Jim in Idaho

I've been using this for several years now, and find it a useful tool in my prospecting. Is it perfect?...No. But, I see no need to have a trained geologist on hand, though in this particular case, I was training a mining engineer. Jim

I thought some of you guys (or gals) might find this interesting. To go back about 4 years...I started looking into resistivity because of the 2.2lb hunk of mearly pure copper I found in northeast Nevada. I'm still convinced there's a large lode there somewhere. So jump to now, and I had mentioned to an online friend last fall that I had used Resistivity down there, and had some, but limited experience with, but I'd built a power supply, and a system to work with a free 2d software package. He asked me to come up to the Helena area where he has several claims, and teach him how to use the system. So, Friday Chris and I loaded the Casita andm headed north. Saturday we went to one of his claims in the Marysville area. The metals, mostly copper and gold, in this area come either from quartz veins or are ancient pockets of sedimentary deposits. We wanted to determine if the oxydized copper we were finding on the surface came from a quartz vein, or were pockets of debris from farther up the hill. The image attached is what the software kicked out after we took 48 readings. Those 48 readings took the 4 of us about 6 hours to do, and then I spent another couple of hours doing the math so I could input the data in a form the software would accept. We only went to a depth of about 3 meters, as were trying to determine if there were rising quartz veins below the oxydized copper they'd been finding. In the image, the light blue is the low-resisitvity rock, and is what we want to see. The green/yellow is broken rock and overburden of various densities, and the orange/brown and deep blue/purpler is the undisturbed bedrock. You can see the pockets containing the oxydized copper they'd found, and you can also see they don't extend below about 5' of depth (1.5 meters). We covered about a 50 meter distance along an access road cut into the hillside.

Good on ya, buddy!

WOW, Gary, you been killin' it! Best wishes on a speedy recovery from your surgery. We're just starting to get out here, after the long winter. Still waiting for the rain to pass before heading to Wyoming. Jim

Simon, we weren't really looking for meteorites. Just looking for indications of gold. The crater is enormous...some Geo's claim 100 miles across, but most say about 40. The Great Basin is the only one bigger in the US. There is very little evidence of it remaining. Only a Geo would recognize the indicators. It was discovered about 30 years ago. The center is about 8 miles west of where we camped off US 93. All that said, I'd really like to find a fragment of it. We did locate an old placer location that had Lead, silver, gold, and barite/barium. We'll be going exploring in the canyon above that later this year, hopefully. Jim

Nothing like the ones you guys have down there...thank God.....LOL

From what I've been able to learn, the males have the black and white bands, for a couple of inches, ahead of the rattle, The females lack that banding. You also might notice, it looks like the male had recently shed its skin. The female is much duller in color. They generally mate shortly after leaving the winter den...that's why I figured a den was nearby, and there would be more of them in the vicinity. Jim

Chris and I spent a few days poking around a portion of then perimeter of the second largest known US meteorite crater. (Beaverhead Impact Crater) On the way back to camp one afternoon, we saw a sign for Malm Gulch about 9 miles west of Challis, Idaho. Malm is famous among geos' for its ancient petrified Sequoia stumps, which can be as much as 8' in diameter. The elevation is about 5,600', and the temp was about 75, so I knew the snakes might be out. I was alittle worried about Heidi, but we hiked on in the 1 1/2 miles. As I turned into the4 final small dry gulch, there was a knee-high shelf in the wash, and as my eyes rose up there was a small pile of rattlesnakes, At first, I thought it was one really large snake, but as I looked, I realized it was two snakes. I assume they were mating, as there was one male and one female. The female got quickly hostile, and never did calm down. The male never budged, or rattle...maybe post-coital bliss, or fatigue...LOL. Thank God Heidi was not out in front as she usually is, and Chris was able to get her corraled. We decided to beat feet back to the rig. I could get by the snakes, but we were obviously near a den area, and I didn't want to risk Heidi being bitten by a snake we didn't see. You guys be careful out there. The male snake is on the right. Jim

Bill, I think the advantage was better coverage under the coil, especially for really small gold. You are correct about getting around the patent. Now we have the spiral-wound coils which accomplish the same thing. Apparently lots of ways to skin that cat. That said, I have both a 7 1/2DF, and a straight mono 8 x 6 Sadie, and can tell very little difference between them, though if I had to choose, I'd give the very slight edge to the DF, thoughit might be my bias showing...LOL Jim

I did a bit of research and answered my own question. So, for clarification for people who aren't as dumb, or inquisitive as I am here's what I wanted to be sure of. All PI's use a single coil for both transmit and receive. But, and it explains my confusion, that single coil, for both purposes, may be divided up into several coils, or even more than one circuit, inside the detector. That was the basis for my confusion regarding the use of the term "mono" when it comes to differentiating the various coil types. It's interesting the Reg Sniff called his design a "folded" mono. Electrically, there's little difference between that and White's DF design. They both use that one circuit to the coils to accomplish both Trans, and Rec.. but both divide that coil circuit into separate coils. Jim

I understand the difference between a DF and standard mono. Maybe I phrased my question wrong. What I'm confused about apparently, is the difference between true mono's and most others. Another question is "are the DF's just another form of mono? Jim

