Gold Mining in the Desert

Mining in the desert is not the same as mining in the Mother Lode regions, mainly because it is a lot more difficult, however there are people that are convinced that a great deal of gold can be found in the desert. There are not a lot of people that have gotten into it though due to the fact that it is much more difficult. In the past a good amount of gold was taken out of the desert.

Desert prospecting involves different types of activities that are not the same as stream prospecting. To start off with, traveling and camping in the desert is completely different. Some of the important and most basic things to keep in mind for new prospectors that apply mainly to the summer months but can be used all year round are:

• Any area of the desert that is not paved is very dangerous. Remember that it is easy to get stuck in the sand and the side roads are not very used in the summer. Before becoming involved in this activity, make sure you let a family member or someone know where you are headed and when you plan on getting back just in case.
• If the car breaks down or if you get hurt it’s better to stay inside your car, as this will give you the needed shade and is also the best landmark for search parties.
• If you are traveling with a group of people, you will need one gallon of water per person per day. Remember that it is very easy to die of thirst in the desert.
• Wear the right type of clothing when out in the desert. This clothing consists of clothes that cover your entire body and obviously wear a hat. The sun in the desert is so hot it can fry you. Make sure also to wear sun block so you don’t get sunburned.
• If you are not sure of how to do something such as getting water from moist sand it is not suggested you do so as you could end up exhausting yourself quicker and losing precious energy. The best is to just wait near the vehicle for help to arrive.

The good thing about the desert is that you can see a long distance away, meaning that it is easier to spot a place that you could prospect in from a good distance. If you happen to spot black or red hills, this is a good indicator. If you see that there are holes or deserted shacks of previous miners on the flanks of the hills, you could try prospecting near them.

The thing that makes desert mining more complex is the fact that there is no water. In the past prospectors used to make use of the wind in order to separate the gold from the sand; they would do this by tossing the gravel up into the air and by catching it on a sheet or blanket. Since the gold is heavier it will fall on the blanket whereas the sand will blow away. In the past prospectors also used to build a few strange devices like rockers with bellows on them and this would allow them to blow air over the apron. The problem with a lot of these devices is that they were difficult to work with and sucked up a lot of energy from the people using them, mostly because desert sand is wet once you get down inside of it. The gold will stick to the wet grains of sand and it was difficult to separate it.  

For prospectors these days we suggest they make sure to carry extra water in the car as this will allow you to use the same tools as you would for stream panning just that in the desert these vary a little bit. Panning or rocking are two of the best ways, unfortunately sluicing is not recommended because it needs too much water in order to function.

The modifications of these machines consist of setting some way of grabbing or catching the water after you have used it, instead of allowing it to fall on the ground as it would be a waste. For example if you are going to be doing panning you can use one of those huge older bath tubs and two five gallon buckets of water as this will take care of the job. All you have to do is bend down near in the front of the bath tub, holding the pan down in it and you can pan as you normally would. It’s very simple.

In the case of a rocker you can boost it up in order to make it more water tight then it would normally be, and then place the tub at the end so that it catches all the water and gravel. Obviously the tub is going to end up full of mud and sand when it comes to both of these procedures. All you need to do then is pour the water back into the cans and dump the mud left in the tub out onto the sand. It is not the most convenient thing to deal with but it will allow you to get the job done.

Something that is quite interesting about mining in the desert is the great variety of rocks it has. There are some that are semi precious gem quality and the rocks that can be found range anywhere from unusual stones such as silver onyx of the Calico Mountains or the gem quality aquamarine and tourmaline as well as the turquoise and others. The desert has a great amount of agate and jasper and there are some really great petrified palm root that can be found in the Mojave Desert.

So what if you end up finding all these rocks? What could you possibly do with them? Well, there are shops that would be more then happy to receive them and that would like to saw them up, polish them or mount them as jewelry and a lot of people enjoy getting this done for themselves or so they can be sold. There are many different kinds of precious stones that can be turned into gorgeous jewelry such as aquamarine, turquoise or tourmaline.

If while out on your prospecting expedition in the desert, you just so happen to run into a mine that has these stones in it, it is possible you will actually obtain more money from the stones then from the gold you might find. The nice thing about stones is that many times they are simply sitting there on the ground and this obviously means that it does not take a lot of effort to get them out. If you happen to stubble across a good rough quality stone you could sell it for a nice deal. There are many rocks shops that have a great variety of gems and stones and there are many sites, magazines, Internet sites etc that can give you information on what they look like and how you can identify them.