Historically, Montana has been an important gold producer, in terms of both lodes and placers, and it still produces gold for the prospector today.

With successively lower temperatures as the water mixture cools, new sets of minerals are formed and many of those stable at a higher degree of heat became subject to alteration as the temperature progressively moved lower.

Mining claimants who wish to retain their mining claims on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands through the 2021 assessment year must pay a maintenance fee or file a maintenance fee waiver certificate on or before September 1…

Another little gem of equipment he built was a nifty sample splitter. In order to get accurate assays, you need to have really good, representative samples for the assayer to process.

The problem is that extracting gold from hard rock is often a lot more difficult than processing placer gravels. Still, there is some very high-grade ore out there in many old mining areas.

When my “anonymous” friend told me the rock tub was probably a hundred miles from where he safely stashed it, I decided to build another sled and improve on my old design.