The Birthday Nugget Patch

June 2017 by Fred Mason

Down around 10 or 12 inches I hit a large cobble that appeared to be one type of hot rock for this area. I thought bad things about the new technology until I checked the rock.

Attention to Detail - Part II

September 2016
Ditches almost always started in the high country and contoured the mountainsides, making a long drop, usually many miles away, to the goldfields. There are ditches in Trinity County that originate at seven and eight thousand feet in the Trinity Alps that carried water almost thirty miles.

Proper Placer Sample Processing

November 2013
...your sampling procedures should not be designed to catch gold your mining technique will never recover.

Detecting Strategies for Heavily Forested Areas

December 2016
Looking for nugget laden bedrock in forested mountain regions, you first need to explore the banks of the gold-bearing streams and look for the bedrock that is exposed as this is your starting point.

Hundreds Rally in Support of PLP Octoberfest Fundraiser

December 2014
...more folks rolled in on Saturday morning and many were eager to venture out onto the Sleepy Bear property—all 415 acres—and try their luck at finding some gold.

Prospecting and Mining Old Mine Sites

December 2016
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.

Prospecting for Pegmatites

July 2015

…in some cases pegmatites have produced individual mineral crystals that are enormous, attaining lengths of over 40 feet long, and many of the world’s largest mineral crystals are examples that were found within pegmatite deposits.

The Reason We Fight

July 2015
Joy was written on his face, holding up the nugget—his first ever nugget—that he and his grandpa dug up together.

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