The Alaska Gold Forums

I like the idea of a circle, and ending up where you started. Makes sense. Heavy pans! Ideas so far (including the obvious ones): 1. Set up highbanker no more than one shovel length away from excavation site 2. Run continuously 2. Tailings retaining wall (if staying in one spot) 3. Tailings sled (si...

Hello all, I am interested in becoming more efficient with regard to moving dirt by hand. A lot of time is spent discussing things like matting, but a good operator can make nearly any highbanker/matting/pump/hose work well. Highbanking is a bulk material handling and excavation effort. In Lean Manu...

Wow, the real deal. I'll be following along. Good luck this season!

@Geowizard - it depend what is defined as 'soil' within a soil sampling program. Perhaps the idea or concept behind soil sampling could be applied to placer, but without 'soil' as the medium of choice. For those who may not know, soil sampling is a geochemical exploration technique that involves cre...

In January 2007, Dr. Robin Grayson published a study called: "Fine Gold Recovery - Alternatives to Mercury and Cyanide". In the paper, he examines a variety of technologies including sluices (e.g. PopAndSon), jigs, bowls, etc. It's worth a read as it compliments the work of earlier researchers such ...

In a podcast interview with Shawn Ryan he mentions digging deeper than everyone else for soil samples. Plus, as Geowizard mentioned, he uses a tulip planter for taking samples. The guy takes a very high number of soil samples to find hard rock deposits. He uses soils because there is only 2-3% outcr...

It depends if you have access to equipment that can drill down deep enough for you to get information about the deeper layers. The big time operations in the Yukon all drill when seeking new placer ground. In the absence of drilling it's all about machine dug test pits, or for smaller operations, la...

@ChickenMiner - did you crush and pan it? Beautiful piece of ore.

Very true Joe, carefully panning out all tailings remains one of the best ways to test capture rates in a given system. And it's seldom, if ever, practical.

A few family member's on my mother's side are grain farmers in the Canadian Prairies. At least they know they will get a crop most years. There isn't a guarantee of even 1 cent with gold mining, whether hard rock or placer. I can't think of a much more futile business model than mining, except at a ...