden Summer

Placer Gold Deposits in the Western States
…to see the huge differences between the gold production amounts of the Western States, let’s look at the gold production—both hard rock and placer—of these 13 states up to the present.
Gold Indicators—What to Look for in the Goldfields
Some of the items that I’m going to go over are outcroppings, ditches, exploratory trenches and contacts/surface materials. I am going to speak about each of the above items in as much detail as I can, and then towards the end of this article I will tie them together.
The Summer of ‘81
When it was all setup and running, you had everything coming off the dredge riffles into the boil box. At the hole section, some of the water got sucked down and pulled a lot of black sand and over heavies…
How Far To The Gold?
…in spite of the fact that the well-pounded spots probably don’t have much gold left, I see all too many prospectors hike down to a creek or other spot at the first place the road comes near it just because it’s the easiest access point.
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The Bawl Mill
• Ask The Experts - Geophysics or drilling? Which is best for this project?
• Ask The Experts - How closely are black sand and gold related?
• Why Is The Gold On Bedrock—Or Why Is It Not?
• Breaking Boulders With Explosives
• Historic Dredge Uncovered in North Carolina
• Setting Up A Placer Operation
• Grizzly Flats, California—Another Mother Lode Gold Rush Town
• Drywashing Without A Drywasher
• Late Fall Drywashing
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices