Prospecting & Detecting
Small-Scale Miners Rock the Mining World
August 2012 by Chris Ralph
With the high price of gold, there are many new prospectors out in the hills all over the United States, and while we would all prefer to be finding those larger nuggets, it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes all that is available is nothing more than a few small flakes. The truth is, new prospectors are sprouting up all across the planet—especially in the developing nations.Paperwork Guy—A Cautionary Tale
I recently grew complacent, and it caused me to make a mistake that resulted in the loss of a mining claim. It brought my mining plans for the summer to a complete halt.
The Basics of Exploration Leases and Contracts—Part I
Let’s take a look at these important property aspects individually, because they all affect the value of a property and how much mining companies might or might not be interested acquiring it.
Prospecting and Mining Old Mine Sites
In some places valuable ores can be found within the waste material of mine dumps, sorted ore piles, and detrital vein matter at the surface. Though many of these old mine sites can be an excellent source of gold, not all are created equal.
Exploring Snakehead
On our fourth trip, we finally reached the top edge of the old hydraulic pit, and it was monstrous.
Fells Flat Gold
My wife Fran and I were brushing and repairing the road to our claim when we were interrupted by a fellow in a pretty yellow Jeep heading out to the local town of Quincy, California.
Drywashing Arizona Gold
His findings were not exaggerated—after running 82 buckets of gravels in two days we had a remarkable 27.8 grams of gold!
Pros and Cons of Big Detector Coils
Years later I returned with a new detector with a smaller coil and detector technology more sensitive to smaller nuggets. I found my first nugget within five minutes. I had a second five minutes after that.
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