Prospecting & Detecting
Understanding Skim Bar Placers
September 2018 by Chris Ralph
Perhaps the most notable thing about skim placers is that they form on the top surface of gravel bars, as opposed to coarser gold placers where the weight of the gold particles allows the gold to settle down on or near bedrock.
Gold Prospecting: For Better or Worse
We all love to see that first glimmer of gold when it peeks out from under the black sand in our pan, or feel the weight of a nugget in our scoop when we dig a good target. But sometimes things don’t go quite so smoothly.
Sunset Sunbaker
He began hiking my way and was as astonished as I was when he saw it. Another high five moment! It makes you wonder how long this gold had just been sitting there on the ground.
How to Upgrade Your Pocket Plunger

A Long Dry Spell

Ancestral Yuba River Placer Gold Deposits
The small-scale miner has reasonable opportunity to exploit some of these small, rich placer gold deposits.
I Just Tripped Over A Nugget
I metal detected a number of years before I saw my first nugget peeking out from the dirt before I had scraped or dug for it. This one was in the steep sidewall of a narrow, but deep drywash.
The Potholes—California’s Oldest Known Mining District
Every time we prospected here we found gold, sometimes some really coarse flakes, but no large nuggets (yet).
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