Prospecting & Detecting
Gold Hunting on Libby Creek
January 2018 by Reese Townes
The biggest nugget I have found detecting here was three grams and the following weekend someone found a 9-gram nugget while detecting. Some have even found quarter-ounce nuggets, with one being a chevron nugget.
Gold Mining Boom in the Carolinas
Not too far from the pine-filled mountains, a young boy was exploring along Meadow Creek in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, one fine day in 1799. He discovered a beautiful rock that he took home and put to good use as a doorstop. Shortly thereafter, a jeweler stopped by to visit his folks, and as it turned out, the new doorstop was actually a 17-pound gold nugget. That nugget truly did open a door as it marked the beginning of the first gold rush in America.
Advantages of Modern Prospectors
Modern-day placer miners have many advantages over the prospectors of the gold rush days. Our prospectors can reap many benefits from accumulated knowledge of the last 100 to 150 years, which is a long and impressive list.
Attention to Detail - Part II
Ditches almost always started in the high country and contoured the mountainsides, making a long drop, usually many miles away, to the goldfields. There are ditches in Trinity County that originate at seven and eight thousand feet in the Trinity Alps that carried water almost thirty miles.
Sluicing and Detecting Downstream
…early last fall, I found my first gold-rich patch along a few crevices in the same river and found five grams of gold nuggets in one outing.
Gold in Unlikely Places—And 'Eating Crow'
The red dot on the diagram points out where the gravels there were also carrying, but not as much color. The gold was sparse below the point indicated.
Desert Prospecting Yields More Than Just Gold
This wash was not far from where I once dug a half-ounce nugget, so I knew there was gold in the area.
Prospecting on the North Yuba
The research I did for “Gold in the Slate Creek Basin” (September 2011 issue) found me chasing a channel out of the LaPorte territory headed towards the old mining town of Brandy City, California.
Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• California: The Land of Big Nuggets—Part II
• How to Interpret Assay Values
• Bedrock Nugget Hunting: Tools of the Trade
• A Primer on Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies
• PLP and MMAC Update
• Man's Best Friend
• An Interview with Minelab Engineer Mark Lawrie
• Third Largest Nugget in Existence Returns to Dallas
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
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