Info Sources

INFORMATION SOURCES

Internet

Magazines

Book Sources

Recommended Books & Videos

Internet

The grand daddy of all of the gold prospecting sites is Ken Lane's Gold Prospecting page. It was the first gold site and has a lot of good information about what gold is, what you need to get started plus how and where to find it in Southern California. It was the inspiration for the creation of Minin' Gold.

Once you have dug up all the gold in the USA and are looking for information on Australia, Danny the Dredger's Gold Prospecting Page is a great place to start. There is some good general info on prospecting and equipment plus some pictures that are guaranteed to get you motivated.

TreasureNet has long been a great resource for treasure hunters and now has added gold prospecting information and links to other gold related pages. TreasureNet now has a forum where you can exchange messages with other prospectors.

Robert Johnson's GoldSheet has links to almost every gold related web site known to man. Most are oriented to the business side of gold mining but you will surely find something of interest there.

Another super collection of gold links can be found at the Gold Miner's Headquarters

The U.S. Geological Survey has some good information on Prospecting for Gold in the United States. The page includes an overview of placer & lode mining, gold bearing areas for some states, a list of state agencies, some selected references and more.

The Gold Nugget Detectors web site answers most of your questions about nugget detectors. If it doesn't answer your question, you probably don't need the answer.

Recreational Mining NewsGroup

The alt.mining.recreational newsgroup is a good place to correspond with fellow prospectors. It is a great place to get answers to your questions and to discuss mining related issues. Garret Romaine compiled a FAQ back in 1996 but it hasn't been updated recently. It still has a lot of good info though.

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Publications

Magazines

International California Mining JournalThe California Mining Journal is now called "ICMJ's Prospecting and Mining Journal". It leans more toward the business end of mining but there is still a lot every month for us recreational prospectors. It has the biggest classified section of all the magazines. They have a great web site!

Gold Prospectors

This magazine is published by the Gold Prospectors Association (GPAA) and comes with a membership in the organization. About 20% of the pages are devoted to advertising for GPAA and its related enterprises. Ditto for many of the articles. Most of the rest of the articles are what I would call background information such as ghost towns, lost treasure, "my first nugget" etc. In other words, not much "how to" or "where to". Now they have add several pages of fishing & hunting etc. I am still a member though.
GPAA, P.O. Box 891509, Temecula, CA 92589-1509 (909) 699-4749

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Book Sources

Sierra Books

Need an old report of the California State Mineralogist? Or how about an original copy of Waldemar Lindgren's 1911 "Tertiary Gravels of the Sierra Nevadas" (super info on hydraulic mines)? Or maybe you would like to get the first USGS topographic maps of the gold country surveyed over a hundred years ago. Give Jim Courtney at Sierra books a call. Sierra Books specializes in old, out of print mining books. The topics include mining, metallurgy and related subjects; mining history; economic geology mostly of the western states and USGS geologic atlas folios. They ain't cheap though as many of the books and maps are very rare. A free catalog is available.
Sierra Books, PO Box 2504, Martinez, CA 94553 (510) 228-1849

Cal-Gold

Cal-Gold has the best selection of contemporary mining related books I have found. Best of all, they maintain an on-line book list. Hint: Cal-Gold's list of books is long so use you web browser's find function to search for what you are after.
Cal-Gold, 2569 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91107 (818) 792-6161

Recommended Books and Videos

General

Probably the most complete book about gold mining procedures is by Dave McCracken. It covers all the basics plus introductions to more advanced equipment and techniques. I didn't see a whole lot of difference between "Gold Mining in the 21st Century" and Dave's earlier book, "Gold Mining in the 1990's".

Nugget Shooting

"Follow the Drywashers Volume 3" (The Nugget Shooters Bible) by Jim Straight is an excellent book on all phases of finding gold with a metal detector.

A couple other good books are "Zip ZIP" by Larry Sallee and "Finding Gold Nuggets" by Jimmy Sierra. Although both of these books are pretty much oriented toward the Whites GoldMaster detector, there is a lot of useful info for those using other detectors.

Pieter Heydelaar's "Successful Nugget Hunting" would be a good choice if you are thinking about going to Australia to hunt for gold. Pieter has a great deal of advice about where to go, how to get around and general detecting procedures. This book is slanted toward the Fisher Gold Bug detector.

Research - General

James Klein's three books "Where To Find Gold in the Mother Lode/Southern California/the Desert" lists many areas in California. The areas listed are pretty general but it is a good start.

"Gold Districts of California" (Calif Div of Mines & Geology Bulletin 193) will give you a pretty good idea of where gold has been found in California. It gives the location, history, geology, ore deposits and some of the mines in each mining district throughout the state. Each district has a list of references to other publications but most of these are out of print.

Videos

Some gold mining stores rent videos. Check with your local shop before buying one.

Dave McCracken's "Modern Gold Mining Techniques" presents much of the information in his "Gold Mining in the 1990's" book. It definitely covers the basics.

For a video on panning only, "The Buzzard's Sure Fire Panning Methods" can't be beat. It is available from GPAA.

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