Prospecting & Detecting
Summertime Gold Panning
September 2016 by Chris Ralph
I have smaller pans for cleaning black sand concentrates, big pans for taking large samples, pans with corners for pouring out materials, and pans with lots of special riffles. This variation is why I have so many pans—they each have their specialty.
Take it to Bedrock
Picking the right spot to placer has to do with years of experience, and a little luck. The textbooks can tell you where it should be, but sometimes the rules just don’t seem to apply.
Detecting Old Ground Sluice Locations
Ground sluicing, surfacing and scratching are a few names given to the recovery of gold in shallow areas. Where I live, the hills are dotted with small surface diggings.
My Lucky Month of March
My wife Maureen and I spend part of our winter season in the Quartzsite, Arizona area. One fine March morning, we left our RV camping area at approximately 10am in search of that elusive yellow metal with our metal detectors.
Detector Brings New Life to An Old Lode Mine
…it was immediately evident the previous owner had not been using a detector. During just a few months of working the dumps part-time, he recovered gold in quartz specimens valued in excess of $40,000.
12-Year-Old Unearths Large Diamond
It is the eighth largest brown diamond to be found and certified by park staff.
Rattler's Gold
Rick donned a pair of fiberglass shin guards that he normally wore dredging, just in case he uncovered the rattlesnake during his digging and rock moving. I wasn’t convinced they were going to provide enough protection.
The Gold of Plumas de Oro
Their rewards were far better than they had anticipated, resulting in one of the best clean-ups they had ever seen.
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• Our Readers Say
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