My Gold Prospecting and Mining Pages

I think people would be surprised. The western US between the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains inclusive is one of the largest and richest mineral fields in the world. It is also so sparsely populated and difficult to traverse in many areas that much of it has never really been walked over in modern times. If you have some basic geology and mineral knowledge, it is surprisingly easy to find incredible mineral deposits simply by wandering around the outback off the beaten path.

I used to do a lot of overlanding in remote parts of Nevada, just to see what was out there (not prospecting). Gold, silver, and copper are ubiquitous in that State and easy to find. We discovered crude oil while exploring an abandoned gold prospect (there is now a company developing that oil field). We found opals and turquoise in abundant quantities.

Last year while hiking around the Cascades, I found the most concentrated copper deposit I have found anywhere in the US. In the same area, I found molybdenite of a scale and quality such that I can’t find pictures of anything comparable on the Internet (I did not know what it was when I found it). Both of these finds, while difficult to get to, were within line of sight of a popular hiking trail.

It is important to understand that economic viability of mineral deposits is a function of scale and value per ton. Concentrated deposits that are not large enough cannot offset the capital overhead of developing the deposit. Big mining operators tend to prospect in areas where the geology is conducive to scale, but small operators occasionally find excellent deposits in unexpected areas that big companies won’t waste their time on.

I am not a prospector and I have never disclosed the locations of where some great mineral samples I possess were collected. It is really just a fun and geeky adjunct to my other outdoorsy activities. The US mountain west is one of the world’s best places to go prospecting for minerals. If you are out there and keep your eyes open, you will find some eventually.

Have you heard of the California gold rush? The area was picked clean 170 years ago when people were pulling fist sized nuggets out of the Kern river. Finding a little gold embedded in quartz isn’t all that special. We suspect they were left in some mining camp tailings because transporting the rock wouldn’t have been worth the tiny bits of gold embedded in it and naturally reburried a century or more ago.

A public recreational mining area in a historical gold mining region is obviously going to be located where they’ve found gold before. If you want you can go buy mineral rights along the Kern river and do your own searching but as a state we’ve been there, done that, and the football team we named after it has already won a bunch of Superbowls.

Not hundred pounds of gold, a hundred pounds of quartz, with gold streaks.

Basically water trapped under heat and pressure dissolves gold atoms out of the surrounding minerals (along with lots of silica) which then precipitates out as the water turns to quartz over time. Very common in the western US because of the farallan plate sliding under the American plate, pulling in seawater as it does, eventually resulting in hydrothermal vents. Usually the actual amount of gold present isn’t enough to bother with extraction, better to leave it as a cool rock.

A great and thrilling find for anyone who likes to pick up rocks to be sure, but nothing life altering.

It could also be that he was talking about pieces of quartz with gold in them.

Yeah, maybe a few hundred grams of (visible) native gold, at best. Most of it was in the form of mid to high grade ore intruding into the quartz which combined with the exposed native flakes to make very pretty rocks. It'd be worth extracting for an active mine that uses gold cyanidation to leach it out of the rock, but not for some half-drunk rock hounds having fun in the Sierras.

They're a lot more valuable as display quality specimens. Not quite museum grade, but close enough. We spent years giving them away as gifts when we didn't know what else to give someone for their birthday.

GaiaGPS: https://www.gaiagps.com/

Like with most apps the layers are only available under paid plans but I'm grandfathered in on an old plan.