Prospecting & Detecting
How To File A Mining Claim
April 2019 by Alan J. Chenworth
Filing claims is actually quite easy, though there are a number of pitfalls that you should watch out for. Over the years, I have made just about every mistake you can with a mining claim, and have learned a few things to watch out for along the way.
Divide and Conquer—Detecting Old Placer Grounds with Friends
He no sooner had turned around and started moving when I hollered again that I had another nice one.
Excavator Testing Wet Placer Ground
The excavator or backhoe has become the tool of choice for testing placer ground. These machines are the best way to explore and sample a placer deposit if the ground is not too wet or frozen and bedrock is not beyond the reach of the machine.
Extracting & Smelting Your Gold
Unfortunately, not all the gold that we prospectors find is pretty, or appealing to the eyes. They are not all nice, bright, shiny nuggets with lots of character that carry high collector value.
The Bucking Room
Since this position was the least desirable due to the hard physical labor, the bucking room was used as punishment. Do you have a mediocre worker? Bad attitude? Off to the bucking room!
Using Vegetation and Soil Conditions as Prospecting Aids
Wouldn’t it be great if you could know if there is gold in the ground without setting foot on the ground? Well you can, to a certain extent, if you can recognize mined ground from unmined.
Companion Gold
Easing around the bedrock ledges and rock hopping, Terry and I came out into the open and were looking at a nice run of bedrock.
Prospecting With a Detector: Lessons Learned
That is the course and intention for this article—to wander through some of the lessons I have learned in my thirty-two years of metal detecting and prospecting.
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• Back to Basics--Finding Gold With a Pan and a Sluice
• Persistence Leads to Over a Pound of Gold
• Gold Prospecting for Better or Worse: The Superbowl Nugget
• Revisiting The Old Mini Patch
• Preserving the True History of the Ivanhoe
• Carr Fire Gold
• Secrets of Successful Prospecting
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
