Prospecting & Detecting
Proper Assaying of Placer Samples
November 2012 by Jim Halloran
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.Prepping For A New Season of Gold Hunting
This article will hopefully provide a few constructive hints on how to use your downtime during the cold winter and the wet spring to best prepare for the upcoming nugget-hunting season.
Weathering, Erosion and Placers
The big interest to prospectors thinking about the effect of erosion is not what might happen long into the future, but what they might find in the rivers later this summer when the water levels go down.
It Pays to Know Your Bedrock
On our last trip, we brought ropes and went down the first waterfall forty vertical feet, only to be confronted by a second, sixty-foot-high, overhanging waterfall that emptied into a slot canyon.
Proper Placer Sample Processing
...your sampling procedures should not be designed to catch gold your mining technique will never recover.
Detector Brings New Life to An Old Lode Mine
…it was immediately evident the previous owner had not been using a detector. During just a few months of working the dumps part-time, he recovered gold in quartz specimens valued in excess of $40,000.
Sunshine and Gold
What's Left Behind
I love to see old-timer workings while I am out detecting for gold. For one thing, it assures me that gold came from there. Second, it tells me gold should almost certainly still be there.
Subscription Required:
The Bawl Mill
• Ask the Experts
• Ask the Experts
• Ask the Experts
• Ask the Experts
• The Portable XRF Gun
• Gold Dredging on Oregon's South Umpqua
• The Struggle to Reopen Alaska's Largest Gold Mine
• Prospecting With a Detector: Lessons Learned
• The Rush to Treasure Hill
• Tips on Crevicing for Gold
• Using Google Earth and Other Maps
• Mining, Health Care & Taxes
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
