History & Geology
The Silver Islet Mountains of Utah
January 2014 by Alan J. Chenworth
I set up my dry washer on the north side of the cut and sampled the bed rock and dumps around me. As I was only sampling, I ran for 20-30 minutes, shoveling from a variety of areas.
Gold of Plumas County
Plumas County has a rich heritage of gold mining, much of it from placer deposits that can still be searched and panned today. Being at the far northern end of California’s famed Mother Lode, it is quite often overlooked by those searching for gold today—really a well-kept secret after all of these years!
Eastern Arizona: Gold and Base Metal Deposits Part II
In this review of precious and base metal deposits in Arizona, it is apparent that several significant mines and mineral deposits occur in eastern Arizona, and there is considerable potential for new discoveries.
Residual Placers: An Often Overlooked Gold Source
Because the forces of erosion and gravity tend to carry lighter materials like quartz away more easily, the heavy minerals like gold or silver will tend to be concentrated in the general area around the vein outcrop. These concentrations are what make residual placers so attractive.
Exploration Rush at Tonopah, Nevada
A few months later, a young, greenhorn lawyer agreed to pay to have it assayed, and the quartz turned out to be rich in both gold and silver.
Glaciers and Placer Gold Deposits
It also happens sometimes that glaciers will bury valuable placer deposits. This occurs when the glacier goes over the top of an existing placer deposit.
Sulfides and Intergrain Gold Wire Nuggets
...these nuggets have not traveled far from the lode because the golden wire lattices would have been torn apart or flattened during weathering of rock and deposition by violent stream action.
Prospecting for Diamonds
Let’s take a look at diamonds and diamond mining and see how they form, how they are used beyond just jewelry, and what leads geologists to find diamond deposits.
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