Go Prospecting After A Storm
Gold deposits in creeks and rivers are replenished after large storms. Heavy rains cause erosion of soils along the hillsides, which move gold down into the river.
This type of replenishment occurs every spring in most areas. Normal snowmelt and spring runoff is a natural even that releases gold. It was millions of years of this process that made the tales of riches so impressive during the early gold rushes.
Even one large storm can make a noticeable difference in the amount of gold found though. Youd be surprised how much gold can move around after one large high water event.
Flash flooding in the desert is a good example of this. While a dry wash might go relatively undisturbed for years and years, one massive flash flood can cause considerable changes to a wash. Not only does it add gold from the surrounding hillsides, but it also exposes fresh bedrock and will release gold that has been hidden under overburden.
Keep this in mind the next time someone tells you that all the gold has been found already or that an area has already been mined out. The natural processes of erosion make it so an area is never fully depleted of its gold.
Value Is Roughly Multiplicative
If we have these different dimensions then the total value of the work done is equal to the product of these dimensions. In Figure 11 this is represented by volume, which we want to be maximising. This means we want to be doing reasonably well on each of the different dimensions, or at least not terribly on any of the dimensions. Some implications here might be that if we have an area and an intervention that we are excited about, but we can only find a mediocre team working on it, it may be better not to support them, but to try and get somebody else working on it. Alternatively, we could do something to really improve that team. Similarly, we might not want to support even a great team if they are working in an area that doesn’t seem;important.
How To Properly Use A Detector So You Recover All Gold From Your Site
Here is some steps you can take to ensure you recover ALL the gold from you hard found site and leave nothing for the next person.
Basic Detector Technique
- Turn your detector on and let it rest for a few minutes before ground balancing it.
- Remove all metal objects from your clothes and belt as possible – no boots with metal in them.
- Tune and ground balance your detector according to the instructions for your machine. Do this regularly while detecting to adjust to different ground conditions,
- Use the coils appropriate to the ground conditions, size of gold or depth of gold you are seeking.
- Use a slow sweep speed about 4 seconds from side to side.
- Keep the coil parallel to the ground at all times, especially at the end of the sweep.
- Keep the coil as close to the ground as possible without scraping it on the ground.
- Overlap your coils sweeps so that you cover the whole area – otherwise you will miss gold.
- When you have a target signal – sweep the coil at different angles again over the target.
- Pinpoint the target by swinging your coil North/South and East/West over it to see where the sound intersect
- Dig all Targets!!
- As you scrape the rock material out of the hole test to see if the target has moved from the hole.
- When you have the target in the loose sand either use a plastic shovel or your hands to find the gold.
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The Geology Of Placer Deposits
A placer deposit is a concentration of a natural material that has accumulated in unconsolidated sediments of a stream bed, beach, or residual deposit. Gold derived by weathering or other process from lode deposits is likely to accumulate in placer deposits because of its weight and resistance to corrosion. In addition, its characteristically sun-yellow color makes it easily and quickly recognizable even in very small quantities. The gold pan or miner’s pan is a shallow sheet-iron vessel with sloping sides and flat bottom used to wash gold-bearing gravel or other material containing heavy minerals. The process of washing material in a pan, referred to as “panning,” is the simplest and most commonly used and least expensive method for a prospector to separate gold from the silt, sand, and gravel of the stream deposits. It is a tedious, back-breaking job and only with practice does one become proficient in the operation.
First Steps For The Beginner Prospector
Like trying anything new for the first time a bit of advice can go along way to ensuring your first gold prospecting experience is a good one. You will need some local know-how, good prospecting equipment and some gritty determination.
The traditional method of gold prospecting is to pan for gold in streams. This is how you find gold nuggets, which are almost always found on the surface. There are many locations around the world where gold panning in streams is still yielding great results so go for it!
*Receive the best price for your gold nuggets! When youve found for your first gold nugget, contact PMT for accurate analysis and prompt payment. PMT are the preferred buy for a large number of Australian prospectors.
Gold Panning
The first step is to purchase yourself a gold pan, a large shallow dish usually dark in colour to help you easily pick out the gold. Find a good area where gold is known to be found, and use your pan to scoop sediment from the shallow river bed. The technique for gold panning involves gently swirling the sediment and water around in your pan, separating out any gold that you find. Gold is heavier then the sediment and will sink to the bottom of your pan. Keep practicing your technique, training your eye to spot genuine gold and take the opportunity to learn from an experienced gold prospector if you can.
