Prospecting & Detecting
Iowa Hill District
June 2012 by Chris Ralph
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.The Smell of Gold—Part I
Some claim they can smell gold. This may be, but when I take a whiff of gold, I smell dirt, rotten eggs, garlic or just nothing: my nose is everything but sensitive.
The Essentials of Dry Washing
Most dry washers have a feed rate adjustment. It needs to be set so that the material flows evenly over the riffles and does not bury them.
Quartzsite Gives Up Some Big Gold
There is always an overwhelming feeling when finding gold of any size, but one like this doesn’t come along very often.
California State and US National Panning Championships
Over 200 panners competed in this two-day event to decide who was the best of the best.
Research and Fieldwork Yield Some Promising Gold
A week later, a small team of us hit it again, and this time the gold really showed up.
Proven Strategies for Detecting Gold
I’m sure we all have, at some point in time, gone out detecting and ended up not having the success we thought we would have. Here are some helpful game-changers that work for me and may work for you, as well.
Dry Washing to Capture Fine Gold
There may be lots of smaller gold I cannot hear with a detector, but it looks just fine in my pan once it is out of the crevice.
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