mn90403

Much has been written about prospecting and open holes. Let's try to keep some things in perspective. It is a well known and established fact that gold nuggets can be found in areas that have been and are being dry washed. (Large pits are left open or gullies are destroyed.) It is also a known fact that gold is still found where the old timers used ground sluices extensively in areas where there was enough water. (Large boulders and rocks line the hillsides with trees and growth coming out of these old digs.) The 'signs' of these activities sometimes gets us excited if we own a metal detector. We know they didn't get it all. A more recent sign of gold in an area would be unfilled holes in a nugget patch. (There can also be rake piles where someone got the iron stones out of the way or chaining marks very dense.) We can sure get mad about this or we can 'read the holes' and find what is left. We might even want to 'thank' the jerks who left the holes open. (We might learn that WE didn't get it all and someone has gone back to OUR patch and found nuggets we missed!) There is another way for us 'hole fillers' to think about things. (It is not all bad ... make some lemonade mates.) We should get 'excited' if we go to an area where there are holes (filled or not) because it means there were targets ... and you HAVE TO BELIEVE that there are still some good targets left. Think about it. You have these places where to detect: 1. A 'virgin' place with perfect patina and no signs of digging, scraping or mining. (Might be good for meteorites!) 2. A place that has 'old' dig holes that are fairly shallow but the depressions are there. 3. A place that has more recent holes which are less than 10" deep and some are unfilled. 4. A place with a lot of dig holes, many unfilled and some are very deep. Your detecting equipment is a 7000, a 5000/4500 with the new coils or something else which is 'state of the art' so to say. Please rank where you spend your time. Mitchel P.S.: When done fill your holes because there will be even better equipment coming out and you will want to go back to your patch. Save the locations on your GPS.

I have no problems with the forum and Google Chrome. As jasong has said there can be a problem with the mouse battery, connection and sometimes it just gets dirt on the bottom and when it gets closer to the desk again it is fixed. Don't nuke too much.

As a kid I was a Boy Scout. We were taught about the outdoors and camping by people who tried to 'leave no sign' when you left your camp. What does 'leave no sign' mean? (It is not about spray cans (gang tags) or graffiti 'Kilroy was here' although that is part of it.) 'Leave no sign' means if you disturb the surface of the ground you try to return it as best you can to the way it was when you arrived. Basically ... you think about filling your hole as you are digging it. You take off the first layer (the humus or patina) and put it in a separate pile and then you go about your digging. When you are done with the hole you put the first part back last and arrange the surface to 'look' like the ground around with the same surface level. You also anticipate what is it going to look like after a rain. That is the Boy Scout way of rearranging your entire camp including the fire pits if you are not in a dedicated camping spot but certainly with all your holes for deification and the like. I think miners need another incentive. Miners should try and hide their patches! How many times has someone found your patch because they saw dig holes? If you did a better job of 'leave no sign' then your patch might still be producing for you. Put the leaves and twigs back after you dig that deep hole mates! Mitchel

Here is a link to a thread about unfilled holes at the beach that I started. They are dangerous because kids, old and joggers can get hurt badly by stepping in these holes. I've stepped in other detectorist's holes and felt pain. Some I will fill and others I challenge the hole digger.

John I have siliconed in my stock cover and then coat it with truck bed liner or something else as often as necessary to cover the white. I'm sure the material would not last if regularly scrapped. You should try Norvic's solution posted on another thread. Mitchel Edit: My bad ... I thought you were wanting a 19" cover. I use the Miner John and as Steve says they are the best but I also coat them to make them last for my 7000 and 2300.

Oh myyyy!

That flat 'lacy' one in the palm is quite an interesting piece. Is it delicate?

Happy Birth hour, day, week and year. You have contributed a lot to our collective knowledge and understanding of finding the last nuggets on earth. Thank you and have many more. Mitchel

I see it is less than 1% Hydrofluoric acid. We have a product called Whink used for the same purpose.

What is the type of acid you use?

Good Golly Miss Molly!

Very emotional pictures! I want to go out and find.

