History & Geology
Gold Depositiion and Gradients of Placer Streams—Part II
July 2012 by Jim Halloran
The steeper the gradient is, the more potential erosive power to move gold and other bedload sediments, and the more power to remove obstacles to flow.
The Golden Streams of Butte County, California
Even though these were some of the earliest placer deposits to be worked, there is still plenty of gold left today—it just takes more work to recover. Knowing about the old locations where gold has been found is the first step to success.
Critical Metals: Lithium
Prospecting for lithium deposits can take a number of different directions, because this metal can be extracted from a variety of geologically differnet sources.
Confluence Placers
Confluences of placer streams are well known as concentration sites for heavy minerals. The basic reason is that...
Strategic Metals—Part II
There are literally thousands of abandoned wasterock and ore dumps that dot the United States that could hold many tones of strategic metals.
Benches and Fossil Placers
Unfortunately for us mortal humans, we have a poor perspective on geologic time. When we look at a landscape such as a stream valley, we see it only in two, or at the most, three dimensions. We have poor comprehension of the valley’s fourth and most important dimension—time.
Conrey Dredge No. 4—Part II
These were the men who periodically picked up the gold amalgam from the tables and sluices in the dredge, processed it, and transported the gold ingots to the railroad express office in Alder. Their trustworthiness must have commanded a prominent wage.
Liberty and the Phoenix Mine
Liberty, Washington is located in the mountains near Yakima and Ellensburg. There is nothing much in Liberty except for about 20 houses on patented mining claims and a lot of dry holes.
Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill
• The Life of an Independent Prospector
• Gold in Guyana—Part I: Porknocking on the Puruni River Road
• That Something Extra
• Prospecting for Copper Ores—Part II
• Metallic Trash—Scourge of the Prospector
• Gold Mining Boom in the Carolinas
• California Suction Dredging Update
• Mine, Baby, Mine!
• Hecla to Reopen Lucky Friday Mine
• Nova Scotia Shows It's Serious About Jobs & Mining
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
