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Some Alaska Gold


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I have been privileged to see Steve's "scrape and detect" method first hand. It was many years ago at Crow Creek in Alaska. He graciously let me go over the ground first, but walked close enough behind me that I could hear his detector go off on nuggets I had missed. Back then he was also using a short handle rake to scrape, so he stops and scraps and they just keep popping up. He is second to none at finding whole "patches" of nuggets.

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Awesome haul, Steve, and with two awesome detectors!

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Great hunting skills that I hope some day I will learn.

Glad you had some time to get away and have fun, you so deserved it and more.

I will be looking for more reports and some more pictures from your adventure in Alaska.

Welcome back and good luck on your next hunt.

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On 8/13/2021 at 8:03 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

The gold is from multiple sites on a high bench deposit, not just the one pictured. The rocks in the photo are old hand tossed from a small pit just over and beyond the top of the photo. A mix of rounded old channel rocks, large sub-angular glacial rock, and broken bedrock.

garrett-goldmaster-24k-gold-nugget-detecting-alaska-steve-herschbach.jpg

The rock near the pick on the left is bedrock, and I am moving rocks covering pit blowover material, and detecting/scraping it down to bedrock, which is actually peeking out under the entire work area. The material under the rubble may be only inches deep to no more than maybe a foot to bedrock. The entire bench location was worked, and most dirt has been moved at least once, but the leftovers and tailings are riddled with lost or missed nuggets.

That's similar to the area I reported on recently.  It was placered by individuals until it was hydrauliced by a large company and then worked again in the 30's.  There seems to be more gold left over from prior activities than I had imagined.  I thought folks were much more thorough.

There is a large bedrock exposure 5 minute walk from where I live during the summer that I thought was so public and so obvious that it was exhausted.  Someone told me otherwise, and this week I have started finding flood gold and small nuggets.

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Hey Steve,

  The old "scrap and detect" method works great in certain spots.  We have been using it for years in smaller washes and even nugget patches to get down a bit deeper.  We have been using this method with hand tools, shovels, picks, pry bars, rakes and detectors/pinpointers to remove overburden and get closer to the paylayer or bedrock in many of my recent Youtube videos. 

Congrats on your recent success in Alaska.  

Rob

 

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