Prospecting & Detecting
How Rich Must My Ore Be?
May 2021 by Chris Ralph
How rich does a hard rock ore have to be for it to be worthwhile to process and extract the gold?
Sulfides and Intergrain Gold Wire Nuggets
...these nuggets have not traveled far from the lode because the golden wire lattices would have been torn apart or flattened during weathering of rock and deposition by violent stream action.
Iowa Hill District
For the last two years we’ve held a hands-on prospectors training session in the Iowa Hill district of California’s Mother Lode country as a part of our Gold Prospecting and Mining Summit event. Because of this, I thought it might be good to take a look at the history, geology and opportunities that the Iowa Hill district still offers to the individual prospector.
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.
Dry Washer, Wet System or Metal Detector?
I love to dry wash old nugget patches found by detector operators, and I have found my fair share of gold dry washing those areas. I have also found a few nuggets using a detector on the bedrock exposed by dry washing the patches.
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.
Nome Offshore Dredging Creates Challenges
The Alaska state government has been trying to keep up with and maybe even stay on top of the situation by studying the problems associated with rapid growth and how to solve them.
The Highs and Hazards of Desert Prospecting
We hit on a good spot the last time we were at this location and we made up our minds that we weren’t going to let hurricane-like winds stop us.
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The Bawl Mill
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