GotAU?

That’s a great article, thanks. There’s a lot of photographers that had their hoarded negative collections rediscovered after their death, there’s a pretty famous one here in the US as well - Vivian Maier was a really good unknown street photographer who never published her work until a guy bought a box of 40,000 of her negatives for $380 after her death. The prints from her negatives are worth tens of thousands of dollars today. It sounded like he spent his money doing the things he loved, and left a pretty good legacy with his work and all, it’s too bad he died a broken man and ar such a young age. I wonder if his “life preserving potion” had anything to do with it?

Join a local club like the Roadrunner Prospectors in Phoenix or the Desert Gold Diggers club in Tucson, they both have some good claims around you and even if you’re just with them a year you’ll get a lot of opportunities to meet up with folks that can help show you all the ins and outs to it.

Wonder if he lives near an old bombing or artillery testing range, looks like old metal shrapnel to me.

Oops, didn't read above this- good luck out there to you too!

Where are you located? I would set up a visit with some experienced folks to see how different models work first. My buddies did that for me and I got to try out puffers and blower types. It was a good experience. That’s why I ended up with one of each!

Thats a pretty interesting article, especially the part that implies bonanza rich veins may be more common than once thought!

That looks like a 151, nice package! I have the same motor set up and it runs really well. Nothing like a four stroke, the sound isn’t loud like the 2-strokes, a lot more reliable too, although it reminds me of mowing lawns when I was a kid “Yes dad, I’ll be sure to cross cut and rake the grass this time!”

Where are you located? I have a clean Royal large I may be letting go, I will be using it out over memorial day weekend in Southwestern Az, but I live in So Cal. If you are anywhere between Yuma and Quartzite this weekend, or in So Cal afterwards, maybe we can meet up. PM if interested.

Couple interesting articles about it: https://www.space.com/strontium-heavy-element-formed-neutron-star-merger.html and one about the conditions a pair of neutron stars must be in to make gold, rapidly spinning inwards together in a death spiral... https://www.space.com/collapsar-stars-gave-universe-gold.html

Bob, are you talking about dating?

I was wondering about that -6 value, wouldn’t that have made it ID as a ferrous target anyway? But I suppose you had it set to gold 1? Do you have a little 6 inch coil? If so, try the same test with that.

Well those two locations aren’t too far apart! That’s one thing about collecting minerals, a lot of those location IDs are way off. It’s a great little specimen, the way how it must’ve formed is interesting.

I meant to post earlier, this is a beautiful specimen! What general location did you find it? It’s interesting how the calcite intruded into and filled the void inside the chalcedony.

I think chalcedony has a green florescence itself without uranium, and all the chalcedony Ive ever collected throughout the Mojave glows like that. But I may be wrong as although I haven’t collected in areas known to contain uranium, it apparently only needs trace amounts of uranyl ions, (U02)2+, to make some minerals glow green. Edit: Morlock got to it before me, OK, so that explains it and if it only requires trace amounts of uranium it is pretty much everywhere there’s granitic and other intrusive rocks, so that makes sense.

I found these in Franconia with both calcite and chalcedony