History & Geology
Understanding and Prospecting Benches
September 2011 by Jim Halloran
The most obvious benches are usually near the valley floor, but they can be thousands of feet above the valley floor. Since benches were made by streams, they can contain placer deposits.
Understanding Rock Formations: Petrology for Prospectors
There are times when being able to recognize a type of rock can make you a much more successful prospector.
Fabulous Florence—The Golden Town of Idaho
In September 1861, on a round-about prospecting journey homeward, five California gold miners discovered gold in the area now called Florence. While watering the horses, one of the men noticed a golden color on a piece of slate bedrock in the stream...
Placer Mining At Chititu Creek, Alaska
There is reason to believe these stream valleys are still rich with gold, silver and copper.
Gold in Quartz
Because quartz and gold may be deposited together across a considerable range of temperatures, not all quartz veins are the same, and there are several different types of gold-quartz deposits.
Sierra County Gold—Part I
...this county contained some of the richest placer ground found in all of California and still produces some pretty impressive finds to this day.
Another Prospecting Adventure: Coulterville
What also helped keep Coulterville alive was the fact that the town itself happened to be sitting on top of one of the richest veins in the Mother Lode. The ledge itself was three hundred feet wide.
Gold Circle (Midas) Gold District
Many prospectors thought that Nevada was all prospected out following all the rich discoveries of the 1860s and 1870s, and what was there to be found had already been found.
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