Prospecting & Detecting
Mining for Gemstones and Mineral Specimens
August 2013 by Jim Clanin
It is better in a gem and mineral mining operation that the driller, blaster and mucker be the same person in order to be able to predict placement of the desired mineral enriched pockets.
Take it to Bedrock
Picking the right spot to placer has to do with years of experience, and a little luck. The textbooks can tell you where it should be, but sometimes the rules just don’t seem to apply.
A Trip to Morgan-Monroe State Forest of Indiana
Some experienced panners with the vigor and longevity to spend a full day panning in the small creeks and ravines can possibly find as much as a gram or more on a good day.
Detectors Versus Pans
Mike scored the best with a total of one-half ounce of gold nuggets. Tom, Brian and Greg each had pieces in the one and a half pennyweight range. The rest of us had small gold and nothing like these three.
Prospecting for Diamonds in Kimberlite
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.
Bedrock Gold: When It’s There and When It Isn’t
Has your experience ever led you to wonder why some gold is deposited on bedrock and in crevices, while other gold is not? We’re going take a deeper look at this and see what we can figure it out.
Placer Gold Deposits of New Mexico
While a large number of locations have yielded some placer gold, most of the state’s placer production has come from a few productive districts.
A Good Start
We split up in order to cover a larger area and found good color almost everywhere. The bedrock was shallow on both sides of the river, but the inside bend was where we concentrated our prospecting.
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The Bawl Mill
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• Common Mistakes of the New Detectorist
• The Pearce Mineralized Area, Dragoon Mountains, Arizona—Part II
• Fighting and Winning Without a Lawyer
• The Essentials of Dry Washing
• Fortymile, Alaska Prospecting Adventure
• Court Says Emergency Rule in California Unjustified
• Sampling Placer Stockpiles
• Lower Prices Bring Layoffs
• Prospecting Research
• Buyer Beware! Counterfeit Metal Detectors
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
• Underground in the Original 16-1 Mine
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