Prospecting & Detecting
Prospecting for Diamonds
January 2013 by Chris Ralph
Let’s take a look at diamonds and diamond mining and see how they form, how they are used beyond just jewelry, and what leads geologists to find diamond deposits.The Smell of Gold—Part I
Some claim they can smell gold. This may be, but when I take a whiff of gold, I smell dirt, rotten eggs, garlic or just nothing: my nose is everything but sensitive.
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.
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.
What About Palladium?
Palladium may well be an underexplored element and therefore an opportunity for prospectors and geologists. This is because they are often less than obvious and other than the native metals, a chemical analysis of samples is required to identify PGM-enriched rocks.
The Heavy Minerals in Your Concentrates
The fact that mineral deposits can contribute specific types of heavy minerals is why the analysis of the heavy mineral concentrates in the streams of an area can be an important prospecting technique for finding undiscovered mineral deposits.
A Few Tips and Tricks for Beach Mining
When you think about the extremes to which a miner will go to get a little gold, it occurred to me beach gold could be "easy pickings."
Blackberries and Gold
There were iron stains all over and even a few places where I could see iron trash sticking out of the bedrock. These would be ideal spots to start with as the gold travels with the iron and lead.
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• From the Editor
• Ask the Experts
• Iron Minerals, Your Detector and Gold
• The Robinson Mine—Big Things Happen Here
• Forty-Six Nuggets
• Customizing Your Dredge
• Small Miner Beats Forest Service in Court
• Using Vegetation and Soil Conditions as Prospecting Aids
• Green Valley Reconnaissance
• Gold Pour Signals Revival in the Mother Lode
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
