Nuggets of News Blog 

Dry washers are like highbankers except they do not use water to recover gold. While wet processing is nearly always faster and more efficient, especially for fine gold, dry washers are the best tool for recovering gold nuggets, pickers, and flakes from dry materials in the desert or other areas where water is not plentiful.

Drywashers are operated by shoveling gold-bearing gravels into an upper box which is covered with a screen. The larger rocks that are too big to pass through the screen slide off. Gravel small enough to go through is fed down into the lower gold recovery box, which is an inclined trough with cross riffles much like a sluice. The bottom of the recovery box consists of a thin, light-weight porous cloth. Beneath the riffle box is a blower that pulses air up through the cloth. The vibrations and air flow, combined with the shaking and classifying action of the dry washer allows the gold to settle to the bottom where it is captured in the riffles.

Keep these tips and tricks in mind when using a dry washer:

• Moist soils and clay cause problems, so be sure to crush lumps of clay and dry your dirt in the sun (plastic tarps are ideal) before running through your dry washer. Surface soils might seem dry, but if you dig down a few inches, you may find moisture in the soil that will cause your sand, gravel, and gold to stick together.

• Double-check all the "throw away" rocks. Scanning them with a metal detector is a great way to ensure you're not tossing aside gold-laden rocks. Also, don't assume old tailings piles have been totally worked out. This is  another time to use a metal detector because ordinary rocks could be  laced with gold and completely over-looked by earlier prospectors.

• Consider using a dry gold vacuum to clean out crevices in bedrock. Feed the material that you sucked up into your vacuum bucket into your dry washer.

• Drywashing can be a very dusty process, so try to stay upwind as much as possible and wear a dust mask.
• Do a clean up every couple of hours, or after processing roughly one to two yards of material.

Looking for a drywasher? The Gold Buddy brand is available in 4 sizes and also check out the new heavy duty
Gold Storm dry washer. Whichever you choose, SAVE $10 with coupon code TAKETEN at check out. Offer expires Dec. 31, 2103.

If you've been prospecting for gold using a pan, sluice, highbanker or other traditional piece of equipment, there's another tool you may want to consider— a metal detector. Gold detectors are not necessarily higher in cost than an all-purpose detector, but they are built with a higher sensitivity to pinpointing pieces of gold, and have better ground balancing and discrimination abilities.   

If you're not familiar with metal detecting, the first thing you should know is that your detector does not actually detect metal directly. It detects magnetic fields. When switched on, your VLF (very low frequency) detector first creates a magnetic field and energizes anything in the ground that responds to a magnetic field. Next, your detector seeks to find a magnetic field that has a response to its initial magnetic field. Because metals conduct electricity, they respond to a magnetic field and generate a small magnetic field of their own. Detectors detect the secondary magnetic field that conductive targets create whey they are energized by the first magnetic field sent into the ground by your detector. In general, the larger the metallic target, the larger and longer and stronger its magnetic response will be.

PI (pulse induction) detectors work a bit differently by putting magnetic field energy into the ground and then switching off and waiting a very short period before they start to look for a response. This makes them better at handling ground mineralization than a VLF detector because during that short delay the magnetic response of iron trash minerals that you don't want to find dies out, but the signal from tiny bits of buried gold does, too. VLF detectors are more sensitive to finding the smallest bits of gold, but do not as easily cancel out ground mineralization.

Read more how-to info and articles here.

At first glance, metal detecting seems like the least demanding form of prospecting for gold. But it has its share of challenges, too, just like sluicing, drywashing, or panning by hand. Whether you've been swinging a metal detector for years, or just purchased your first machine, there might be a few things you could do to increase your chances of uncovering a piece of buried gold.   

• Properly tune your detector. Whether it's a $200 or a $5,000 model, the settings are important to get right -- especially Ground Balancing and Gain/Sensitivity. Goldfields are usually heavily mineralized, which can make it really frustrating to know a false target from a real one, so follow the manufacturer's directions for ground balancing and do it often. Ideally, the Gain/Sensitivity is run as high as possible while maintaining a stable threshold as you swing. Try pumping your coil up and down during ground balancing.

• Control the Coil. The coil should be kept level and close to the ground from one end of your swing to the other. If your swing arcs and the coil is coming off the ground several inches on the ends, you may get false signals and lose a lot of depth. Also, don't swing too slowly. A Pulse Induction (PI)  detector performs better with a slower swing, but a Very Low Frequency (VLF) machine needs to be swung faster to detect targets.

• Target Recovery. If you have ever "lost" a target after you first heard it, try this: after pinpointing, start digging until you have moved a small pile of dirt. Pass the material from your pile, one scoop or handful at a time, over the TOP of the coil. You will have better target recovery if you move the target first.

Gold detectors are not necessarily higher in cost, but they are built with a higher sensitivity to detecting gold nuggets, have better ground balancing and discrimination abilities. Reading your owners' manual cannot be stressed enough. Once you know how to use your detector, then practice makes perfect. Sometimes success comes after just making a few small adjustments and getting out in the field as often as you can. If you're shopping for a gold detector, click here for ideas.  Good luck and have fun!

