Prospecting & Detecting
Selecting A Low-Risk Region To Explore, Mine or Invest
August 2019 by Chris Ralph
“The evidence is clear—mineral deposits alone are not enough to attract precious commodity investment dollars...”
How Rich Must My Ore Be?
How rich does a hard rock ore have to be for it to be worthwhile to process and extract the gold?
Gold Placers of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
The biggest obstacle is that like many streams on the Kenai Peninsula, high water during the summer months from snow melt and rain can make dredging nearly impossible. The best dredging is in the colder months of the year.
Detectors: Past, Present and Future
Detectors were invented long before I was born, but it was in the 1960s when they started to become an item popular enough to power a fledgling industry. The key development was miniature transistor technology replacing the old fashioned tube technology of the 1950s, making lightweight, affordable detectors possible.
California State Panning Championships—Foresthill, CA Heritage Celebration
Here's the kicker—for every lost flake there was a five minute penalty added to the time. Lost gold generally meant you didn't make it past the preliminaries.
Southern Oregon's Illinois River—A Lesson in Sharing
Our theory was that a dredge would collect far more material in a shorter period of time, leaving us with ounces of gold every day.
Using Countercurrent Material Flow to Improve Gold Recovery Efficiency
There is a material processing principle widely used in large milling operations to improve recovery that is poorly understood by most of the micro-mining and prospecting community...
Residual Placers: An Often Overlooked Gold Source
Because the forces of erosion and gravity tend to carry lighter materials like quartz away more easily, the heavy minerals like gold or silver will tend to be concentrated in the general area around the vein outcrop. These concentrations are what make residual placers so attractive.
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The Bawl Mill
• Our Readers Say
• Ask The Experts - What is a 'wissbanger'?
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Papa's Got A Brand New Dredge!
• Resurrecting An Old Hard Rock Mine--The Saga Continues
• Research Tools for The Modern Prospector
• Silver Peak, Nevada: A Little of Everything
• Vindication for Montana Veteran Joe Robertson
• Green Returns And Opportunity Is Almost Gone
• Vehicles Equal Moving Deductions for Mining Operations
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
