History & Geology
Critical Metals: Lithium
February 2014 by Chris Ralph
Prospecting for lithium deposits can take a number of different directions, because this metal can be extracted from a variety of geologically differnet sources.
Confluence Placers
Confluences of placer streams are well known as concentration sites for heavy minerals. The basic reason is that...
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Understanding and Prospecting Benches
The most obvious benches are usually near the valley floor, but they can be thousands of feet above the valley floor. Since benches were made by streams, they can contain placer deposits.
Gold Placers in Italy
Gold is a fairly widespread mineral in the Italian Alps and in the Northern Apennines. It is found both in primary mineralization and in past and recent floods.
The Silver, Gold and Gemstones of Candelaria, Nevada
The Candelaria area is of interest to prospectors not just for silver, gold and other metals, but also for the beautiful gemstones found there.
The Rush to Treasure Hill
There were some exceptional times in the far-flung history of the West. Rich finds of minerals that set men’s souls ablaze. From the rich gold fields of California, men who arrived too late to find riches went searching in every direction. The trail that we will follow leads east, past the shining silver district of the Comstock Lode.
Nevada's Silver City Gold District—Part I
The name Silver City is quite ironic as it doesn’t really fit the area’s metal production. The area encompassing the Silver City district is a great, stand-alone gold district, where the production value of gold has been much more than that of silver. Since the initial discovery of gold-bearing veins in the mid-1850s, the area has been a center of continuous small and large-scale gold production.
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