Prospecting & Detecting
Volume is the Key to Success
June 2017 by Alan J. Chenworth
While recovery rates are important, they must necessarily be secondary to the volume of material processed. Running more material at lower recovery rates is generally preferable to increasing the efficiency of the system.
Take a Kid Detecting
I thought things started off okay until I realized I had forgotten some of my gear and had to return to the house. My troubled start was not helped when my boy came up to me a few minutes after my return to show me his first nugget of the day.
Sampling Placer Stockpiles
Sampling other people's stockpiles or dumps has some inherent risks that sampling undisturbed ground does not have.
Australian Gold Adventure
I had my heart set on finding a large nugget on this trip, and it seemed to me that pounding known patches was not likely to turn up a monster. Inevitably I would spend at least half my day wandering off...
The Hunch
The mysteries of this spot were only just starting to develop. There is nothing but very bland granite-type rocks here, meaning no bold, favorable indicators.
Falcon Fanatic: Journey of a Novice Detectorist
My first day using my pinpointer I detected an area where the fellas’ big guns had swooped in and cleaned up all the “big gold” and I got over sixty tiny pieces of gold.
Dredging Do's and Don'ts
I’d start the day by crawling out of my dome tent, cooking up some Spam and eggs, and heating water for instant coffee on the Coleman stove.
4 Keys to Successful Nugget Hunting
Lots of prospectors are trying out nugget detecting for the first time and finding out that it isn’t all that easy. In fact, in my opinion, metal detecting for nuggets is perhaps the most difficult form of prospecting that one can take on.
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The Bawl Mill
• Ask The Experts: What indicator rocks should I be looking for in northern Nevada?
• Ask The Experts: What to do with scheelite
• Ask The Experts: Small-scale drilling
• Quartzsite Gives Up Some Big Gold
• Prospecting After Winter Storms
• How to Stake Your Own Claim—Researching Mining Claims
• The Birthday Nugget Patch
• MMAC Update
• The Goldfield Mining District, Nevada—Part I
• Getting Started
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
