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.
Placer Gold Deposits of New Mexico
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.
Gold in The Silver Crown District, Wyoming
When my field assistant Jay Roberts and I entered the mine, it appeared as if someone just walked out of the mine, turned off the lights and never returned.
The Silver Islet Mountains of Utah
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.
Prospecting for Copper Ores—Part II
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.
Refractory Gold Processing
After your excitement peaks when you first receive the high gold assay from the vein you just exposed, you ponder how you will extract and sell your gold. You will need to develop a flow sheet for your process to optimize your recovery and minimize your costs and permit requirements.
Prospecting for Pegmatites
…in some cases pegmatites have produced individual mineral crystals that are enormous, attaining lengths of over 40 feet long, and many of the world’s largest mineral crystals are examples that were found within pegmatite deposits.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.
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