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Ive attached a lidar map of the main area i prospect. Id like to get peoples knee-jerk reactions on where they would swing a detector knowing large nuggets (they have generally been very crystalline with a few specimens found) have been found in the creek. So what would be your number 1, 2, and 3 spots to focus on. Ive detected around a good bit and have yet find anything outside of the creek, but i want to see if im missing something obvious. lol Search Area 1.pdf

Never been prospecting before. I found an area that has gold history but i don't know how to find out who owns the land if anybody. It is just outside a National Forest which I'm pretty sure is ok to detect on but not sure about the area just outside. Any tips would help!

So I did a search and didn't find what I was after. What I would like to figure out is how to find old places to coin shoot. I guess parks would be a easy point to start. 1. How to find the age of a place. 2. How to find old places that might be abandoned or reused. 3. General techniques of selecting a place to look for old coins. Example I live in Reno with Steve ( probably why I don't find good nuggets or coins). Steve got some great coins as of late and I can't find older than 70 decade. Now I could go to tahoe but that is a drive and I would like a few local spots to take my kids that like treasure hunting, that is what they call it. So I tried figuring it out, no dice. I don' mind doing the work, just need the formula. I was hoping that the veteran shooters had a method to their research and selection process. Thanks for the help.

I have four books that I’m going to give away with all from 1972. All you have to do is just let me know that you want your name in the pot. I’ll put a number by your name and then put the number only in the pot and draw a winner out. This comtest will end 9 June at 6 PM CST. I will ship free to your address. Chuck

I am interested in any information anybody has about the discovery of gold in White Pine County, Nevada in the Osceola district, in the area around Dry Gulch and so forth. I have seen general information about it, but does anyone know of source material which talks about the first people who discovered gold there and what they did?

I’d said something about going to a Treasure Show this weekend and I’m back with a new book on Equinox Series Detector. I haven’t had a lot of time to read over it but did take time to scan it. With that said you want to know what I think of the book. All I will say is spend the money to get a pirinted copy of the instruction manual for the Equinox. Then spend the time reading it and when you’re not sure about something read it over again. Chuck

We are going to be moving to Tinker AFB, OK in June, but in the meantime, while still based on Eglin AFB, FL, I have been researching old, now demolished family housing areas to hunt before we leave. I have discovered a major housing area, where all the homes were built between 1955 and 1962. Still standing in 1969, but now demolished and open fields. Very easy to research using NETRonline Historic Aerials against current Google Satellite maps. The kicker of this area is that it is on-base, and due to very restricted access, these fields are very likey virgin for hunting. I expect a lot of silver, wheaties and more in the front areas of these homes, as well as the always-open fields behind the housing circles, where kids would play, and parties held. Only hunting them will prove out my theory, but I have four remaining weeks at Eglin to find what I can! Here are the Aerial vs. current satellite pics. After we leave, I hope someone into MD'ing will be assigned to Eglin and find this post. (Of course, I hope I've already recovered ALL the silver!! LOL)

I was going through my computer looking at different stuff that I had forgotten I had and I came across this shortcut to the archives of Gold Net Australia. Gold Net Australia Online went from 1999 to 2002 and remarkably, it`s still there. Probably not of great interest to people in the States, but if you enjoy reading about coil developement from 20 yrs ago, or accommodation, or a review of the GP Extreme, or divining rods, or storys of big finds or just pictures of beaut nuggets, there might be something here of interest. http://www.gold-net.com.au/archives.html

Bom dia! I had the unique opportunity thanks to my job at White’s to do some work in Brazil and wanted to share some pictures from our trip. First things first, ouro! The soil here is nasty. Even the most expensive PIs struggle to balance out the mineralization. Add the humidity, 120 degree heat, and blazing sun and you have a great area to challenge a gold detector. Garimpeiros make their living off the gold they find. Some are dangerous but most of the ones we met were friendly enough to talk about gold and detectors. Just don’t get between them and their gold unless you want to disappear in the jungle. One of the places we went that was “hunted out” gave up a chunky rock that was just a whisper of a signal. When we cracked it open we found this tiny crystalline nugget. After breaking the tiny tree nugget off I could see that the gold continues down into the rock. Sad to be leaving but I made some new friends while working in the Brazilian sun. -T

