How to Recognize Hard Rock Gold Ores

September 2017 by Chris Ralph

I regularly get inquiries along the line of: “Hey, I found this rock, and I think it might be gold ore. How can I tell?” Prospectors are always on the lookout for gold-bearing rocks that may be the source of any nearby placer gold.

Finding Gold with a VLF Detector—Part I

April 2014
The very first thing to find out...is if the detector has the ability to be ground balanced.

The Fire Assay of Carbon

February 2016
Carbon, activated charcoal, or “char,” as some old timers refer to it, can be an assayer’s nightmare.

Hard Rock 101: Mechanical Techniques

June 2020

Since we know that the secret to breaking rock is applying force from the inside out (putting tension on the rock), we will be looking at ways we can generate force using human and machine power.

Placer Channel Sampling

July 2013
Sampling gold placers can be rewarding, but remember to treat the samples so you are not high grading or low grading your results. Learn the rules and apply them so your samples are accurate.

How to Melt Your Own Gold

March 2012
There are good and bad ways to melt gold. In this article, we’ll take a look at the right way to melt gold without losing any of the valuable metal.

Dry Washer, Wet System or Metal Detector?

April 2016
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.

Shaker Tables for Processing Hard Rock Ores

May 2017

Most placer equipment is really made with gold in the 30 and larger mesh sizes in mind, though if carefully used can often get reasonable recovery down to the 50 mesh size.

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