Prospecting & Detecting
Let Nature Help
September 2022 by Ray Mills
You’re out in the goldfields and searching for a spot that will possibly give up a gold nugget.
It's Not Always El Dorado
This was “pocket” country. All around were “pockets” that had been hand dug by old and new miners.
A New Prospecting Spot
Once indicators start showing up along or below a contact I start to get excited. When I have shale, and outcroppings of diorite with iron-red, gritty soil and some clay thrown in, I really get lightheaded. I may be a mile away from the nearest diggings but that’s okay. I just found a spot that could provide some nice nugget hunting.
Ask the Experts
NOI or POO for small backhoe
Trash! A Hindrance Or Hot Spot For Hidden Gold?
I love it when I am in the middle of a high trash area and all the ferrous bars go away, the screen number goes to a three or an eight, and the meter is forty to a hundred. I don’t know for sure that I have found gold, but it narrows the odds down.
Making Adjustments to Catch Fine Gold
This fine gold that is so common is probably the most notorious for eluding our riffles and mattings.
Big Rock Gold
Fran, and I had made a practice of turning big boulders in gold producing areas to find some great rewards. Sometimes it was slow and frustrating, but in the end “We got the gold!”
Tips and Tricks
I cleared the connector by poking a small Phillips screwdriver through it. To ensure the bore was clean, I dunked the connector into some water and then blew it clean with my shop air compressor.
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Online 3D version Coming Soon
• Geology of Placer Deposits: Reading a River
• Grass Valley, Nevada City, Malakoff Diggings, Northern California
• Electronic Prospecting: The Hunt for Coarse Gold
• Glacial Prospecting Basics Part 1
• Gleaning for Gold Part 2
• PLP Update
• Blast From the Past
• Resource Maven
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