Lunk

Gerry, I’m really looking forward to gaining a knowledge base on the Equinox and sharing it with customers; thanks so much for the opportunity my friend. I’m very fortunate to be one of your staff members.

Fantastic find!

WTG! Always nice to have a new hot spot to hunt; looks like it will be worth the wait.

Watch those typos Mitchell, his name is Blake actually.? And yes, a great club! Congrats on your hard-won gold Bill, you've got me beat; it took nearly two seasons of fruitless searching before finally unearthing my first detected nugget.

Thanks Steve, I did make a prediction about it back in February: And the Yucca DCA (Franconia strewn field) was one of the first places I made a bee line to when I was able to run with the pre release dealer demo unit back in March, which I touched on in the post I made after the GM 1000's official release: Oh what fun!

Thanks Randy, The real kudos have to go to the detector I was using, as I have revisited the site with several models over the years and only ever found one more fragment...but the Gold Monster nailed these without hesitation.

Onya JP!

Perseverance pays...way to overcome the odds, Mitchel!

I was delighted to discover that the 12-volt vehicle charger for the GPZ 7000 also fits the the rechargeable battery of the Gold Monster 1000...buh-bye inverter & alligator clips!

Oh bloody schist, here we go...?

Yeah, that one has some character all right. Great to visit with you again Steve, thanks for dropping by. Inexplicably, the weather seems to turn sour whenever Gerry puts on a training class out there.

Thanks Jen. I don’t think a spouse would let me disappear into the desert in search of gold for six months every year, LOL.?

Yes, that’s the beauty of the new update - being able to still run in Normal Ground Type in ground that necessitated the use of the Difficult setting before the update.

Had a few days to detect out at Rye Patch, Nevada before the 3-day detector training class put on by Gerry’s Detectors. The weather was perfect - sunny and low 70’s. I was keen to see how the new update would handle the alkali-rich soil in conjunction with the GPZ-19 coil. Although the ground was dry, there was still a fair bit of moaning and groaning ground response with the large coil, but Locate Patch smoothed it out quite well, and favoring a faster swing speed allowed for increased ground coverage. After 20 minutes or so of operating in the Auto Ground Balance mode to allow the detector to get a good ferrite balance to the local soil, I switched over to Semi-Auto, as there didn’t seem to be much ferrite present. I was impressed with the depth and sensitivity to the small nuggets I was finding, the deepest at 14 inches gave a reasonable signal response from the get-go. All up 9 grams between 20 nuggets. The two thin bits in the lower left were found with a quick detect using the Gold Monster 1000 on an old patch.

A ripper session JP, pretty spiffy! Way to make up for being stonkered in WA. Can’t wait to see what else you uncover there.

Thanks JP, I was hoping you would comment on this thread; your knowledge of these machines is always most helpful.

Also, the real benefit of the Ground Smoothing is seen when operating in saline soils - the higher the salt content, the better. You won’t see any noticeable improvement in non-saline soil types.

I have noticed that the threshold becomes somewhat chattery in Locate Patch, and even more so when using Salty Soil; perhaps this is what you’re referring to, inthemountains?

I believe the caption in the gold picture reads “Great for gold nugget hunting in “hot” ground”.

Awesome haul, WTG!

Good job you guys!

Lots of great information and resources there, thanks Clay Diggins; I’ve never seen the other side of things, just what I’ve read from other meteorite hunters. Looks like there is plenty of ammunition for both sides of the matter, but it appears that ultimately the courts have the final say.

Okay Barry, it seems that the courts have ammended the common laws of property to decide meteorite ownership cases, but it is certain that the federal government has asserted that a meteorite does not qualify as a “valuable mineral” as defined under the 1872 Mining Law. So I would now have to say that the legality of collecting meteorites on federal land containing a mineral claim would have to ultimately be decided by the courts. I for one would approach the claim owner beforehand to avoid any misunderstandings.

Meteorites found on public land actually belong to the Smithsonian Institution as laid out in the meteorite law. Being a meteorite hunter myself, I know there are definitely meteorite laws in the United States, and they have been used in court battles over meteorite ownership disputes. And also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorite_hunter

This is a common misperception and simply is not the case; the meteorite laws in the U.S. clearly state that since meteorites are not part of the earthly estate of minerals, they are not locatable under the mining law and belong to the owner of the land they are found on. https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/uploads/MediaCenter_PublicRoom_Nevada_Meteorites1.pdf