Prospecting & Detecting
The Essentials of Dry Washing
August 2013 by Chris Ralph
Most dry washers have a feed rate adjustment. It needs to be set so that the material flows evenly over the riffles and does not bury them.
Pumping Water With Solar Power
Solar energy can be used for any size placer or hard rock mining operation. It is most practical for small and longer-term operations provided your mine is not located in a dense forest.
Dry Washing to Capture Fine Gold
There may be lots of smaller gold I cannot hear with a detector, but it looks just fine in my pan once it is out of the crevice.
Following Clues to a Lost Gold Deposit—The Northern Extension of the Cedarberg
Last month, in “Following Clues to a Hidden Gold Deposit,” I ended the article with the direction that we were on the hunt! We were getting prepared and ready to roll with our detectors, then snow came, and lots of it. We had already found the seam diggings mine on the mountainside in wild, rough brush and trees. It had been well hidden.
The Unusual Forest Nugget Patch
This is the story of a nugget patch I’ve been working on that is a bit unusual. I won’t be telling you where it is located, but I will tell you how I found it and how I’ve worked it.
Gold Indicators—What to Look for in the Goldfields
Some of the items that I’m going to go over are outcroppings, ditches, exploratory trenches and contacts/surface materials. I am going to speak about each of the above items in as much detail as I can, and then towards the end of this article I will tie them together.
Silverton's Gold
Within this area, about two million ounces of gold and fifty million ounces of silver have been mined. Faults, dikes, veins and fissures that carry the ore form a concentric radial pattern—like spokes on a wagon wheel—around the caldera core.
Gold in the San Francisco District Oatman, Mohave County, Arizona
I suspect detailed geological mapping and prospecting would lead to discovery of one or more overlooked gold deposits in the district even though it has been heavily prospected in the past.
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• Common Mistakes of the New Detectorist
• The Pearce Mineralized Area, Dragoon Mountains, Arizona—Part II
• Mining for Gemstones and Mineral Specimens
• Fighting and Winning Without a Lawyer
• Fortymile, Alaska Prospecting Adventure
• Court Says Emergency Rule in California Unjustified
• Sampling Placer Stockpiles
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• Buyer Beware! Counterfeit Metal Detectors
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• Underground in the Original 16-1 Mine
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