Thursday, April 28, 2016

Area Rivers Begin to Recede



Water monitoring stations operated by the United States Geological Survey report declining stream levels around the region.  A few examples, taken from the USGS Current Water Data for the Nation website, show this trend:









Up-to-date data for any of these rivers and many others is available from the site linked above.  Also, in the right-hand sidebar under the heading, "Stream Flow Information," are links to several sites that provide this type of information.  The USGS Water Alert site allows you to set up text or email alerts for various conditions on streams of interest.

With water levels dropping, placer mining season isn't far behind.  Use the resources mentioned above to determine when water conditions are optimal for your planned activity.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Gold, Gem, and Mineral Shows for the Rest of 2016



Following is a list of the gold, gem, and mineral shows in Washington and surrounding areas from May 1 through the rest of the year.  If you're aware of any I have missed, please provide information in the comments.

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April 30 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
May 1 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Everett Rock & Gem Club
63rd Annual Gem, Jewelry and Mineral Show

Free Admission
Disabled Access
Free Adjacent Parking

Everett Community College
Walt Price Student Fitness Center
2206 Tower Street
Everett, Washington

More information at www.everettrockclub.com

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June 11 and 12 10 a.m. 4 p.m.

GPAA Idaho Gold & Treasure Show

Expo Idaho
5610 N Glenwood Street
Garden City, Idaho  83714

Tickets:  www.goldprospectors.org

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June 18-20

Athol, Idaho
44th Annual Northwest Treasure Hunters Club Treasure Hunt

We are going back to Farragut State Park, one of the most beautiful places in the country. For more information, call or email.

Phone: Duncan (208)660-4852; clay (509)999-0692
Email: duncanb73@gmail.com

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August 26-28
PNW Miners Rally
Liberty, Washington

Saturday, April 16, 2016

How to Track Down that Elusive Creek, Mine, or Other Feature You've Been Hearing About

“I heard there's coarse gold in [insert name of] creek, but I don't know exactly where it is.”

Have you ever heard anything like this? If you've been in the gold prospecting field for any length of time, you likely have.

Nowadays, instead of poring over numerous maps hoping to get lucky by spotting the name of the creek in question, we have a handy website called Latitude Longitude Search.

Latitude Longitude Search (or Lat-Long for short) lists more than two million geographical locations in the United States. All you need to do a search is the name of the feature you're looking for and the state in which it lies. Hopefully, you know at least this much.

As an example, suppose I'm looking for a stream named “Gold Creek” in Washington. At the top of the site's home page, I type the name into the “Find places named” box, select the state (and optionally the county and/or feature type), and click the “Lat-Long Search” button. I'm presented with eighteen results:



Should I decide to check out the listing in Chelan County, I click on the appropriate blue link in the table. That brings up a page showing the elevation, latitude, and longitude of the location plus its position on two maps: a wide-area map showing the creek's location in the state and a larger, zoomable map showing its location relative to nearby features.



If I want to see more detail, I can switch the larger map to satellite imagery and zoom in on the location.



Hopefully, Lat-Long will help you track down some of the elusive places you've been wanting to investigate.


Questions? Please post them in the comments.

Friday, April 15, 2016

How to Display USGS Quadrangle Map Coverage in Google Earth



Have you ever wanted to locate the topographic map that shows the area you're interested in? If so, you can download a .kml file that will display an overlay in Google Earth that shows the areas covered by the various United States Geological Survey (USGS) quadrangle maps.

The helpful file in question is called QUADS and is available for free from the same people, Metzger-Willard, who offer the PLSS overlay file for Google Earth discussed in the previous post.

Once you have Google Earth – I recommend the Pro version as it is now free at the link here – navigate to USGS Quadrangles and click on the QUADS link in the box near the top of the page. After the file downloads, open it in Google Earth as described in the previous post about the PLSS overlay file.

