Prospecting & Detecting
Finding Gold in Tailing Piles
December 2014 by Steve Herschbach
Old mine workings and tailing piles can represent opportunities on many levels, from the chance to simply find a nugget on up to the commercial reworking of the old tailings for profit.
Where Should I Start?
Digging in the right spots will produce excellent results, like this group of nuggets taken by the author while metal detecting during the last few months. The biggest nugget is over an ounce.
California: The Land of Big Nuggets—Part I
The nugget sat there in plain sight, though it was covered in dirt, while hundreds of people had passed that way every day.
How Long Does It Take to Find and Recover An Ounce of Gold?
Some ask if a prospector can collect an entire ounce in a day. It is possible; I’ve done it before.
The Story Behind the Story
Anyone who has found a patch knows the difficulties involved. Those who haven’t can guess, and with any effort will soon realize it.
Hard Rock Prospecting With Rusty
May 2016As we talked, Rusty stopped, backed up, bent down and began chipping at some rock in the road. He said he suspected there was a stringer right here that crossed the road.
A Generous Lesson on Detecting Bedrock
The signal I was hearing was coming from a vertical bedrock crack on the bank of the creek. I removed my backpack, took out my crevicing tools and started to clean out the crack when I saw a glint of gold.
A Return to Silver City, Idaho
...we were able to pull out close to another 3+ ounces of small, angular Silver City gold. This also included several more small nuggets, pieces of wire gold and some quartz-gold pieces—not bad for 4 days with a small sluice.
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