Using a Metal Detector
Basic Gold Prospecting Equipment
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Comparative Advantage At Different Levels
Now we have applied this at an individual level, we can also apply it at the group level. We can notice that different organisations or groups may be better placed to take different;opportunities.
On an even more speculative level, we can apply this idea to time. We can ask ourselves: “What are we, today, particularly well suited to do, compared to people in the past and people in the future?” We cannot change what those in the past did, but we can make a comparison of what our comparative advantage is relative to people in the future. If there are going to be different possible challenges in the future that we need to meet, it makes sense that we should be working on the early ones. Because if challenges are coming next year, the people five year later just do not have a chance to work on;that.
Another consideration is that we have a position to influence how many future people there will be who are interested in and work on these challenges. We have more influence over that than people in the future do, so it may make sense as a thing for us to focus;on.
Feed It Slow Dont Add To Much Material Too Quickly
When feeding material into a sluice box, you dont want to add it too fast. For a sluice to operate at its peak performance, you should add gravel at a moderate pace. This allows the for the functionality of the sluice to do what it is supposed to do, by allowing lighter material to be discharged out the back while heavier materials are retained in the riffles of the sluice box.
Getting the proper water flow through your sluice box will ensure that you capture the as much gold as possible.
Rather than digging and shoveling directly into the head of the sluice, try classifying your material into a 5-gallon bucket, and then slowly adding material with a small scoop.
Watch how the sand and gravel works its way through the sluice box and out the other end. It should evenly flow through the box and over the riffles evenly. With some trial and error, you should get a feel for how fast you should be adding material.
You can add more material at once if you have already classified your gravels. So you will actually be able to sluice faster once everything is classified down.
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Wash Out Lighter Material
Begin to tilt your pan forward as you rotate it and allow the lighter sand and gravel to wash out over the front edge. Be sure the riffles are at the front of the gold pan and the material is washing out over them so they can begin to help trap the gold. Keep doing this until only a small amount of the lighter material is left along with the heavier black sands.
Take the gold pan out of the stream but leave about an inch of water covering the material. Carefully swirl the material around in the pan. If you happen to see any gold at this point, carefully take them out. Place the pan back in the water and repeat this process, gently washing away any more of the lighter material left in the pan. Remove the pan keeping about an inch of water in it.
How To Find Common Low
Here are other tips for finding common low-pressure gold deposit areas. These tips apply at the macro and micro scales, from rivers to smaller creeks.;
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Look for areas where the stream gradient changes from steep to shallow or where the water flattens out and slows.;
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Look where the river bed widens after a narrower area. These areas are where heavy minerals drop during flood flows.;
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Look for inside bend deposits. Slower water found on the inside of bends creates eddies where heavies drop.;
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Look around, and especially behind, large rocks in the rivers flow.;
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Look for bedrock exposures. Heavy minerals like gold sink to the bottom over time. Any areas of bedrock form a floor where gold can accumulate.;
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Look for cobble bars . Look for larger cobbles and dark rocks. Test the top foot or so of gravel in between the larger cobbles.;
This is a good and concise article with photos that describes many of these geologic and hydrologic features to look for.
As long as enough water is present to pan, prospecting in low water season offers greater access to potential deposits than during higher water seasons. However, be very careful around the river during high flows.;
When the water is low enough, pan the top six inches of gravel in the lowest part of the main water flow, aka the gut of the creek. I’ve had much success with this tactic. It also works well in seasonally dry desert washes.
A pan and a shovel get you started on the hunt.
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Small Prospectors And Total Gold Production
Successful gold mining under present conditions is a large-scale operation, utilizing costly and sophisticated machinery capable of handling many tons of low-grade ore each day. The grizzled prospector with a burro is no longer a significant participant in the search for mineral deposits, and the small producer accounts for only a minor share of the total production of metals including gold.
Gold core at the lab: The core recovered from the Bend massive sulfide deposit was 3″ in diameter and was recovered in 10-foot sections. The sections were extracted from the drill stem into plastic bags and taken to a laboratory for careful examination, sampling and analysis. USGS image.
Crush Ore Samples For Free Gold
Most prospectors today spend most of their efforts searching for placer gold, but some prospectors specialize in hard rock mining and searching for valuable gold ores.
