Prospecting & Detecting
Weathering, Erosion and Placers
April 2017 by Chris Ralph
The big interest to prospectors thinking about the effect of erosion is not what might happen long into the future, but what they might find in the rivers later this summer when the water levels go down.
Prepping For A New Season of Gold Hunting
This article will hopefully provide a few constructive hints on how to use your downtime during the cold winter and the wet spring to best prepare for the upcoming nugget-hunting season.
Pocket Gold
Once a seam is found it can be traced for miles in either direction. While you are tracing a clay line, you are looking for indicators. The indicators that I look for are ironstone, hematite, different color clays intermingled with the clay line, and a very iron-rich, brown gritty soil.
Creating Your Own Luck
Now that you are actually going to be out there doing some prospecting, I may be able to help.
A Model Mining Operation
After he excavates the ore down to bedrock, he goes over the bedrock with a metal detector to ensure he didn't leave any gold behind before he backfills the area.
Picking Our Way Through Bedrock
Once again the coil was put over the spot but the target was in the pile now. I pinpointed, grabbed a handful of dirt and began sprinkling it over the coil until I heard that mild thud.
Placer Channel Sampling
Sampling gold placers can be rewarding, but remember to treat the samples so you are not high grading or low grading your results. Learn the rules and apply them so your samples are accurate.
Trail to Treasure
We are both very experienced working this type of ground, and we quickly found the pay layer where we would focus our efforts. The bedrock has good gold, but so does the red hard pan.
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The Bawl Mill
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Ask The Experts: Is an XRF gun useful for prospecting and mineral identification?
• Ask The Experts: Is this deposit worth working?
• Ask The Experts: Can a long range locator probe detect gold in quartz?
• The PIGMI—a DIY Crevice Tool
• Diary of a Diamond Prospector
• The Ups and Downs of Nugget Hunting
• Epithermal Gold and Silver Deposits
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes and Mineral & Metal Prices
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