Prospecting & Mining Reference Materials Check out the University of North Texas Digital Library website https://digital.library.unt.edu Use the search engine at the very top of the UNT page to search the library. The library has loads of various documents regarding “gold” including mining/milling, mineral deposits, tertiary channels, geology throughout the Western United States and Alaska. For those of you interested in the California Southern Mother Lode check out the minerals industries surveys of the California Mother Lode including Calaveras County (part 1) and Tuolumne and Mariposa Counties (part 2) by Julihn & Horton 1938/1940: Mineral Industries Survey of the United States: California, Calaveras County, Mother Lode District (South). Mines of the Southern Mother Lode Region. Part 1 -- Calaveras County Mineral Industries Survey of the United States, California: Tuolumne and Mariposa Counties, Mother Lode District (South). Mines of the Southern Mother Lode Region, Part 2 -- Tuolumne and Mariposa Counties Hardpack

I know a lot of you are waiting for the new updated Land Matters Mining Claims Maps. That update should have been available on Monday but the BLM is having some technical difficulties with its Secure Transfer Server and we have been unable to update the active mining claims information on our maps. Our contact at the BLM says the problem has been identified and should be corrected tonight. We should be able to access the data in the morning. I know this is a critical map update for a lot of our users. I'll post here as soon as the maps are updated.

I am very interested in pocket hunting. There is not a lot of info on the net about this subject but what there is I think I have studied most of it. Where I feel deficient in my pocket hunting education is old petrology terminology. It seems like over the last 100 years there have been many changes in the names of rocks and minerals. Following is an excerpt from the Canadian GPEX gold forum which may help to illustrate the problems which beset the modern prospector when he tries to decipher what the old-timers were saying. "The chemical or mineral composition of this pocket formation is generally silica, lime, soda, alumina, potash, copper, lead, magnesia, iron, gold, quartz and water, although these conditions differ in each locality. (Here I note a problem in terminology. The author uses 19th century mineral terms that I have difficulty translating. Calcite was not used in those days, but the term for it he used was lime, so I substituted calcite in places for today's readers. Soda and potash may have referred to sodium and potassium feldspars, but I'm guessing here. Magnesia may have been magnesite, MgCO. I don't know what the contemporary equivalent for alumina is. He interchanged terms for elements with those for minerals, so the particular minerals containing lead, sulfur and copper may have been understood by his contemporaries, but I don't know what he meant. Chloride puzzles me. Chloride had a meaning among mining men in those days that is no longer used and leaves me mystified)" Hopefully someone with experience in this area will school us prospectors that lack the ability or knowledge to translate the old terminology into a more modern one. I don't believe I am the only prospector who thirsts for this knowledge or could benefit from publication of it. Thanks, Merton

Gosh it's that time again. Spring has sprung across all the states and prospecting is going into full swing for the season. Land Matters updated their Mining Claims Maps last Friday morning. We also updated them on the 15th of May and May 1 and April 15 - you get the idea. In any case Land Matters always provides the most up to date claims mapping available at any price. We serve up thousands of these maps every hour and those numbers keep growing so I know folks are getting their prospecting mojo on with the help of Land Matters. That's a good thing! We've got some new tools coming soon to make your research even easier and more productive. Keep an eye out for those updates soon. For those of you who are Claims Advantage Members you may have noticed there has been a significant change to one of the most famous mining districts in California. New ground opening up for the first time since 1890. This is a major opportunity for any serious prospector. Here's the number of claims closed so far this mining year: Land matters has provided maps of all those 27,127 Closed Claims for our Claims Advantage Members.

