Prospecting & Detecting
Rediscovering Placerville, California Part II
March 2011 by Don Robinson
To get to the gold, the miners had to remove the shale pieces and stack them on the sides while sluicing the remaining material through their boxes.Alaskan Gold Adventure
In Chicken I had my first experience with the famous Alaska blue clay, sometimes called the blue layer. The blue layer is where the best fine gold was to be found.
Romancing the Rock
With the exception of well-established operators with proven reserves and years of field experience, the high price of gold brought a flood of speculators, con men, and real estate brokers into the mix who were not previously engaged in the gold mining market.
Detecting Alluvial Bench Deposits
The same questions you ask yourself about gold trapping features in the present stream can be applied to the benches above the stream. Just imagine the stream at a much earlier time, before it cut its way down to the present level…
Prospecting for Pegmatites
…in some cases pegmatites have produced individual mineral crystals that are enormous, attaining lengths of over 40 feet long, and many of the world’s largest mineral crystals are examples that were found within pegmatite deposits.Highbanking for Gold
Pumps can be set up quite a distance away horizontally from the sluice, even hundreds of feet. It will work so long as there is sufficient water at the source where the pump is located. Vertical distance is more of a problem than horizontal distance; 30 to 40 feet is the maximum vertical climb for most pumps.
California Sniping
I opted for the underwater portion of the river. All I have to do is float down the river and pick large flakes and small nuggets out of cracks and crevices while staying cool in the summer heat.
Resurrecting An Old Hard Rock Mine
There were nice sections of vein material at the end of several drifts, like they just stopped work one day and walked away.
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The Bawl Mill
• So You Want To Be A Full-Time Prospector?
• Ask The Experts—Do I still have rights to this mining claim?
• Ask The Experts—What is a "closed" claim?
• Eastern Arizona: Gold and Base Metal Deposits Part II
• Prospecting With The Help of Fluvial Geomorphology
• Oregon Anti-Dredging Bill
• Mud Men: Pocket Miners of Southwest Oregon Part II
• The Gold of Plumas de Oro
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
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2011 Gold Prospecting & Mining Summit April 23-25 in Placerville
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Cue Resources Seeks Uranium in Paraguay
