Prospecting & Detecting
Gold Prospecting: For Better or Worse
September 2018 by Joe Chmiel
We all love to see that first glimmer of gold when it peeks out from under the black sand in our pan, or feel the weight of a nugget in our scoop when we dig a good target. But sometimes things don’t go quite so smoothly.
Australian Gold Adventure
I had my heart set on finding a large nugget on this trip, and it seemed to me that pounding known patches was not likely to turn up a monster. Inevitably I would spend at least half my day wandering off...
Prepping Your Gold Detecting Spots
All bedrock cracks that appear to be wide and deep should be cleaned out completely, and if you cannot clean it out thoroughly then you should break the bedrock apart…
Breaking Rock the Old School Way
Prospectors have many reasons why they might want to break rocks. These include dividing up a specimen too large to carry.
Huge California Nugget A Hoax
Sanders claimed he used ground-penetrating radar to survey his private property in Nevada County, California, and uncovered the chunk of gold with a backhoe when he was following up on one of the anomalies found by the radar.
Following Clues to an Old Mill and Vein Strike
My last update on this adventure was in the April 2012 issue and involved our search for the northern extension of the Cedarberg Mine. At that time we had found it and we were in the process of returning for some detecting when Mother Nature struck with a late rain and snow storm.
Speed Prospecting for Hard Rock Gold
An online video gave me some ideas, and with a lot of trial and error I developed a reliable method of panning free gold particles down below 35 microns quickly and easily.
Prospecting Research
These are just some of the ways I have been able to find new spots to metal detect for gold.
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