Small Mining Operations
Wyoming's Billion Dollar Nugget—The Trilogy Ends
June 2011 by David C. Freitag
The next hurdle to jump was whether the trommel motor would start again after sitting on the desert for six years without being started. The last time it had taken a three foot pipe wrench to bust it loose.
Setting Up A Placer Operation
Trommels come in two basic sections. The first section is called the scrubber unit. The second is the punch plate, where the gravels and ore of a specified size drop out into a variety of sluice box recovery units.
Underground Mining: Getting the Ore Out
Choosing the right method to move your ore and waste is all about making the right choices. Sometimes more than one method may be used during the life of a mine as an operation expands and grows.
The ABCs of XRF
Fast forward to present day and the XRF has come of age. Pull the trigger on the hand-held device and you get a nearly instant assay of the surface of a rock.
Our Readers Say
The Perfect Summer
Within the first 3 hours he and I had found pocket after pocket of gold and couldn't wait to tell Levi of our treasure.
PLP Update: Back to The 'Swamp' on Behalf of Small Miners
We spent the morning in a meeting with one of the higher-ups at the US Forest Service. I presented him with 412 complaints received from our readers, along with a summary of the complaints to make his job easier.
The “Chuck It Out” Nugget
This was no ordinary nugget. It had not traveled very far from its nearby source, and that did mean a lot, as we were searching for the source of several such nuggets found during a gold rush that occurred in 1859.
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