Prospecting & Detecting
Hunting for Hardrock: The Basics
December 2013 by Alex Dolbeare
Exposed veins and outcroppings can be a great source for gathering good gold ore for processing. Veins and outcroppings do require a lot of work to free the ore from its earthen grip, but this labor can be very rewarding.
Diary of a Diamond Prospector
I couldn’t wait to get started. With no field budget, an assay budget of $100/year, a 1975-Ford Bronco that was a road hazard, a gas card, a topo map and full support of the director, I headed to the State Line district near Tie Siding along US Highway 287 to begin mapping kimberlite.
A Return to Silver City, Idaho
...we were able to pull out close to another 3+ ounces of small, angular Silver City gold. This also included several more small nuggets, pieces of wire gold and some quartz-gold pieces—not bad for 4 days with a small sluice.
The Hill of Gold
I was amazed and surprised, and I took a moment to admire how beautiful this coarse chunk of gold was. It later weighed exactly one-half ounce.
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.
Twenty Minutes on a Five-inch Dredge
The first thing I realized was this was not a toy—this thing had power and I needed to really pay attention. I got into position, took a deep breath, and pushed that monster into the hard pack.
VLF Detector Operating Modes
It is important to note that discrimination is a type of electronic filtering. The signal is analyzed, and depending on the discrimination setting, identified as either a target to be dug or a target to be ignored.
Southern Oregon's Illinois River—A Lesson in Sharing
Our theory was that a dredge would collect far more material in a shorter period of time, leaving us with ounces of gold every day.
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