Oh say can you see on Alaska Mapper Lite

[easy goer]

New newbie question. Area where I am was bucket line dredged in the 1900's, Alaska Mapper Lite goes down to view from 50ft with good resolution. A 100 feet is maybe even clearer. My question is can you tell tailings piles from just regular river bottom. I guess I am asking/hoping that maybe there are areas that they were unable to dredge that may be discernible from those that have been dredged? Is that big gravel bar a real gravel bar or a big old pile of tailings??

Any information that can be provided would be greatly appreciated. Green does not begin to describe my lack of knowledge on this.

Thanks,
Easygoer

[Jim_Alaska]

I have not had a chance to look at the mapper yet. But I can tell you that bucket line tailing piles are almost always crescent, or banana shaped because of the way they came off of the stacker.

[chickenminer]

Easy goer...
It depends. If the river is a good size one and the bucket dredge stayed in the main channel, I would say your chances of telling the difference between dredged areas from the early 1900's and present day gravel bars, is about nil !
I know here in the Fortymile the only way you are going to tell areas in the river that were bucket dredged is by artifacts on the ground or old records.
I don't use Mapper lite, but if you use the other version and use the ArcGIS World Imagery map, you will get
better satellite results.

Google is your friend, use it and you will be amazed at the information you can accumulate on your area.

If you don't want to pinpoint your claim location here, PM me. I have many old mining books on the bucketline dredge fleet in Alaska.

[Leonard]

The tailings are pretty obvious here in Colorado.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fairp ... 06.0019618

Leonard

[Joe S (AK)]

YIKES! Great link there, LEONARD!

Leonard, that is really obvious where the dredges worked. Just on the SE corner of the town of Fairplay there is a VERY obvious bunch of them.

[Leonard]

There were quite a few more upriver near Leadville.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leadv ... 06.2925238

Leonard

[easy goer]

The tailings are pretty obvious here in Colorado.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fairp ... 06.0019618

Leonard

Leonard

Thanks for the reply! I wish the tailings looked like that in my area, I have looked at the satellite photos and at this point I am not seeing anything similar.
I am not sure if they are still available or if they were ever available but I used to get aerial photos that you could order by the year the photos were shot. They were very handy in looking at my property with and without trees.
If photos were available for my area from the 50's I am sure the dredge paths would be more evident.

Thanks,

Easygoer

[Leonard]

Here's some tailings on Indian River Yukon.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/India ... 39.4186544

Leonard

[Leonard]

I'm sitting here watching "The Gold show" and Monica is on Hunker Creek. Been a lot of dredging there in the past.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hunke ... 39.1728906

Leonard

[chickenminer]

Easy...
Here is a satellite image of the upper Kougarok showing obvious dredge tailings.