Las Médulas—The Gem of the Roman Gold Mines

July 2018 by Alan J. Chenworth

This mine was a real wonder of engineering, and the water supply and drifts had to be carefully managed to keep it in operation. In fact, it didn’t close due to lack of gold, but instead closed with the fall of the Roman Empire.

All About Garnets

February 2013
I get a lot of questions from prospectors about garnets, their value and what they tell us about the geology of some types of mineral deposits. So I thought it would be a good idea to take a closer look at the lowly garnet and learn a bit more about it.

Prospecting for Diamonds in Kimberlite

January 2014
Kimberlite is very difficult for geologists to find, let alone prospectors and rock hounds. This is because kimberlite is rarely exposed on the surface and few people know how to identify the rock.

Placer Mining At Chititu Creek, Alaska

March 2015
There is reason to believe these stream valleys are still rich with gold, silver and copper.

The Silver Islet Mountains of Utah

January 2014
I set up my dry washer on the north side of the cut and sampled the bed rock and dumps around me. As I was only sampling, I ran for 20-30 minutes, shoveling from a variety of areas.

Gold in Tertiary Gravels

November 2015
In some places, semi-continuous sections of riverbed can easily be linked in many places to identify the path of the ancient rivers.

Enrichment of Mineral Deposits by Weathering—Part I

March 2016

The exact minerals formed in the concentrated supergene deposits depends much on the type of country rock around the deposit and the chemistry of the deposit itself, but if conditions are right, this process will form some rich patches of bonanza ore, in some places valued at thousands of dollars to the ton.

Associated Gold Placers of the Comstock

November 2015
What many people don’t realize is that the Comstock Lode produced over 8,000,000 ounces of gold…

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