إعـــــــلان

تقليص
لا يوجد إعلان حتى الآن.

Arizona Placer Locations

تقليص
X
 
  • تصفية - فلترة
  • الوقت
  • عرض
إلغاء تحديد الكل
مشاركات جديدة

  • Arizona Placer Locations







    Arizona has produced some nice gold from a series of placers. It has become famous in recent years as a hot spot for prospectors armed with metal detectors. I have not had the chance to spend loads of time in Arizona, but I have done some prospecting there, and I did produce some nice gold. This page has notes about my experiences, information and maps covering the placers of Arizona.


    Gold Nugget Detecting In Arizona

    The desert areas of Arizona are ideally located for nugget hunting. Rich placers have been found in several parts of Arizona, the best known are located at: Lynx Creek, Weaver (Rich Hill), La Paz and Greaterville. Many Arizona prospectors are interested in nugget shooting for gold with a metal detector. Minelab Pulse Induction (PI) metal detectors are very popular in AZ. While very few will strike it rich, there is some very nice gold out there to be found - its a fun and exciting hobby, but patience and skill are required. Gold just does not occur here and there spread over everywhere, so before one can find gold, you have to know where to look. While this info may get you started, further details on the claims and land status of the goldfields can be obtained from the regional office of the BLM, located in Phoenix, or through the internet at the BLM's LR2000 website. Click on the highlighted topic links below to access the information I have assembled for you to review. Good luck in your prospecting and may you find that big nugget that's out there waiting for you!




    The Bradshaw Range in central Arizona gives rise to a number of important gold districts all along it's length. The gold districts located in the Bradshaw range are among the most productive placer fields in the state, and still yield gold to individual prospectors working there. Important gold districts in this area include Lynx Creek, the Big Bug Creek area, the upper Hassayampa River system, the Groom Creek placers, the Black Canyon placers and several others.

    Perhaps the first discovery of gold in the Bradshaw range was made at Lynx Creek in 1863 by a party of California miners headed by Captain Joe Walker. Lynx Creek was very rich in certain areas, and successful prospectors recovered an ounce or more per day in the early days. Word spread and additional miners came to work the area. Over the next five to 10 years, additional placer deposits were discovered in many other creeks draining the Bradshaw mountain range, with the highest period of placer mining activity occurring in the 1870s and 1880s. At times, several hundred men were working in the various gold districts around the Bradshaw range. Dredging was done along Lynx Creek in the early part of the 1900s.



    While some of the early mining work in this area was done by sluicing or rocking during the times and seasons when water was available, the vast majority of the work placer mining in this area has been done by dry washing, at least until recent years. Virtually all of the dry washing here has been done by small scale miners who travel from site to site searching for richer deposits and pockets of gold. In more recent times, metal detecting has become very important method for finding gold in the Bradshaw range, and metal detector operators commonly rework the tailings piles of older dry washing operations for missed nuggets.

    Because of its proximity and easy access from Phoenix, there are many private placer claims which have been located in the Bradshaw range. There are also some club claims located here, which provide access for prospectors who belong to those clubs. Additionally there is also a significant amount of private land, especially the lands closer to Highway 17. These areas are undergoing continued real estate development and more and more new homes are being constructed in the area. the for service has placed numerous restrictions concerning prospecting on Lynx Creek. Before attempting to prospect in the Bradshaw mountains area, it is important to know the land and claim status of the are you intend to explore.


  • #2


    Gold Basin and King Tut Placers In NW Arizona


    While lode gold was discovered in the White Hills as far back as the 1870s, it wasn't until the time of the great depression in the 1930s the placer gold was discovered and mined. By August of 1932, one hundred men were testing the field with dry washers most of them when the winter rainy season put a stop to dry washing, but about 40 were back prospecting again in June of 1933. The Gold Basin placers are located in section 28 and 29 North are 17 and 18 West about 9 miles South of the Colorado River. There are also placers associated with the Lost Basin Range drainages on both its east and west flanks. This includes the King Tut area. All of these locations are accessible by dirt roads which branch northward from Dolan Springs.

    Because this area is easy to get to and not too very far from the Las Vegas area, there are a lot of private claims as well as claims belonging to prospecting clubs. At the time I'm writing this there is still some land that is free to prospect on: unclaimed and open to location, but as the price of gold goes up there seems to be less and less of it each year. There is also a significant amount of private property in the area which is also not open to prospecting. For those who are not familiar with the region, joining a prospecting club seems to be the best opportunity for having a location to prospect in this area.




    The placers in the Gold Basin region have produced both coarse and fine gold. While nuggets in the four to five ounce range are about the maximum that are found, these are rare. Still, there are a good number of nuggets over an ounce that have been found in this area. The gold is derived from many small gold Quartz veins which are found in precambrian metamorphic rocks. These veins are associated with and similar to the lode deposits which were discovered in the area in 1800s. The placers are associated with outcrops of these precambrian rocks, and they are favorable indicator for the presence of gold. Hard packed, caliche cemented gravels are common throughout the area, and in many locations these hard gravels form a false bedrock upon which later gravels are deposited. The typical depths of the gold bearing gravels range from one to 5 feet thick, and normally rest upon caliche cemented material.

    While all of the early work which was done in this area had been accomplished by dry washing, in recent decades metal detecting has become extremely popular in this area. This is been especially true with the advent of pulse induction metal detectors which are able to penetrate into the mineralized soils at this location.Although a lot of detecting goes on here, dry washing continues to be popular, and a number of small-scale miners still try their hand dry washing the sands and gravels in the white elephant wash region.


    تعليق

    يعمل...
    X