Proper Prospecting

Knowing about all these types of details is something that the modern day prospectors have, certainly gives you a big advantage on the old timers. In these days we have available the observation of hundreds of years of mining and scientific investigation to use and we are also able to use what our predecessors have learned and are able to more precisely judge a stream.

One thing to always remember is that finding gold is not an easy thing. A lot of the information that has been provided to amateur prospectors is not accurate as far as this is concerned and a lot of the writings have to do with individual experience but regrettably some people jumped into the conclusion that since they were able to locate gold in a certain area, that all these types of places would lead to gold when this is not necessarily accurate.

As far as streams are concerned, most streams have a tendency of bending, twisting, narrowing, and dropping over cliffs, as well as many other things that differs each stream from another one. When this takes place the stream produced a natural riffle or gold trap and this is obviously what a prospector is interested in finding whether he or she is panning, dredging or sluicing. These consist of the pocket placers and the supply of these is not likely to become exhausted. There are some that are becoming replenished while there are new ones that are being produced as a rock moves to a new place in the stream or when the stream wears down a new curve.   

The development of replenishing can take several months to several years to decades. For those that are looking for one well, you will probably need to search out one that has not been looked into for a great number of years and if you do just so happen to run into it, be assured you will strike it big. 

When prospecting in a stream the first thing you will need to do is study it and imagine what it looked like when it was at its flood stage. Then try to think about what occurred when the stream started to slow down in speed. Finally look at the stream as it is and try to put these different stages all together in your head. Once you have this, the remaining will be easier and most likely you will come up with some good places to prospect in.

There are two things you want to look for when studying a stream and these are where the water slows down and where the water is more turbulent.

In areas where the water has more turbulence it causes the gravel to break down and erodes the bottom or sides of the stream. This divides gold from its transporting environment and lets it settle down. There are different degrees of turbulence and some turbulence is only able to carry away material that is lighter or it could be that it is mixing up everything and then carrying it down the stream. However under the turbulent area there is slower water and this is where deposition can occur.

When looking for gold try to find places where the water slows, as these are usually good indicators of where gold accumulates. There are several areas in a curved stream where water will slow down and these areas should always be looked into. In most cases water has a tendency of slowing down its pace when it goes into a wider area of the stream, it also has a tendency of slowing on the sides of a bend and right after it has left a waterfall or rapid. Some of these areas can be very obviously seen and are easy to locate. There are however, other areas where the water slows in a very subtle way and these places need to be studied a bit more carefully in order to determine if they are actually gold deposits. Some such as bends, rapids and waterfalls are very important and we will explain why later on.