Nugget of News Blog

When you think about pot holes, you probably picture annoying driving hazards in the middle of the road that you try to avoid at all costs. That hole in the asphalt can cause a flat tire and help throw your car's alignment out of whack!  But a pot hole in a rock that's located in a gold-bearing stream or river is something you DON'T want to steer clear of the next time you're out prospecting.

One way a natural rock pot hole is formed is when sand, pebbles and small rocks are spun around on bedrock by river currents. As they spin, they work like a drill and slowly grind away at the rock. In the process, the stones and pebbles caught in the hole wear away at themselves as well as the bedrock until they are swept away by the current and replaced by other pebbles, sand... or bits of GOLD!  This type of natural drilling has taken place in most California rivers for thousands of years, but you can expect to find potholes in just about any river that has a rocky bed, especially if it's made of limestone, granite, or lava. Some holes are a few inches in diameter and depth, others can be quite large.

There is probably no more appropriate place for a mineral museum than in Butte, Montana, better known as the Richest Hill on Earth. The state itself is nicknamed The Treasure State, so with monikers like those, you know you’re going to see a lot of prized specimens! Situated on the Montana Tech Campus, the Mineral Museum is free and open to the public. While the museum’s collection numbers more than 15,000 specimens, about 1,300 from Montana and around the world are currently on display.

One of the highlights in the Mineral Museum is the “Highland Centennial Gold Nugget” weighing 27.5 troy ounces. The nugget got its name because it was found in the Highland Mountains south of Butte in 1989. The nugget is believed to be the 7th largest gold nugget found in Montana. A 400-pound smoky quartz crystal, referred to as “Big Daddy,” was unearthed just east of Butte. Because of Montana’s long tradition of mining, you’ll see impressive examples of colorful bornite, garnet, azurite, agate, sapphires, and more. If you want to take a sample home, you’ll find small pieces for sale in the gift shop. There’s also a good selection of books relating to minerals.

Don’t miss the museum’s display of fluorescent minerals. Cases are in a separate room and are illuminated in both long and short wavelength ultraviolet light. It’s amazing how ordinary-looking minerals radiate extraordinary vibrant shades of pink, orange, and blue when exposed to ultraviolet light. You won’t believe how halite (also known as salt) changes from white to red. Kids especially think it’s just plain fun being in the Fluorescent Room surrounded by a crazy glowing rainbow of rocks!

The Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology Earthquake Studies office is also located in the Mineral Museum. Watch the seismic activity from Montana and around the world as it is recorded and printed on the seismographs.

IF YOU GO

Montana Tech Mineral Museum

Montana Tech Campus

1300 West Park St. • Butte, MT  59701 • (406) 496-4414

• Summer Hours: Daily, 9 AM – 5 PM (June 15 through September 15)
• Winter Hours: Weekdays, 9 AM – 4 PM
• Admission is Free, although donations are appreciated.
• Elevator Access to the Mineral Museum is located between the Museum building and the Chemistry building on the campus of Montana Tech.

Whether you live in California and want to fully understand how your dredging rights were banned beginning several years ago, or live elsewhere and hear the story so you can prevent it from happening in your state, the following exerpt from the Western Mining Alliance newsletter explains the history of suction dredging, how the California ban was put into effect, and about the Coho Salmon's role in all this...

How They Banned Dredging
A tale of lies, deceit and money

It’s interesting to deconstruct how the dredging ban came about. It’s a good study in how the environmental groups, with the support of the government regulators, used fabricated information to declare an emergency; labeled suction dredgers as destructive to the environment and convinced the State to spend millions of dollars to ban dredging and then to pursue this ban in court.

To fight and win this dredging ban we must first understand how they succeeded in banning dredging. By “they” we mean the coalition of environmentalists and government regulators acting in concert to defy Congress and your Constitutional rights.

Suction dredging began in the 1950’s. The advent of underwater breathing apparatus by Jaques Cousteau in the 1940’s was quickly adopted by placer miners as a means to reach areas previously passed over by miners. The rivers had been relatively untouched by miners because of the difficulty working underwater. The new ability to work the bottoms of rivers led to the quick expansion of suction dredging throughout the State of California and western rivers.

In the 1950’s suction dredging was completely unregulated. Regulation began in 1961 when the California legislature passed SB1549 which was focused on the effects of suction dredging on salmon. The first dredging regulations were published in 1962 and the Department began issuing permits in 1962, however, the possession of a permit wasn’t mandatory. The dredging regulations were the result of a study commissioned by the Department of Fish and Game in 1960 which indicated some restrictions were required to protect spawning salmon. The report also recommended the maximum size of the suction dredge be restricted to a 8” nozzle size.

From 1960 to 1994 dredging and dredging regulations remained largely unchanged but in 1994 the Department completed their first environmental impact report which resulted in further restrictions on locations, times and equipment and made the possession of a permit mandatory. An environmental impact report is required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for all projects after 1973. Suction dredging was a project subject to permitting prior to 1973. By the law it was exempt from CEQA. The time to fight CEQA was 1993 but there were few of us that had heard of or understood CEQA to the degree we do today. Regardless, by the law, suction dredging is exempt from CEQA and there are sufficient court case rulings that affirm this.

