Prospecting & Detecting

I metal detected a number of years before I saw my first nugget peeking out from the dirt before I had scraped or dug for it. This one was in the steep sidewall of a narrow, but deep drywash.

Prospectors often wonder why gold deposits in veins like it does. Why is one vein rich while another is barren, even though they are only a few hundred feet apart?

Day three was a copy of day two. I started real low in the long wash to see if I could prove how far down the gold had made it.

You find yourself with a bucketful of concentrates that you have accumulated over the season and consider the logical next step: to reduce the bucket of cons to a gold bar. Where do you begin?

There are times when being able to recognize a type of rock can make you a much more successful prospector.

If you have a bad case of gold fever like me, then it’s nice to know that you can get some of that pretty yellow metal almost any time of the year, wet or dry.

He made some casual conversation until he got around to what really brought him into my camper.

Excited for this first notable evidence, I returned to that riverbed, looking for another paystreak and obviously more jade.

What about all that noise coming from the ground? What is a prospector supposed to do about that?

People always ask me what is so important about locating contact zones. The answer to that: Gold.

At first we decided to see what the flat by our camp would produce where the old-timers had worked it with their Pelton wheel and dragline buckets.

Selecting the wrong coil can potentially cause you to miss nuggets, so you want to be sure to select the best option for the situation at hand.

…what adjustment can I make to my dredge that will enhance its gold-catching ability?

Rivers are not just random and accidental; streams and other drainages are what they are because of the forces of erosion acting on the bedrock.

With the recent surge of interest in gold projects, it’s about time to revisit a subject that strikes fear into the hearts of small-scale miners: Permits.

When he got home that night, he looked at the plotted points of gold and trash he had dug and saw that there was a distinct line where the gold nuggets were being found.

There is a material processing principle widely used in large milling operations to improve recovery that is poorly understood by most of the micro-mining and prospecting community...

While none of the historical mining camps are active, the area is still a hub of activity for the modern prospector, and claims still blanket the hills and gulches.

After a short time, the tailings pile can get very large, and can actually block the downstream end of the sluice box.