Prospecting & Detecting
Extracting & Smelting Your Gold
February 2013 by Gus Peppley

Hunting for Hardrock: The Basics

It's Hard to Find Gold!
...even the best prospectors have times when they do not find gold. It is all about taking chances against tough odds and succeeding.
Pros and Cons of Big Detector Coils

A Break in the Weather
Back at the entry point of the mine, we took turns slowly crawling down the slope leading into the mine portal with our metal detectors, hard hats and flashlights. The mine was hand dug and is about 75 yards long.
Old Mine Sites and New Technology
We’ve had two trips to the deserts of Nevada and explored mines and mill sites, hiked miles of ravines in California, and swung our detector coils over thousands of square yards of bedrock.
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…
Sampling for Success—Part II
The first and most important thing of the sampling process is to try to be as unbiased as possible. There is a natural tendency to select rock that looks the best—even unconsciously.
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