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.Gully Prospecting and Mining
This article is about our recent gold prospecting adventure, which has yielded over 20 ounces of specimen gold—with more to come.
Clues for Detecting Ancient River Channels and Flats
The gold in this area can get quite large. Most of the pieces are about half a pennyweight on average.
Revisiting the Rocker Box
The first location we worked was a small, dry ravine cutting through many mineralized zones in an area where some hard rock mining had taken place in the past.
Backwards Find
I furiously started pulling material out of the side wall and putting it in my scoop. It didn't take long to discover that the source of the scream was from a one-ounce chunk...
Resurrecting An Old Hard Rock Mine
There were nice sections of vein material at the end of several drifts, like they just stopped work one day and walked away.
4 Keys to Successful Nugget Hunting
Lots of prospectors are trying out nugget detecting for the first time and finding out that it isn’t all that easy. In fact, in my opinion, metal detecting for nuggets is perhaps the most difficult form of prospecting that one can take on.
Critical Minerals: Titanium
The metal is expensive, not because it is rare but because of the expense to produce and work it. The minerals mined for titanium are all oxides, unlike many base metals that are mostly mined as sulfide minerals.
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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
