Prospecting & Detecting
Gold Rush in the Congo
May 2013 by David Perkins
It all started with a phone call from my friend and prospecting partner Pat Keene. He told me that he knew of an investor who was just starting out in the gold industry and was looking for a gold consultant to go to Africa to prospect and analyze a 400 sq. mile concession in the middle of the Congo rainforest. I waited for the “just kidding” line...
The Hunch
The mysteries of this spot were only just starting to develop. There is nothing but very bland granite-type rocks here, meaning no bold, favorable indicators.
Using Structural Clues to Locate Buried Placer Channels
They must have assumed the paystreak was spotty and had been mined out, so they never mined as close to the side of the valley as they should have.
VLF Detector Operating Modes
It is important to note that discrimination is a type of electronic filtering. The signal is analyzed, and depending on the discrimination setting, identified as either a target to be dug or a target to be ignored.
Ask The Experts
• Making a noisy dredge more quiet
Dry Washing to Capture Fine Gold
There may be lots of smaller gold I cannot hear with a detector, but it looks just fine in my pan once it is out of the crevice.
A Father and Son Prospecting Adventure
As I write this, I am still on a rush from taking my 9-year-old son, Jeffrey, prospecting for the first time this past weekend. It’s not that he hasn’t been along on numerous outings before: this is the first time that just the two of us went out for a day of drywashing and detecting under the desert sun.
Ask The Experts
Problems finding gold with a detector
Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill
• Find of a Lifetime
• All About Quartz—Part I
• Over the Divide
• Your Guide to Prospecting in Alaska
• Shallow Water Crevicing Can Bring Big Rewards
• A Father and Son Prospecting Adventure
• Home Office Deductions
• Advantages of Modern Prospectors
• Searchers' Dreams
• Gold in Unlikely Places
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
Free:
Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Angkor Gold's Cambodia Projects
• Contact Information for Oregon Senators
