Electronic Prospecting in Silver Country

[mamabear]

thank you for a most interesting & informative read. & I can not emphasize enough how pleased I am you are keeping your find for your personal collection. they hold a beauty in their natural state that cannot be equaled no matter how much refining we do.
congrats on banner.

 

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[ScubaFinder]

Thank You Jim! I'm strictly a shipwreck hunter, but reading your post made me want to head off for the great white north and go silver searching. Thanks for the wonderful information. If you ever write a book on searching for silver deposits, I will buy it in a heart beat. GREAT thread, my hats off to you (and Tuberale) for a very informative read!

Jason

 

[relicminer]

What a contribution!!

 

[Tuberale]

Glad to see this where it belongs, Jim: at the top!

From the land of White's, Bounty Hunter, Technetics, and others to be named later.<G>

 

[stillwater]

Wow, Jim....every boy's dream to do what you are doing! Incredible fun you must have!

 

[Elad]

WOW JUST WOW!!!

 

[Breezie]

Outstanding silver!!! Congratulations on your silver as well as your deserved banner! Breezie

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Thanks to everyone for taking a moment to comment.

The response to this article has been extraordinary and every comment is very much appreciated. I doubt many of us are looking for an “attaboy” but the acknowledgement certainly encourages me to consider responding to more posts from fellow members on this forum. Participation equates with interaction…the basis of the mutually supportive community that we all share here. Thankyou everyone, and an especial thanks to Strickman for his effort to successfully propel the silver displayed here to a ‘banner’ status…quite an honor that I did not anticipate… again...many thanks to everyone.

Jim.

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[Rick (Nova Scotia)]

Hey Jim,

The "extraordinary response" is because you "made banner". The Canadian sub forum doesn't get a lot of traffic, especially during the "white" season.

BTW it deserves to be there, it a real piece of treasure.

Congrats on the big one.

 

[Cherokee_Kidd]

Wow.

 

[allen]

Congrats on those awesome finds and on making the banner.

 

[CanadianTrout]

That's simpley fantastic Jim. I mean all of it... getting out into the wilderness, camping, nature, the hard work with the reward at the end.

Truly amazing my friend!!!!

 

[windage]

Jim, firstly, thanks for posting. It is very encouraging to see actual photos of some of the hard work of prospecting. Can you explain to us why a rock with such a large "amount" of silver in it, can give such a low conductive reading?
Is it due to the matrix/porous nature of the metal, or the dilution of the silver by alloys, or both?
By the way, what are the most common metals found in your native silver?

 

[strickman]

good question windage I was wondering why it had a low reading myself .

 

[windage]

Whoa...I began poking around in the Canada section, found many of your postings and think I found some explanation to my earlier question regarding target ID on some of your silver laden rocks.
Am currently reading; Phase Measurement and Magnetic Susceptibiltiy, a post by you from last year. I must say, any serious detectorist should read that one. Great exposition on the effects of various ground constituents and moisture contents on penetration and target ID.

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Thanks to everyone for taking a moment to post your comments…each is very much appreciated. I’m quite pleased that fellow members seemed to have enjoyed reading the article.

Windage…lets address your questions. A sample’s benchtest conductive readout results from its physical / chemical make-up. Silver purity, types of mineral inclusions, structure, size, shape, the presence of iron minerals within an ore structure…all impact target ID…and there may be other factors as well.

In-situ…ground conditions play an extremely important role. Ground moisture content, strength of non-conductive magnetic susceptible iron mineralization, disturbed ground conditions, and the ore’s profile presented to the coil…all impact target ID. These factors can result in good silver even reading down into the iron range despite a specimen's physical / chemical make-up.

Silver ores in this area are associated with variable amounts of antimony, bismuth, very minor mercury, cobalt, nickel, arsenic, iron and other minerals. Minor inclusions of such minerals degrade silver’s electrical conductivity to a far greater degree than their compositional percentage might seem to indicate. The bulk of silver ores found by hobbyists are low conductives that target ID from low foil to mid-pulltab range. The maximum conductivity of natural silver in this area is at the silver dime category. The percentage of ores that fall into higher conductive ranges above the pulltab level dramatically declines as conductivity increases. It was happenstance that the specimens presented above were mostly higher conductives. Below is a small low conductive specimen recovered this past autumn...

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[JohnDroid]

Thank you for the excellent post. Very informative, one of my favorite threads on the site.

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Thanks JohnDroid for posting your comment here. This presentation was a nice way to close out the autumn prospecting season. Given the overall response, I see good reason to do something similar next winter as well. Your interest is very much appreciated.

Lets see if we can put up another specimen for you using the new system. The photo below depicts another sample found at the excavation site discussed in the article.

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[JanThorCro]

Absolutely inspiring. Thank you for the great post(s).

We used to enjoy rock hunting all over Maine (Newery), up into Nova Scotia, Montreal, Herkimer, NY.

Good dirty fun.

 

[notarichman]

be very careful around otters! especially if they have young....i've seen news reports of otters attacking humans swimming in rivers.