Prospecting & Detecting
Indicators and Hillsides
September 2021 by Ray Mills
The placer gold shows up in ground sluice areas, hydraulic pits, secondary channels and hillside diggings. It is coming down the hillsides from an ancient channel left high and dry millions of years ago.
A Third Generation Small-Scale Hardrock Revival
One of his friends had 700 feet of small-gauge mine track and a hundred-year-old track bender laying out in his back 40; plus he also wanted to join the team. Perfect.
Drywashing for Desert Gold—Part II
…whichever layer I’m getting the best gold, I’ll work that stratum. Some of the best gold in the desert is not always on the bedrock.
Following Clues to a Lost Gold Deposit—The Northern Extension of the Cedarberg
Last month, in “Following Clues to a Hidden Gold Deposit,” I ended the article with the direction that we were on the hunt! We were getting prepared and ready to roll with our detectors, then snow came, and lots of it. We had already found the seam diggings mine on the mountainside in wild, rough brush and trees. It had been well hidden.
To Foam or Not to Foam
George was considering filling his dredge floats with closed-cell foam, ensuring that there would be no area available within each float for flooding.
Habits, Procedure, and Where Is The Gold?
In my early days of nugget hunting things were fairly simple. Just headphones, a pack, a detector and a small pick were all I needed for my search for great wealth.
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.
Exploring Snakehead
On our fourth trip, we finally reached the top edge of the old hydraulic pit, and it was monstrous.
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The Bawl Mill
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