I just finished reading "The Civil War Writings" by this man. If you are a civil war relic hunter I think these personal memoirs of A. Bierce might have some excellent leads to locations. One his duties was battle field cartographer ... he does not glorify war at all Steve, not sure which forum you fit this too...if any. fred

Bob has written a great article with a lot of show and tell. Bob talks about Oroville Dam with lots of pictures of it and gold he's found plus others too. I'm sure it's other great stories in it but I pulled it off the rack just because Bob pretty face was on the front. Chuck

I would really like to hear anyone's thoughts on their favorite gold book(s). Not necessarily just metal detecting but any aspect of gold, weather it be detecting of, geology of, or historical, which I find really fascinating, but just any favorite books on the subject, from any country and any time, all input is appreciated! Cheers Digger

W. Dan Hausel has an interesting article in the April edition of the ICMJ's Prospecting and Mining Journal... well worth reading and not the only one worth your money. fred

If anyone is interested, here are 21 books on meteorites in pdf Download link Dave

To start I do not have access to a computer where I live I only have access when I run down to the valley of Arizona to visit my sisters,family and friends which is maybe once every couple of months, i am pretty much a recluse as far as the way I live I have a dog I talk to 99.9% of the time that keeps me company he never talks back and he's always by my side he would probably give his life for me if I were in danger and I would mine for him he's like a brother that doesn't speak. But any how my question is this how would I go about researching an area to find out if it could passably have gold or could someone tell me if there has ever been any gold found near Young Arizona again I do not have access to a PC 99% of the time and i do not go to library's and I will be heading back to where I live tomorrow Thanks for any replies and helpful advice

I've seen these books recommended here and elsewhere. I'd like more info on them, and my web searching has only led to confusion. My observations: 1) these books were not widely distributed; 2) they are out-of-print; 3) they are not cheap. I know several of you are familiar with these works. Could you explain the differences among the editions? If I'm going to spend as much or more on these as I do on coils I'd like to avoid duplicate purchases. Thanks in advance.

Arizona Locations New Mexico Locations

Good resources: California Locations Nevada Locations http://californiameteorites.com/

The Handbook of Mineralogy series is a Five Volume set authored by John W. Anthony, Richard A. Bideaux, Kenneth W. Bladh, and Monte C. Nichols, and published by Mineral Data Publishing. Each mineral known at the time of publication occupies one page of the handbook. In 2001 the copyright for the Handbook of Mineralogy was given to the Mineralogical Society of America by Kenneth W. Bladh, Richard A. Bideaux, Elizabeth Anthony-Morton and Barbara G. Nichols and the remaining volumes were shipped to the MSA warehouse in Chantilly, VA. Along with the copyright, MSA was given pdf files of each page of the handbook. These 4330 pdf mineral descriptions are freely distributed to the public on this website.

This book has gotten very good reviews. [www.amazon.com]

From the Land Matters website: "The founders of Land Matters, while working with the public on land related issues, land status, access, law, ownership etc, recognized a public need for quality information. While interacting with the community of land users, it was clear that people seeking information were having difficulty locating quality, reliable information. There were many common questions asked. But no common place where people could be referred to for answers and research. This was the beginning of Land Matters. From there we have widened our mission to include information for all land related matters. From recreation to agriculture, land status to land law, from geology to soil science, Land Matters was created to provide a place to explore and understand the land around you." I admit I have not scratched the surface of what is available on the Land Matters website. I am always focused just on finding what I need when I need it, and little else. The main thing of value on the website for most people here is the mining claims mapping system. I have a screen shot of the page below to give you an idea of the information available. There is one very important line that applies to mapping systems based on BLM LR2000 "The mining claims represented on these maps are only displayed to the nearest section and DO NOT display the actual claim location. Sections are about one square mile and actual mining claim locations can vary considerably from their mapped location." I use the system for to determine a few basic facts. First, where are people staking claims for gold? That area might be worth prospecting in. Second, which sections have claims that should be avoided or which require more research at the recording office? Most important to me, what are the closest sections that are shown to be free of claims? That section might be worth a wander with a detector. The use of the website is free, but there are a couple membership options; Supporting Membership for $35 a year, or Claims Advantage Membership for $100 a year. You can read about membership benefits here. I am an Advantage Member and just renewed for another year. I know prospectors and miners pretty well, and most of us, put in the best light, would be called "extremely frugal". I have seen guys spend two months using oddball parts to build something they could buy commercially because they figured it saved them $20. We all work hard for our money - I get that. I therefore understand when most people just prefer to use something for free if they can. All I can do is say that if you check out the Land Matters website, and end up using it very much at all, consider joining at one of the membership levels, or just making a small donation using the Donate button on the website. I think what they are doing is valuable and worth supporting. Thank you.