Metal detecting silver ore

[NJnuggetpirate]

Can most metal detectors find metal ore silver gold copper ext

 

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[Jim in Idaho]

It depends. Gold fairly easily, assuming the individual grains are large enough. Silver and copper not so much, depending on the form they take. Some rich silver ores can't be detected. Same with copper. Both metals oxidize fairly easily, and though the metal is still there, it is in a form that doesn't conduct electricity very well, so is invisible to detectors.
Jim

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

It depends. Gold fairly easily, assuming the individual grains are large enough. Silver and copper not so much, depending on the form they take. Some rich silver ores can't be detected. Same with copper. Both metals oxidize fairly easily, and though the metal is still there, it is in a form that doesn't conduct electricity very well, so is invisible to detectors.
Jim

Oh ok now are do ppl make the silver nuggets bc they don't form on there own that often

 

[jmoller99]

The key is knowing what the silver ore in the area looks like and its composition. If the ore is tied up in sulphides, your detector won't see it even if there is high silver content.

I have been collecting silver ore samples from all over the Colorado Mineral Belt - the goal to make me better at recognising potential ore out of a tailings dump. Some of the ore is detectable, some is not. All of it is processable, but for sulphides, it may not be worth it. There are tons of silver ore that was thrown away because it was too expensive to transport for what the processors would pay for it. If you could figure out how to process it on site, you would be ahead of yourself (since there may be 50 or more oz's of sliver per ton of ore - 1 ton of ore is around 1 cubic yard in size), even if you can only concentrate it down by 50%.

As usual, load ore does not always look like you might expect it to - learning more about that will help. Often it will require a lot of effort to get the silver (or other minerals) out of it.

I have thought of building a small ball mill to run in my garage (to pulverise ore with). Trouble is that I doubt I could soundproof it well enough so that my neighbors would not be upset.