Prospecting & Detecting
Hunting Down Paystreaks
April 2018 by Chris Ralph
When I teach people about finding gold, I often explain that it is helpful to think of any river or stream that carries gold as being something like a sluice box.
Prospecting After Winter Storms
So, how much rain does it take to cause a major movement of gravels in a stream and redistribute the gold? The technical answer is enough water to move the bed load of the river.
Procuring Mine Owner Permission at a Mine Site
The first experience involved an overgrown gold mine operated during the 1880s. A razed mill adjoined the mine and could be glimpsed from the isolated public dirt road I was traveling.
The "Madonna Nugget"—A Weekend Hunt to Remember
I worked my way to a flat area along a ridge where I could see a quartz blowout. As I got within 100 feet of it, I started seeing rock that I knew to be associated with gold.
The Gold of Plumas de Oro
Their rewards were far better than they had anticipated, resulting in one of the best clean-ups they had ever seen.
The Winning Hand
The operation and techniques employed are highly successful in producing free gold with minimal work involved while maintaining an environment protection process through the use of recycled water and a settling pond.
Hard Rock Milling: A Matter of Scale
Most prospectors understand placer mining a lot better than hard rock mining and don’t realize the amount of work that goes into processing different types of hard rock ore.
Forty-Six Nuggets
This past summer, a two-week adventure in Alaska and other gold prospecting trips turned out to be some of my greatest life experiences.
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The Bawl Mill
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Ask The Experts - What Do I Look For and How Do I Sample?
• Ask The Experts - Prospecting Around Graeagle
• Deep Nuggets From The Strange Little Patch
• We’re Still Thinking About It
• Springtime Sampling In The High Desert
• How to Evaluate Mineral Claims—What to Know Before You Buy
• Dredging Safety: Don't Ignore The Warning Signs
• Russian Plane Spills 3 Tons of Gold on Runway
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
