The Wild Rush to Find More Cobalt—Part I

February 2018 by Chris Ralph

While some future cobalt will come from recycling lithium batteries and other products, the coming huge need for cobalt is virtually a perfect storm of heavy demand and insufficient supply.

Placer Gold Deposits of New Mexico

February 2019

While a large number of locations have yielded some placer gold, most of the state’s placer production has come from a few productive districts.

Weathering, Erosion and Placers

April 2017
The big interest to prospectors thinking about the effect of erosion is not what might happen long into the future, but what they might find in the rivers later this summer when the water levels go down.

Eolian Placer Gold

February 2012
I would first like to mention that I am not a geologist. I have, however, spent the last 8 years intently searching for gold nuggets with a metal detector. I have found gold in numerous locations, and in several different types of gold deposits.

Critical Metals: Antimony

June 2016
I’ve been taking a look at the mining and uses of a number of critical metals in series of articles, and it’s time to take a look at antimony.

Prospecting for Copper Ores—Part II

July 2012
Copper is a critically important metal that we need to run our modern electronic society, and the long term outlook for this metal is for a steady increase in price.

Can You Recognize Valuable Ores?

August 2016
The process of recognizing ores all starts with being able to recognize some basic minerals and knowing what hard rock ore looks like in the districts where you prospect.

All About Chalcopyrite

March 2017
…there are loads of different copper minerals, but a large number of them form first in the ground as chalcopyrite and then through the effects of weathering are changed into other minerals like malachite, cuprite and chrysocolla.

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