Prospecting & Detecting
Mineralization, Ground Balance and Metal Detecting
May 2022 by Chris Ralph
The right ground balance setting for the conditions you are working is critical. If your detector isn’t set properly, you will lose depth of detection, sometimes to an extreme degree.
Detecting My Way Across Australia—Pt II
It was round and I thought it was a dirty piece of lead shot, but after feeling the weight and giving it a spit-cleaning I knew I had one! Small as the nugget was, I felt happy and gratified for my little success
How Should I Work This Prospect?
How big is the deposit? Are there boulders you will need to move? Do you just want to recover the nuggets or do you think there is good fine gold that you will also want to capture?
Detecting Strategies for Heavily Forested Areas
Looking for nugget laden bedrock in forested mountain regions, you first need to explore the banks of the gold-bearing streams and look for the bedrock that is exposed as this is your starting point.
Gold Placers of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
The biggest obstacle is that like many streams on the Kenai Peninsula, high water during the summer months from snow melt and rain can make dredging nearly impossible. The best dredging is in the colder months of the year.
Return to Chicken, Alaska
I figured it would be quite conservative of me to shoot for about four ounces of gold instead of the twelve ounces I had found in 2013.
Find of a Lifetime
My metal detecting hobby began about ten years ago when I bought a used metal detector for about $300. I got it specifically to look for meteorites. It was pretty much worthless, not user friendly, and I did not find anything with it.
Detecting Alone -- What to Look For
I figure there are a lot of new people out there who have the same question. I will try to give some answers that hopefully will give you more confidence in finding your own spots.
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The Bawl Mill
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