Sasquatch

Interesting, just found a youtube that shows some of the finds. Looks like they found a stash of jewlery and valuables lost in the lake, not a lava flow, not naturally occuring gold. Interesting article on gold in volcanos though, most forms very deep, seems like even if some was lifted to the surface the gold would likely sink to the bottom of the flow and be buried very deep in the cooled lava: http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/gold

Most stuff around my house is fairly shallow, it hits virgin ground and bed rock pretty quick and is mostly trash, but a couple chunks of iron were about 12" down. Tomorrow is a big day, planning to head out on my first gold hunt. Today I was impressed to find 3 small air rifle pellets, and perhaps a deformed small caliber bullet. These seem to sound pretty close to small gold nuggets/pickers I've tested with with detector. We'll see if I find anything!

I always thought they were the same but had to google it, you're right thundereggs are solid and geodes hollow, never knew that. A friend was given an uncut geode and I took it in there, they sliced it but that's all it was, a tile saw, moving slow with lots of water. Would take a good bit of polishing to shine them up, but they can do that also, cost depends on size and time it takes to polish. Better than smashing with a sledge hammer to see what's inside. The banded one does look like an agate, some are more translucent than others.

Just wanted to provide this link, it says metal detectors are allowed in Alaska State Parks but I believe you still cannot do any digging except in streams/gravels bars in Chugach State Park and the Kenai Penninsula State Parks where panning is legal. A bit vague if you cannot dig, but I guess you can look for dropped coins, etc and the historic artifiact/historic site restrictions still exist as well. http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/faq.htm#goldpan Can I use a metal detector? is about halfway down the page.

Very late to the conversation, just joined the forums. That looks almost identical to the petrified wood on the Kenai, AK. Pretty common but younger and less mineralized than that of AZ. While you might not be known for petrified wood in Ohio, Ohio and Pennsylvania have a lot of coal, this type of petrified wood seems to be found near coal seams, often times we find pieces that look half coal/half petrified, rarer to find mineralized stuff up here.

Hey Mac I am a pretty novice rock collector, so no expert. The first few labelled thundereggs? look like chert, a type of fine grain quartz common up there, flint is a type of chert and has that fracture pattern. The round rocks could be geodes, I thought that’s what they call thundereggs up here. I think if you place them in water and they feel lighter, they may be a geode with an air pocket. Rather than smash them, you can cut those small ones carefully in half with a tile saw. Go slow and use lots of water or some rock shops will cut them for $5 or so. If you are referring to the internal corner indent, I would guess that is a natural fracture. In that one though, the reverse view almost looks like a notch shaped into it near the base and the curved indent near your thumb could be worn by rope or something if it was lashed. Maybe? The spearpoint doesn’t look like the right type of rock to me, chert was used often for arrowheads/spears points because it fractures nicely and leaves sharp edges. In the Brooks Range I have seen ancient evidence of natives chipping chert for knives or spearpoints. You’ll find piles of chipped rock that was carried to a spot with a overview or lookout of the land, the chipped rock doesn’t match any of the natural rock. Can just picture an old hunter chipping spear points waiting for game to move through. No idea on the others but that orange polished one is beautiful. Neat rock up there, we did a trip several years ago, amazing colors in some of them. If you head that way again, there is a Alaska Rockhounding book with a lot of good info and sites in it. If you are in Anchorage the folks at Nature’s Jewels Rock Shop on Arctic are friendly folks.

If it's not in writing or point to the relevant regulation, the word of someone at a government office is pretty much useless, they have no liability. I always try to correspond by email, and continue to prod until I get a real answer. Good to know the short comings of the map system. Native Corps should be required to map and sign all existing easements as well, several areas along Denali Highway have easements for camping and trails but are still posted "Native Land, No Trespassing". Have to go digging through Easement Atlases to find them.

I have been running all metal around the house, mainly to see whats there and pick up nails that are near the surface. But I have done testing to get basic ideas of Target ideas and the iron discrimination in Park 1 works great. Will try testing a few rocks, but so far they don’t seem to trigger the dectector, even in all metal. First time I tried it I was getting crazy signals from all the nails, like where someone had burned a bunch of pallets, the sensitivity was too high or I hadn’t ground balanced. Once I turned sensitivity down and ran all metal it became clear what was going on. Now I do seem to sometimes get unrepeatable chirps, especially moving through taller grass and such, think from just the coil getting bumped. But in testing I do see you can get inconsistent or jumping target ID’s especially when you put something ferrous and non-ferrous close. Amazing that you can learn to hear the subtle difference between nail sizes, rings vs coins, etc. Thanks to all the tips on here this has been far less frustrating than it would be trying to glean all the intricacies out of the manual!

Hey just got an Equinox 800 last week, my first detector. First of all thanks for all the info, it has really helped me figure out this thing! So far I've only detected around the house and found a wide range of trash: Nails, stakes, nuts, bolts, old chunks of iron, shell casing, a piece of buckshot, molten aluminum nugget from a bonfire, stainless steel wire, tarp grommet, bottle cap, tin can lid. Nothing amazing but happy with the results, right now I'm digging everything with a consistent signal to learn, figuring out the Target ID and learning the sounds. Probably a little tough area to start at, but as soon as I figured out the sensitivity and ground balance, the signals are much clearer, I've been impressed how deep it has found some things. Also suprised I haven't dug any hot rocks yet, there are a lot of rocks in our driveway that are magnetic and I expected to be having to dig a lot more, but so far haven't dug one. Thanks again for all the advice on here, excited to go look for some nuggets and lost stuff. Really happy with the machine, love the wireless headphones! Seems hard to beat for an "all-around" type machine.

Here's the link to Alaska Mapper that shows Ak and Federal Gold claims: http://dnr.alaska.gov/mapper/controller?gsid=BD721F35DACBB7BB1C84D4E793BE9644.tomcat-90

I'm new to detecting, got an Equinox 800 last week, in Anchorage. Thanks for all the info Mac, there does seem to be a maze of regulations, as far as I can there is nothing prohibiting detecting in Anchorage Parks, I've searched all the Muni websites and regs, but I'm sure digging holes in grassy areas would be frowned upon, and would be best to avoid busy times at parks. It does seem a lot of land is off limits: state and federal claims, historic sites, which is very vague, some State Parks, National Parks, and some Wilderness Areas of National Forests, other areas are limited to just the stream bed and gravel bars. It is a shame the commercial miners and oil can get their permits and dulldoze massive sections of public lands but recreational miners are given such a hard time. The National Forests seem to have the fairest regs for rec miners and detectorists. Still excited to find a nugget though, so far just been detecting old trash on my property.