Prospecting & Detecting
Sampling Placer Stockpiles
August 2013 by Jim Halloran
Sampling other people's stockpiles or dumps has some inherent risks that sampling undisturbed ground does not have.
Mass Wasting & Gold Deposits
Not all of these slides and debris flows will produce results, but if you search for these while prospecting in your gold producing areas, then you can increase your odds of finding new gold.
California Gold Adventure
All locations gave up some gold, but one particular section of exposed bedrock with steep, packed crevices kept giving us good, consistent results. We had found our spot.
Swing and a Miss
A very good baseball hitter might get a hit roughly one time out of every three at-bats, but for prospectors often the results are much sparser and it may take many trips before the prospector hits a home run.
Metal Detecting Old Hard Rock Mine Dumps
The type of mine dump that is best for metal detecting are the ones that consist of mixed sizes of rock and are located near some sort of excavation, commonly a shaft or adit. Sometimes the piles located along a trench dug by the miners can be productive as well.
Proper Placer Sample Processing
...your sampling procedures should not be designed to catch gold your mining technique will never recover.
Rediscovering Placerville, California
Several areas came to mind, but each was eliminated for one reason or another. One that seemed to be hanging on was the old historic mining town called Placerville.
Twenty Minutes on a Five-inch Dredge
The first thing I realized was this was not a toy—this thing had power and I needed to really pay attention. I got into position, took a deep breath, and pushed that monster into the hard pack.
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• The Essentials of Dry Washing
• Fortymile, Alaska Prospecting Adventure
• Court Says Emergency Rule in California Unjustified
• Lower Prices Bring Layoffs
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• Buyer Beware! Counterfeit Metal Detectors
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