The miners grudgingly accepted the new regulations and within two years the Department of Fish and Game was already in the process of creating a new EIR and a new set of regulations. Once the CEQA door was opened and the environmental groups realized they could use their favorite tool to ban dredgers from the rivers they began their assault on dredging. An organization of miners, including Public Lands for the People, challenged the Department over this new effort and the Department dropped the new EIR and left the 1994 regulations intact.

The environmentalists, knew suction dredgers were an easy target. As opposed to large businesses, and industries with coalitions and lawyers, we were largely undefended. Being largely solitary operators focused on our efforts to recover gold we didn’t understand CEQA, nor did we care to. While we were busy with our heads down in the river, the environmentalists were petitioning the Department to ban suction dredging and to conduct a new EIR.

Click here to download the 21-page .pdf.  You will find the full article on the  dredging ban on pages 13-15, but with so much good information, you'll want to read every page.

How Prepared Are You and Your Family? Whether it's a Severe Recession, Flood, Earthquake, Hurricane, or complete End of the World as we know it, each of us MUST be PERSONALLY PREPARED to "weather-the-storm" — and that means kids too. When crisis strikes, (or you see it on the six o'clock news) the time to prepare is over. Sort of like trying to buy insurance when the house is on fire. NOW is the time to SERIOUSLY REVIEW your preparedness supplies while time is on your side. Don't delay, but do involve your children in your prepping plans. Experts know that preparing kids ahead of time and helping them feel like part of the plan is extremely important to their health and well-being.

One of the wisest steps toward emergency preparedness you'll ever make is to have long storing food reserves on hand— enough for 2 to 6 weeks (a 4 to 12 month reserve would even be better). Food-related problems are averted if kids are already acclimated to freeze-dried food in advance. Introduce foods to your children BEFORE emergencies so there are no picky-eater meltdowns at a critical time. Here are some tips:

• Choose some freeze-dried meals that are already familiar to your child such as Cheesy Macaroni and Chili Macaroni.
• Add some freeze-dried fruits with dipping sauces to their meals. Not only will it balance the nutritional intake, kids are endlessly fascinated with dipping their food.
• Make a game of trying the various entrees and letting them pick their favorite. When they’ve picked it, they feel like it’s “theirs.”
• Keep their favorites in a semi-regular rotation on non-emergency days so freeze-dried meals don’t seem unusual.
• If they’re old enough to safely handle hot water, let them help prepare their own freeze-dried meals.

Emergency food supplies are not only a good idea at home, but are ideal for long-term storage at your hooch when you're out gold prospecting, or in a family cabin you might only use during hunting season or on weekends during the summer.

TV shows like Doomsday Preppers might seem extreme, but the principles of being prepared are mainstream and very sensible. And what better way to prepare than to make sure you have emergency food in reserve "just in case."

The goal of Public Lands for the People (PLP) is to uphold constitutional and statutory rights related to the use of appropriated and unappropriated public lands by educating the public about their rights and laws that apply in their activities, and educating the government agencies in their application of those laws.

If, while you are out gold prospecting or mining, metal detecting, working your claim, or otherwise recreating, you are challenged by a respresentative of a governmental agency or by a public servant who wants you to stop doing what you are doing, it is recommended by PLP that you do the following:

1. Politely ask if you are breaking any laws. If you are told that you are breaking a law, then ask for an explanation of the law and any municipal code that may pertain to the law.

2. Do as you are asked by the government representative, then ask them for their name, badge number, position, and agency and district they represent. Record this info. in writing along with the date, time, and location you are in when this happened.

3. Please provide the info. you collect to PLP and they will advise you of the appropriate procedure to follow.

4. If you have a pleasant response from any of the representatives you come into contact with, such as they were being informative, cooperative, or helpful, PLP would like to know about it, too.

PLP is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization whose Mission Statement is: "TO REPRESENT AND ASSIST OUTDOOR USER GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS INTERESTED IN KEEPING PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LANDS OPEN TO PROSPECTING, MINING, AND OUTDOOR RECREATION THROUGH PUBLIC EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DATA, AND LEGAL MEANS."
 

For more information about the great work being done by Public Lands for the People, visit their website www.plp2.org

Would you like a FREE box set of Gold Fever 2011 ($65 value) produced by Gold Prospectors Association of America? Make any purchase during the month of August, and your order could be randomly drawn at the end of the month to win the 7-disc box set packed full of your favorite Gold Fever moments from 2011.

Join host Tom Massie as he travels the world in search of one of the planet’s most precious metals ... Gold! From his backyard in California to the glaciers of Greenland, this set contains 13 commercial-free episodes!

To qualify for the random drawing, simply order what you need, and be sure to enter the words GOLD FEVER in the Extra Information field when you check out. That tells us you are interested in owning Gold Fever 2011. Nothing extra to sign up for, nothing extra to do. All qualified orders received August 1-31, 2013 will be placed into a random drawing and one lucky person will be sent this box set containing over 600 minutes of pure prospecting adventure -- that's a $65 value for FREE!