Most small-scale gold prospectors search for placer gold that is deposited in streams and rivers, but it can also be found in arid climates far away from existing water sources. Gold can be found using a variety of different methods. The most common way to recover gold in the water is by gold panning, but larger equipment can also be used to help prospectors recover more gold by processing more material. This page includes information on different gold mining methods.
Gold miners have to smelt their gold in order to remove impurities resulting in pure gold. Most large scale gold miners send their ore to smelters with large equipment for the smelting process. Small scale miners still can do their own smelting using specialized kilns. Many people confuse gold smelting with melting. Whereas gold melting […]
There has been a considerable amount of tips and tricks written on this website about how to successfully find gold. Integral to success is the ability to locate gold-bearing ground, understand how to mine it efficiently, and ultimately to capture the gold. One simple, yet perhaps under-emphasized point that is worth mentioning is that the […]
Most prospectors know that gold is heavy. In fact, it is almost always the heaviest element that you can recover within a river with a specific gravity of 19.3. It is considerably higher than the sand, rocks, gravel, quartz, lead, iron, and other elements commonly found in a river. So why in the world […]
There is an abundance of gold on the East Coast that you can still find by panning and sluicing. You don’t hear a whole lot about gold mining on the East Coast these days. Most of the large gold deposits in the United States were found in the West, which has overshadowed many of the […]
The Best Sluice Box Options for adventurous gold prospectors Being able to change and adapt to suit your needs should be a consideration for any serious gold prospector. Being successful at finding gold means that you go to where the gold is. Of course, some of the best places to find gold nowadays aren’t right […]
Most any experienced gold prospector can tell you that hunting on exposed bedrock is one of the best ways to find gold. The bedrock acts as a trap, where gold will get stuck and concentrate over the years. You may find a concentration of placer gold that has accumulated over just the past season, or […]
One of the most efficient tools used for gold mining is the highbanker. It is a modern advancement of the simple sluice box, which has been used for centuries. Why a Highbanker? One of the first inventions for gold mining was the sluice box. The sluice box was used to filter materials so […]
Mining claims serve a very important purpose to gold miners. Once you’ve file a claim on a particular piece of land, the miner has the sole mineral rights to that land as long as the claim remains valid. The general public can still camp, fish, hunt, and do other activities on an active claim, but […]
Late summer is a great time to get out find your own private stream to do some gold panning. The waters are usually low, and there are an abundance of high elevation creeks that hold some really nice gold. Areas that are covered with snow for much of the year are now open, and for […]
There are millions of artisanal gold miners around the globe who depend on gold mining as their primary source of income. Many of these people make only a few dollars per day while others have larger mining operations using heavy equipment or suction dredges to recover placer gold from creeks and rivers. There are some […]
Montana may not get as much attention as some other states when it comes to gold mining, but that does not mean there isn’t gold here. In fact there has been millions of dollars in gold found here. One of the biggest gold nuggets ever found in Montana was found just south of Butte, and […]
Most gold prospectors start out using a gold pan, but quickly realize that they will be able to process a lot more material if they use a sluice box. A sluice box helps you process more materials quickly than when you use pans alone. And they are relatively inexpensive so you won’t break the bank […]
The early gold miners used wood to build their sluice boxes at their mining site. They were long and heavy, and when they were done mining in that area they would either dismantle it and move it up the creek or abandon it completely. Fortunately we have a better option today. The modern sluice box […]
If you have read any of my posts about gold prospecting, you will know that I recommend that every prospector should have a gold panning kit. Regardless of the type of mining you prefer, there will always be a time when the trusty gold pan will be needed. You could just buy a gold pan […]
There are many methods of dredging that were used all throughout the world to process gravels to remove the gold, but one that proved to be of huge importance in the early 1900s was the bucket line dredging. Bucket line dredging started in New Zealand in 1882 and was first used in the US in […]
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