History & Geology
Picks & Pans: Gold Recovery in Placer Mining Operations
August 1999 by Staff
Two of the major factors affecting the profitability of a placer mining enterprise are the relative efficiency of the mining equipment, and the rate and percentage of recovery obtained while conducting mining operations.
Researching Mineralized Areas
There are a load of ways to do research, and I’m going to talk about how I do it—maybe you’ll get some ideas that will work for you, too.
California's Mother Lode Quartz Veins
The actions of the hot, ore-bearing solutions are not limited only to the deposition of material within the walls of the fissures.
The Ely Copper-Gold District of Nevada
The main ore deposits of the Ely district are associated with an east-west belt of altered and mineralized rocks measuring about one mile wide that extends 8 miles westward from Ely.
Butte, Montana—The Richest Hill on Earth
I recently had the opportunity to spend a day exploring around Butte, Montana and was amazed by the amount of mining that has taken place there. The old-timers called Butte “the richest hill on earth” and had pretty good reasons for doing so.
The Silver Islet Mountains of Utah
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.
Preserving the True History of the Ivanhoe
My partner had the contacts and it wasn’t long before we had an agreement in place and the company had a geologist on site. I recall a time when he was getting the lay of the land, so to speak, and he broke off a rock sample and inspected it with his magnifier.
Northwestern Alaska Mineral Resources
Gold and jade are actually only minor mineral resources for the Northwestern Alaska region as a whole. Modern prospecting has focused more on base metal than precious metal resources.
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