Prospecting & Detecting
Find of a Lifetime
May 2013 by David Obester
My metal detecting hobby began about ten years ago when I bought a used metal detector for about $300. I got it specifically to look for meteorites. It was pretty much worthless, not user friendly, and I did not find anything with it.
Ancestral Yuba River Placer Gold Deposits
The small-scale miner has reasonable opportunity to exploit some of these small, rich placer gold deposits.
21st Century American Gold Rush: Rare Earth Elements
The burning question I needed answered was why didn’t the deposit ever get mined of at least one of the valuable minerals? A couple of reasons have come to light.
Southern Oregon's Illinois River—A Lesson in Sharing
Our theory was that a dredge would collect far more material in a shorter period of time, leaving us with ounces of gold every day.
Chasing Hard Rock Gold As A Placer Deposit
The question I had, and likely you have too, is when an old channel is cut, how far does the placer gold in the cut channel move down in a river or creek that continues to erode deeper and deeper?
Volume is the Key to Success
While recovery rates are important, they must necessarily be secondary to the volume of material processed. Running more material at lower recovery rates is generally preferable to increasing the efficiency of the system.
Recovering Fine Gold with Oleophilic Adhesion
Oleophilic means "affinity to or attracted to oils," and this includes gold an diamonds.
Prospecting for Gold at Green Valley
In October, five of us decided to take an exploration trip into an area called Green Valley. This was perhaps ten miles upstream from where we had gone in September and the difficulty was access. One would think that based on the name it was an easily accessible area not far from a nearby town. This couldn’t be more wrong.
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The Bawl Mill
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• All About Quartz—Part I
• Over the Divide
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• Shallow Water Crevicing Can Bring Big Rewards
• A Father and Son Prospecting Adventure
• Home Office Deductions
• Advantages of Modern Prospectors
• Searchers' Dreams
• Gold in Unlikely Places
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
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