Prospecting & Detecting
Fine Gold Panning Without Using Mercury
March 2012 by Jim Halloran
The technique I will describe is a much safer alternative and it works. It’s a fine-gold panning technique that eliminates the need for mercury amalgamation of most placer samples.Alaskan Gold Adventure
In Chicken I had my first experience with the famous Alaska blue clay, sometimes called the blue layer. The blue layer is where the best fine gold was to be found.
Placer Gold Deposits of New Mexico
While a large number of locations have yielded some placer gold, most of the state’s placer production has come from a few productive districts.
How to Stake Your Own Mining Claims—Part I
Many new prospectors start out prospecting in public areas and club claims, and this is perfectly fine, but the next step in the progression of becoming an experienced prospector is to locate and stake your own mining claims. Becoming a Successful Detectorist
During my adventures I’ve learned a few key best practices that help me to consistently find gold nuggets with my detectors. You can apply many of these best practices to any type of prospecting. These best practices are really common sense; however, they are easy to neglect.
Time for a New Approach: Detecting Float Gold
The first pieces found were in a spot that most gold hunters would not even detect, right in the middle of a downslope meadow.
Detecting Old Pocket Diggings
Looking around, I could tell that this was an old hand-digging. As I walked around the perimeter of the digging I could see shovel and pick marks scratched on the clean, hard clay and bedrock.
Selectable Frequency vs Multi Frequency Detectors
I like to think in terms of “conductive mass” because it is a combination of both the conductivity of the metal and the size of the target that determine how a detector sees conductivity.
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The Bawl Mill
• Ask the Experts: Set up a small portable operation or send the ore to a custom mill?
• Ask the Experts: Who manufactures the diagonal vibrating table?
• Ask the Experts: Do "corners" need to be in place on the ground for a claim to be valid?
• Ask the Experts: Tantalite in an African nation -- is it worth pursuing?
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Following Clues to a Hidden Gold Deposit
• How to Melt Your Own Gold
• Judge Tosses Lawsuit Against Tucson-Area Mine
• Salted Mining Properties—How to Properly Evaluate a Claim
• Australia Produces World's Largest Gold Coin
• Fells Flat Gold
• Colorado Considers Gold & Silver Currency
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
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Revised Dredge Regulations Published for California—Pure Garbage
• Xmet Aims for One Million Ounces
