Explore:
Prospecting in the California Mother Lode for over 30 years has been an exciting and educational experience. The search for mineral treasures is aided by an understanding of geology, hydrology, meteorology and history. The obvious place to explore for gold is to go where it has been previously found. "Wouldn't the pickings be slim?" you may ask. Maybe, but knowing that the Placer Mining methods of the 19th century were rough and unrefined has led us to finds in places they worked but only recovered the surface or easily attainable gold. As time passed the early miners improved their methods and were able to recover more of the small flakes and gold dust. Fortunatley for us there are other forces at work, the forces of Mother Nature who constantly and deliberately continues to shape the land and reveal previously hidden gold deposits. The action of streams and rivers cuts through the mountains that contain the veins of gold. Water moves mountains and gold! We can return to explore the exact same spot year after year and recover new gold specimens.

Recover:
The methods we use to recover gold are based on the same principles that the '49ers relied on; the intrinsic properties of gold and how it reacts to the forces of water and gravity. Gold is a very heavy element. With a Specific Gravity of 19.3 it is heavier than most precious metals that are found in nature. Being 19.2 times heavier than water means that water when moving in a stream, river or gold pan, moves the gold pieces less than it moves the other sediments, gravels and minerals. The washing action of water deposits the gold in places where the water slows down such as in a crack in bedrock, behind a boulder or in the riffles of a sluice box. Much of the gold we find comes from veins of quartz. Quartz has a specific gravity of 2.65, hence much lighter than gold. When gold bearing quartz finds its way into the waterways it moves more readily because of its size to weight ratio. The larger surface area of a piece of gold bearing quartz creates a "water sail" that catches the force of the water causing the piece to travel much farther than a piece of solid gold of similar size and shape.

Go forth, explore, and recover the gold!