Here's a question for you, Steve. Does the TDI setup use separate transmit/receive coils, or do they use a single coil for both functions? I'm assuming, if they use a single coil for both, than the DF coils are simply a mono coil that splits the mono into two separate coils wired in series. Jim

Sadly, Jason, I don't remember how I found that. Might have been simply visually, or running the jig, or using the saruca, or possibly while surveying anthills, of which I did about 600. I know, within a few miles, where I found it, however. But, I've never seen another one until your post. I use both a "Way TOO Cool" brand 18 watt UV light that has both long wave and short wave. Each light is 18 watts, but it draws considerable power.....about 4 amps with both bulbs on. The other I have is a mini-flashlight that is longwave only. It has an LED bulb. Unfortunately, they've yet to figure out an LED light that produces true shortwave UV light. The good thing for us is most gems that fluoresce do so in long wave, or stronger in LW, including rubies. Unfortunately for me, I'm in the 30% of the population that gets sick from using a UV light. I wear goggles that help, but even then I can only go about an hour, or a little more before getting nauseous. After your post, you can bet I'm going to be looking at the jig tailings under a UV light before throwing them out. Jim

Yeah...I noticed the hex in the pics, too. Don't know why I didn't notice that before. The Grossular garnets are the only ones that fluoresce, and I'm not sure all the colors of them fluoresce. I'm thinking tsavorite grossulars don't. I need to look that up. I'm thinking, because of the nearly identical colors, that both of our gems may have come from the same source. Hausel mentioned a creek in the Wind River range that had rubies. I forgot to post this, so after some research it looks like the only grossular garnets that fluoresce are from Quebec, and Tanzania, and are clear under natural light, so mine probably is a ruby....COOL!..Thanks, Jason. Now I need to go down in the gem room, and try to find it....LOL Jim

Hey Jason. Here's a couple of pics of mine. It's only about 1/8" in diameter.

That is super interesting, Jason. A few years ago, while diamond prospecting in the Green River Basin, I found an identical gem. It was tiny, and pink in natural light, but brilliant, and I mean brilliant red under short wave UV light. Yours is the only other one I've seen. I had decided mine was either ruby, or a grossular garnet, though I leaned toward garnet. You made my day posting that. I wish we could figure out the source location. Jim

Simon, I doubt the coil would work on both, assuming their frequencies are different, unless the freq of one is a harmonic of the freq on the other. Having never owned either, I have no idea. I know the freq of the GK is in the neighborhood of 65hz. I sorta would like to come into a GK, at some point in the future, so I'm glad they'll keep making them. Jim

Was that a price issue Carl? Jim

Who knows? For all we know, the offer was made and nobody wanted it. Jim

I think one of the things missed in the "reasons" for Whites going out of business is that Whites was a privately held company. The owner, and chief engineer was at, or beyond retirement age. Apparently he had no descendant able, or interested in running the company. I assume Ken White had been aware of all this long before the company closed, and stopped putting money into product development. I can completely understand that. He accomplished an enormous amount, and led the industry in new product ideas for decades. He just finally decided it was time. I refuse to look at this as a "failure" of any sort. I spent my entire life self-employed, and I understand this. Jim

Yup, guys. I've been kicking my own backside for several days now...LOL. I hate breaking my own rules, especially because of laziness....arrrggghhhh. Take a lesson here, and don't do what I did. Jim

Thanks, guys. We drove carefully back without finding it. Somebody obviously picked it up, so can only hope they return it. I posted it on CL "Lost & Found with a $75 reward, but no luck so far. I'm hopeful, but not optimistic...LOL Jim

I have few basic rules I've developed over my longish life. They include things like "never reward bad behavior", and "pay attention to the risk reward ratio". But my #1 rule is to "plan for what COULD" happen, not for what MIGHT" happen". So the Wife (Chris) and I are headed out the desert for a shakedown trip for the Coot, and loading up I throw my backpack of decades age (VietNam era Allis pack) into the rear Coot tub. I'd placed a sheet of plywood in there so Heidi would have a place to stand while traveling in the Coot. I KNEW I should tie the pack down, but had hauled it there a couple of weeks ago, so got lazy. Sure enough, pack and plywood disappeared some where in that 40 miles, never to be seen again. Lots of memories attached to that pack, and hundreds of hiking miles, not to mention it contained my Falcon MD-20. A good refresher, but costly. Jim

I don't have much of a dog in this fight, but that said, I think what Chase mentioned about "polishing the cannonball" is right on the money. I'm completely satisfied with my Whites detectors, for what I mainly do in this hobby, though must admit I've always missed owning a Fisher GB 2....LOL Jim

I can completely understand that, Chuck. You expect, when you buy a new product, that it will perform as it should. In any deal, two things have to happen. One, the responsibility of the buyer is to get the money to the seller. The second is that it's the responsibility of the seller to get a product, THAT OPERATES AS IT SHOULD, into the hands of the buyer. In this case Minelab had a responsibility to get a battery IN GOOD OPERATING condition into your hands. They failed, and then compounded the problem by putting their responsibility onto you. That, my friend, is crappy customer service. You should be angry. Jim