The first thing to understand is that it takes a trained eye to identify actual gold ore. Most shiny rocks that people find are not gold . I have had literally hundreds of people email me their pictures of rocks thinking they had struck the Mother Lode.
You dont just look at a rock and guess whether its gold or not. If you seriously want to figure it out then you need to crush up your ore and pan it out to see if there is any gold in it!
Most small-scale prospectors should focus their interests on free-milling gold. This is gold that is large enough to show visible colors when an ore is crushed up. There are lots of gold ores out there that contain gold that is so small that its invisible. Some of the richest gold mines in the world mine this type of gold, but they have the proper equipment needed to extract it. This type of gold ore is generally not profitable for the average prospector to focus on.
Focusing on high-grade, free-milling gold is the best bet for most prospectors. You can get a good quality mortar and pestle to crush up small specimens and examine them for gold. These are small and can easily be put in a backpack, or you can bring home small ore samples and crush them at home. Just make sure that you take careful records of where you collected your samples.
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Look For Identify Ground Sluicing /hand Diggings
Hand stacked rock piles are another excellent indicator of historic mining activity. While mechanical mining methods could often be used in the major drainages, the smaller creeks and gulches that had limited water generally needed to be worked by hand. A miner had to manually dig down to bedrock to get down to the gold. Any rocks that were encountered in their digging needed to be moved out of the way and set to the side.
There are miles and miles of creeks and gulches that were worked by early-day placer miners. And the evidence of hand stacked rocks is one of the most notable indicators that they were there. These rock piles are generally still undisturbed.
Some prospectors have a hard time telling the difference between dredge tailing and hand placers diggings. The uniformity of the rock piles is the easiest way to tell. Hand stacking is less consistent and even. Dredge tailings are usually more uniform. Dredge tailings are more common on rivers, while hand placering was usually done on smaller creeks and gulches where a dredge could not be used.
Where To Go Gold Panning
There are many places to go gold panning, from up in a mountain river or stream, to a small creek and the ocean. Find out what to look for to find a great spot to go gold panning in this video and bullets below!
- Prospecting Rivers, Creeks, & Streams
When prospecting in a river, you will want to look for both fast and slow-moving water. The bends in the river where the gold can get trapped. Gold is found where water flow is altered by obstacles such as boulders and logs or by watercourse contours, such as bends in river.
Gold can also be found where two rivers or streams come together. It is whats called a “confluence zone.” Gold will tend to build up as a pay streak in these areas. Water is slowed down by sand bars so gold tends to drop out and build up there. You want to look for signs of gold like black sands, pyrite and small quartz, as these are all usually good indicators of gold being in the area. Garnets may also be present, often appearing in many shades of colors including red, orange and pink!
Remember, don’t forget to check public land records in the proper BLM State Office that;will show you which locations you can prospect for gold.
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How To Gold Pan
Precisely because gold is very heavy, we can recover it with a pan. Shovel up some gravel and sand, use a classifier screen to remove big rocks, shake the remaining material around with water in your pan, let it settle, and wash away the lighter stuff on top. Whether you shake side-to-side or swirl is a matter of choice. What is important is that the final shaking ensures the gold is at the very bottom and that you let the pan full of material become settled and stationary before washing away the lightest material on top.;
Repeat the shake and wash away process until only a few spoonfuls of heavy minerals remain. This will be all black sand and heavy little rocks in most areas, usually black with some green and purplish ones. Gently swirl the water around to reveal the gold, and suck it up with your snuffer bottle.;
Lead is also very heavy. Youll often find lead fishing weights and bullets where rivers deposit heavy materials. One old trick to help gain confidence panningdrop five or ten lead BBs in a pan full of river material. Then, pan as usual and verify you still have all your lead bbs. Flatten these lead pieces with a hammer to more closely mimic gold flakes if you want.;
Here’s an entertaining video from Jeff Williams that covers the basics and more.
Keep Quiet About Your Gold Finds
I think every gold prospector who has been at this for a while can relate to having someone else find their secret spot after they told someone about their find. Theres nothing quiet as frustrating as telling someone else the good news about a recent gold discovery, only to have that person tell others about it, or to go in the area and look for gold themselves.
Most smart prospectors have learned to keep quiet when they find gold. Some even go as far as to only mine at night when people wont see them.
Keep quiet about your gold discoveries until you have thoroughly worked the area.
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