Prospecting & Detecting
Placer Gold Deposits of Utah
December 2018 by Chris Ralph
The placer deposits of Utah occur in two distinct types of environments. These are 1) placers found adjacent to, and derived from, gold, silver and base-metal deposits; and 2) placers found in major rivers and derived from unknown, distant sources.
Iowa Hill District
For the last two years we’ve held a hands-on prospectors training session in the Iowa Hill district of California’s Mother Lode country as a part of our Gold Prospecting and Mining Summit event. Because of this, I thought it might be good to take a look at the history, geology and opportunities that the Iowa Hill district still offers to the individual prospector.
Selectable Frequency vs Multi Frequency Detectors
I like to think in terms of “conductive mass” because it is a combination of both the conductivity of the metal and the size of the target that determine how a detector sees conductivity.
The Gold Of Horseshoe Bend
And we eventually reached gold. It was a winding crevice of beautiful white quartz lined with small nuggets and loaded with fine gold. There were flakes and small granular pieces—there had to be a hundred or more.
Arizona Prospector Rescued from Mine Shaft
“I heard him hollering down in the hole as soon as I got there,” he said. “I was just glad to see him alive.”
The Reason We Fight
Joy was written on his face, holding up the nugget—his first ever nugget—that he and his grandpa dug up together.
Divide and Conquer—Detecting Old Placer Grounds with Friends
He no sooner had turned around and started moving when I hollered again that I had another nice one.
Proper Assaying of Placer Samples
The whole purpose of sampling mineralized ground is to measure the values in a small volume of material that would be representative of a much larger volume of similar material. The key word is representative. Chemical and fire assaying will not accurately represent placer deposits by themselves.
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