Small Mining Operations
Why Haven't They Mined This Claim?
May 2011 by Jim Halloran
Improvements in mining equipment and techniques, along with a higher gold price, make many mining properties profitable today that may not have been in the past.
Small-Scale Processing of Hard Rock Ores
Depending on the ore and if significant sulfides are present, a hard rock miner may be able to get away with simply using a flux to digest the other minerals that may be present.
Extracting & Smelting Your Gold
Unfortunately, not all the gold that we prospectors find is pretty, or appealing to the eyes. They are not all nice, bright, shiny nuggets with lots of character that carry high collector value.
Small-Scale Hard Rock Mining With Water Recycling
Once I have established the presence of gold in the sample, I collect five-gallon bucket quantities of the rock material for processing back at my shop.
Resurrecting An Old Hard Rock Mine
There were nice sections of vein material at the end of several drifts, like they just stopped work one day and walked away.
The Hughes Creek Placers, Montana
Gold discoveries in the Montana territories sparked a frantic stampede to these bonanza destinations in the early 1860s. Hughes Creek is located in Ravalli County, which is located in western Montana, and the gold here is...
Exploring Placers with Auger Drills
Augers can be used effectively for placer exploration with certain limitations.
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The Bawl Mill
• Ask The Experts—Where can I find information on the Abby mine?
• Ask The Experts—Is it possible for a mountain range to have good lode gold deposits and yet the area streams not carrying like deposits of gold?
• Ask The Experts—How do you amend a placer claim?
• Ask The Experts—What happened to the BLM web site geocommunicator.gov?
• The Ups and Downs of Geologic Faults
• Fountain of Youth Gold
• Legislative and Regulatory Update
• Suction Dredging Update for California & Idaho
• The Disappearance of State Mining Departments
• The Golden Streams of Butte County, California
• Melman on Gold & Silver
• Mining Stock Quotes & Mineral and Metal Prices
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One Question, Forever Unanswered—Did He Really Find the Gold?
