Prospecting & Detecting

After finding little specks and occasionally little nuggets all season, I had finally reached something economical and interesting! This had never happened before along the Pellice Valley in Italy.

Every time we prospected here we found gold, sometimes some really coarse flakes, but no large nuggets (yet).

Some of the gold is placer that was beat up as it traveled; however, quite a bit of the gold is pocket gold that is running along the surface in this area.

In this continuation of the Midwest gold series we are going to take a look at the states of Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas, look at possible locations within these states to find gold and talk about areas where gold has been found in the past.

So let’s dive in and see what I can do to convince you that this is the year you should be out staking your own claims.

There weren’t as many pieces of gold, but what I did find was bigger. As I worked my way down towards the spot that I had been working the first three days, I noticed a large crack that crossed the river.

It’s not easy to figure out what is best without testing, and so a certain level of confusion has developed about how small the ore ought to be crushed.

George was considering filling his dredge floats with closed-cell foam, ensuring that there would be no area available within each float for flooding.

Because of multiple take-out points along a ditch line, the ditches themselves become a wealth of knowledge to us present-day miners.

We descended hunched over, down a long, steep, wooden staircase to the 1,000-level.

Some of the wire forms are strange and fantastic, with wires sticking out in twisted, seemingly random directions. Others have deformed crystals and all of them have significant value to collectors.

I made my way up past where I left off and the wash was going to end in about 100 feet. It was then I got a sweet signal.

In this article, I am going to take a look at three Midwest states and go through some of the prime places for prospectors to find nice local gold there.

The burning question I needed answered was why didn’t the deposit ever get mined of at least one of the valuable minerals? A couple of reasons have come to light.

Looking at the exceptions to the basic rules is sort of an advanced prospecting discussion, but the readers of ICMJs Prospecting and Mining Journal are plenty able to handle it.

I have found gold more than 200 feet above the river. It was not unusual for nuggets of an ounce or more to be found in these deposits, but fine gold and flakes are much more common.

Watching for these areas is one of my primary targets during the winter. It doesn’t take but a few inches of the surface moving away to give a fantastic target response that you didn’t hear prior to the washing of the surface.

Palladium may well be an underexplored element and therefore an opportunity for prospectors and geologists. This is because they are often less than obvious and other than the native metals, a chemical analysis of samples is required to identify PGM-enriched rocks.

As I planned for my trips, I concentrated on how to lighten my pack yet still carry enough gear to make the trip productive and enjoyable.

Of course, I know a bit about crevicing, but Steve seems to really have a knack for it, and I’m all about continual learning. I can always learn a few tricks from the pros.