Small Mining Operations
Hard Work Pays Off On Hard Rock
August 2020 by Ron Kliewer
They worked their plan, bit by bit, and sure enough, after the blast, gold was detected… Over two pounds of beautiful crystalline gold was recovered in that stretch!
Proper Assaying of Placer Samples
The whole purpose of sampling mineralized ground is to measure the values in a small volume of material that would be representative of a much larger volume of similar material. The key word is representative. Chemical and fire assaying will not accurately represent placer deposits by themselves.
Understanding Rock Formations: Petrology for Prospectors
There are times when being able to recognize a type of rock can make you a much more successful prospector.
Lode or Placer: What Difference Does It Make?
This explains the large difference in particle sizes between placers and hydrothermal lode deposits, but also means that while the mining may be similar in some cases, the sampling and recovery techniques are usually quite different.
Placer Gold Deposits in the Western States
…to see the huge differences between the gold production amounts of the Western States, let’s look at the gold production—both hard rock and placer—of these 13 states up to the present.
My First Carolina Nugget
On my weekends off I spent many hours dredging the Second Broad River from Cane Creek Road up to the headwaters. I used a three-inch dredge with air and graduated to a five-inch with air.
The Jenkins Mine Project, Conclusion—Recovery Operations & Summary
This project taught me that you don’t need to be Albert Einstein to apply a little science to your prospecting. I learned that most of the science related to suction dredging is actually common sense. All we need to do is take the time to apply it.
Gold Placers of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
The biggest obstacle is that like many streams on the Kenai Peninsula, high water during the summer months from snow melt and rain can make dredging nearly impossible. The best dredging is in the colder months of the year.
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• The Mysterious Telluride Minerals
• Detecting: Getting Away From The Heat And Into The Gold
• The Coolgardie Gold Mining Camp of Southern California
• Gold Prospecting for Better or Worse: How Curiosity Burst My Platinum Bubble
• Prospecting for Copper—What to Look for on the Outcrop
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