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.
Gold: Is It Everywhere?
Gold, on the other hand, is super rare, and is one of the rarest elements in the earth’s crust. It averages only 0.000004 percent of the earth’s surface. That is four parts in a billion.
Time Well Spent
Time is a commodity which if traded would dwarf the price of gold. Nobody has enough of it; we can’t make more of it; and whether squandered or spent wisely, once gone, it’s gone forever. To find gold we have to spend time.
Hard Rock 101: Blasting With Kinepak Explosives
Fortunately, there are products on the market that can address these problems and make a small-scale mining operation feasible.
Pinpointing for Gold
This rock had been with a family for many years and they were cleaning up an old workshop that had lots of minerals and miscellaneous “ore” samples.
The Madonna Nugget
It was down deeper than I expected for surface trash. It wasn't until I was down six inches that the target screamed from my scoop.
Preparing For The 2021 Mining Season
On my final prospecting day of 2020, I went up to a spot where I had found gold years before and had my best day of the year—four nuggets for nearly one-quarter-ounce of gold.
Gold Prospecting for Better or Worse: Man vs Paydirt
As I laid in my Jeep and tried to get some rest, I began to realize how tired I was. I felt like a little kid who walked around Disneyland for 12 hours with his parents.
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