Prospecting & Detecting
Gully Prospecting and Mining
September 2014 by Don Robinson
This article is about our recent gold prospecting adventure, which has yielded over 20 ounces of specimen gold—with more to come.
Uphill Battle Continues for California Dredgers
There are currently three controlling agencies or entities over suction dredging in California—and you can make that four if the state legislature decides to further muddy the waters with additional legislation to block suction gold dredging in the state.
Eolian Placer Gold
I would first like to mention that I am not a geologist. I have, however, spent the last 8 years intently searching for gold nuggets with a metal detector. I have found gold in numerous locations, and in several different types of gold deposits.
California Gold Adventure
All locations gave up some gold, but one particular section of exposed bedrock with steep, packed crevices kept giving us good, consistent results. We had found our spot.
Weathering, Erosion and Placers
The big interest to prospectors thinking about the effect of erosion is not what might happen long into the future, but what they might find in the rivers later this summer when the water levels go down.
A Return to Silver City, Idaho
...we were able to pull out close to another 3+ ounces of small, angular Silver City gold. This also included several more small nuggets, pieces of wire gold and some quartz-gold pieces—not bad for 4 days with a small sluice.
What Equipment Do I Need?
Getting started in prospecting often requires the purchase of some equipment, but one can spend as little as $10 and be finding gold or spend thousands and also be finding gold—yet you will probably have many more opportunities and possibilities with more and better equipment.
Volume is the Key to Success
While recovery rates are important, they must necessarily be secondary to the volume of material processed. Running more material at lower recovery rates is generally preferable to increasing the efficiency of the system.
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