The 3030 drives me crazy on the standard setting. I HAVE to use SMOOTH or LONG or I would sell it. Mitchel

Steve, The old Surfmaster PI or a dual field? What is the difference? Mitchel

Years ago when I did my maps of meteorite finds I got EVERYTHING by state? I don't remember now. What I do remember is that there were so many I had to turn them off by un-clicking them in Google Earth. Now that hard drive has crashed and I don't know how to get them and some other files back current or added to my history. There is a backup for that drive but I think it is zipped or compressed and I don't have that computer working for a restore. Do you think I can search that external backup drive for kml and import them into my current running Google Earth? Mitchel

Very nice boys ... it is a good start. Thanks for the shares.

This is an open thread for any good/bad Australian picture of gold or video adventure! Post away mates. Mitchel

There are never too many pictures of specimens and nuggets. I wish more pictures were taken before they are dollied up. Mitchel

Now I have cheated and looked on the map. Bendigo ... a few years ago I was going to stay there after a day of training with Ronda Hyde. I never got there but it is still on my personal map. Mitchel

Feb. 2017 News from the UCLA Meteorite Gallery One of a series of monthly letters sent to visitors to the UCLA Meteorite Gallery and to others who requested to be on the mailing list. The Meteorite Gallery (Geology room 3697) is open with a docent present every Sunday from 1 until 4 with the exception of the last two Sundays in the calendar year. And it is open every work day from 9 until 4 but without a docent. It is not open Saturdays. We remind you that our website address is: http://www.meteorites.ucla.edu/. There you can find a map of our corner of the UCLA campus and instructions for parking in structure 2. At 2:30 on Sunday Feb. 26 the speaker at our Gallery Event is the co-curator John Wasson. Although emeritus, John remains active in research with most of his efforts focused on chondrules and the formation of chondrites and iron meteorites. And, as this Sunday, on tektite formation. The title of his lecture is: “Formation of tektites in thermal plumes: no craters required”. Summary: Tektites are glassy samples with interesting shapes (e.g., teardrops) and compositions similar to soils and shales that formed as a result of weathering the continental crust. Since 1960 the consensus view has been that tektites are crater ejecta. However, high concentrations of 10Be (halflife of 1.5 My) show that tektites are made from soils from the upper 50 centimeters of the crust. The best model seems to be thermal plumes resulting from accreting weak asteroids or comets that disintegrated and deposited their entire energy in the atmosphere, similar to the 1908 Tunguska event. Dust was entrained into these hot plumes and melted there; collisions among droplets led to the growth of the splash-form tektites. The lecture this month is in a new location: Geology 3656, just 40 yards west of the UCLA Meteorite Gallery. This is a larger and more comfortable room than our previous venue in Slichter, and about the same distance. Our next Gallery Lecture will occur on Sunday March 12. The speaker is Roger Fu, a recent Ph.D. from MIT who will be an assistant professor at Harvard starting this fall. His title is “The water-rich interior of dwarf planet Ceres”. New data from the NASA Dawn spacecraft has revealed that the dwarf planet Ceres (940 km diameter) shows characteristics of both "rocky" and "icy" bodies. He will talk about how the morphology and spectroscopy of the surface point to a composition with less than 30% water ice. Even so, intriguing features observed on Ceres suggest localized regions enriched in sub-surface ice and, possibly, the existence of an ancient global ocean during its early history. Reminder: You can now find the UCLA Meteorite Gallery on Social Media. Please like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/UCLAMeteorites) and follow us on Twitter (@UCLAMeteorites) and Instagram (uclameteorites). JTW

Dave Now that you bring it up ... I don't care about pronouncing it ... we all want to know where it is! haha How long does it take to get there? Mitchel

Ok ... language alert: headless chook ?? footy ground ?? advise (advice) We have one member here who takes your lesson a bit 'farther!' His advice is to hunt near to where you park. You don't need to go running off. If it looks good all around the area ... hunt the parking lot! We have also learned to hunt the road in and out. GB, thanks for your advice.

wombat Please kick the dirt around. It will encourage some of us to come and visit you and others of us to come back. I've personally wanted to visit the Golden Triangle area for some time now. Of course there are many other places of equal or greater interest. What are your primary states? Before the dust settles we ask that you show us some of your finds by link or post. We Yanks like pictures to go along with the stories. (Some of us can't read Australian or English!) Welcome Mitchel

Great gold. What were the ground conditions like? You were using the 14"?

I went back to the same beach today and ... less than $1 ... so ... hunt your beach pockets while they are there! Some waves deposit and some take it away.