Prospecting & Detecting
The Subsurface Suction Dredge
November 2013 by Steve Herschbach
The problems of the submersible dredge tube are addressed by the subsurface dredge, where the enclosed sluice recovery tube is suspended from a flotation assembly...
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.
Think You Got It All? Guess Again!
May 2016Is your gold recovery actually 95%, 90%, or even a really poor 50%? If you are not testing to know what it really is, you just don’t know. Some do regular testing, but most do not.
Selenium, Mercury and Suction Dredging—Studies Contradict CA State Water Resources Board
Federal and state regulatory agencies often cite mercury and methyl mercury in our waterways as a major factor for further restrictions on placer mining, and on suction gold dredge mining, in particular. However, these regulatory agencies are minimizing selenium and its neutralizing effects.
The Significance of Nuggets in Placers
Chances are better that both types of gold did not come from the same source. Let's look at the probable conditions to cause two types of gold in a placer.
A Return to Silver City, Idaho
...we were able to pull out close to another 3+ ounces of small, angular Silver City gold. This also included several more small nuggets, pieces of wire gold and some quartz-gold pieces—not bad for 4 days with a small sluice.
Detecting Strategies for Heavily Forested Areas—Part II
Patience and persistence is the name of the game when you are detecting this way for gold, as you will have to do a lot of work preparing the ground to detect with any degree of success.
Critical Minerals: Titanium
The metal is expensive, not because it is rare but because of the expense to produce and work it. The minerals mined for titanium are all oxides, unlike many base metals that are mostly mined as sulfide minerals.
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The Bawl Mill
• Ask the Experts
• One Potato, Two Potato...
• Proper Placer Sample Processing
• Strategic Metals—Part I
• Dry Washing to Capture Fine Gold
• Are There Any Good Prospects Left?
• Ophir—Possibly the Best Kept Secret in Alaska!
• Southern Oregon's Illinois River—A Lesson in Sharing
• Using Sucker Guns to Find Gold
• Making Adjustments to Catch Fine Gold
• A Few Thoughts About Successful Nugget Hunting
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
