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.

Piggin' for Gold

May 2015
Take a look at the picture—it’s pretty simple and you can build it yourself.

Potential Gold at Old Hydraulic Sites

October 2013
So why would a modern-day prospector want to learn about a method of mining that was banned by the courts more than a century ago?

Hunches, Choices and Guesses

September 2013
When you approach a location, even if you've been there before, you should consider all the factors and conditions present at the site. This includes both natural and man-made factors.

Iowa Hill District

June 2012
For the last two years we’ve held a hands-on prospectors training session in the Iowa Hill district of California’s Mother Lode country as a part of our Gold Prospecting and Mining Summit event. Because of this, I thought it might be good to take a look at the history, geology and opportunities that the Iowa Hill district still offers to the individual prospector.

Detecting Alluvial Bench Deposits

February 2017
The same questions you ask yourself about gold trapping features in the present stream can be applied to the benches above the stream. Just imagine the stream at a much earlier time, before it cut its way down to the present level…

A Return to Silver City, Idaho

July 2014
...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.

Confluence Placers

June 2013
Confluences of placer streams are well known as concentration sites for heavy minerals. The basic reason is that...

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