Prospecting & Detecting
Detecting For Gold—Are You Up For It?
April 2013 by Ray Mills
Over the years that I have been detecting for gold I have had many of the same questions come up. I decided to write this article to hopefully answer some questions that a person wishing to detect for gold may have.
A New Prospecting Spot
Once indicators start showing up along or below a contact I start to get excited. When I have shale, and outcroppings of diorite with iron-red, gritty soil and some clay thrown in, I really get lightheaded. I may be a mile away from the nearest diggings but that’s okay. I just found a spot that could provide some nice nugget hunting.
The Gold of Plumas de Oro
Their rewards were far better than they had anticipated, resulting in one of the best clean-ups they had ever seen.
Detecting Wet Ground Yields More Fun Than Gold
We all continued over to another location at the top of a massive placer operation. Arriving at the draw, I showed everyone where gold had been found before and we all began detecting.
Nice Specimen Gold Recovered in Northern California
Each specimen is carefully examined to determine if it would be beneficial or not to use an acid treatment to reveal more of the gold.
Pocket Gold
Once a seam is found it can be traced for miles in either direction. While you are tracing a clay line, you are looking for indicators. The indicators that I look for are ironstone, hematite, different color clays intermingled with the clay line, and a very iron-rich, brown gritty soil.
Detecting Strategies for Heavily Forested Areas—Part II
Patience and persistence is the name of the game when you are detecting this way for gold, as you will have to do a lot of work preparing the ground to detect with any degree of success.
Deep Nuggets From The Strange Little Patch
I began detecting at the bottom of the gully and started making my way upstream. About mid-way there was a nice, flat stretch for about ten feet.
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