To use the overlay file, navigate to your area of interest in Google Earth. In the left-hand sidebar of Google Earth, check the “Search Results” box in the “USGS Quadrangles” section. (You may have to expand that section to see the “Search Results” and other option boxes.) Check the “Automatic” radio button under “Refresh Mode” and an overlay of the available quadrangle maps will appear in the Google Earth display.



If you click on one of the colored dots in the center of the various map outlines displayed in Google Earth, a pop-up box will open that gives the name and other information about that particular map.



Clicking the “All maps with this name” link in the box will open a new page in Google Earth with a list of all available maps of the selected area together with their dates and links for downloading them as PDF files.



If you want, you can display a topographic map overlay of the area you are viewing in Google Earth by clicking the “TopoMaps” radio button in the “Overlays” section of the “USGS Quadrangles” section in Google Earth's left-hand sidebar. In my own experience, these overlay maps are not that detailed or useful. I find that downloading the maps I want from the pop-up box links mentioned earlier is more satisfactory.

I hope the information above helps you find the maps you need for your prospecting activities. As always, feel free to ask any questions in the comments section below the post. I will do my best to answer as soon as possible.


Happy prospecting!

Saturday, April 9, 2016

How to Display Sections and Townships in Google Earth



(Note:  This article updates a previous post and replaces the link in the right-hand sidebar section that was lost when the blog was hacked a few years ago.)

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If you're conducting research on areas to prospect or working up the legal description for filing a mining claim, one of the things you need to know is where the parcel in question lies with respect to the Public Land Survey System (PLSS).

The PLSS is the easiest way to describe the location of your claim when making out a Notice of Location.  It is also the system used by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Master Title Plats that tell you which areas are open to Mineral Entry, meaning, where you are allowed to stake a claim.

This blog has previously discussed some of the ways to use Google Earth as a prospecting aid.  (See Armchair Prospecting with Google Earth and More on Armchair Prospecting.)

The PLSS is available as a convenient overlay on Google Earth.

If you don't already have this handy program, I suggest you download the Google Earth Pro (GEP) version as it is now free.  (It previously cost $399 per year.)  Here is the link:

http://www.google.com/earth/download/gep/agree.html

Be sure to read the system requirements and the note regarding the free license.

Once GEP is installed and running, navigate to PLSS in Google Earth and click on the "download GLSGE" link in the box near the top of the page.  Doing this will download a file named "plss.kml" which you can open in Google Earth by clicking on File>Open in the GEP menu bar and navigating  to where you saved the file (generally the "Downloads" folder).

In "Temporary Places" in the GEP left-hand sidebar, you will find entries for the PLSS overlay application.  Be sure the radio button next to "Automatic" is checked under the "Refresh Mode" section.  To show Sections and Townships, check the radio button next to "Townships" in the "Overlays" section.

You should then see Section and Township borders and labels on your GEP display.  (You may have to zoom in some before they show up.)

The borders and labels will refresh about two seconds each time after you stop moving the map.  As you might find this behavior somewhat annoying, you can switch auto-refresh off by checking the radio button next to "Manual" in the "Refresh Mode" section mentioned earlier.  To return to auto-refresh, just check the "Automatic" radio button again.

Note that sometimes there is a slight difference between where the Section and Township borders appear in GEP and where they actually are.  This means before you do anything important like filing a mining claim, be sure to double-check the border locations with an actual map.  For comparison purposes, below is part of the USGS 7.5 minute quadrangle map of the same area around Blewett, Washington shown in the picture at the top of this article.



When you close GEP, it will ask you if you want to save the locations in your "Temporary Places" folder.  If you click "Yes," the PLSS overlay application will load automatically each time you start GEP.  Otherwise, you can always load the file manually as you did the first time.

I hope you find both Google Earth Pro and the PLSS in Google Earth overlay useful in your prospecting endeavors.

As always, if you have any questions or observations, please enter them in the comments and I will do my best to answer promptly.

Question:  Have you used Google Earth in your prospecting/mining activities and, if so, how did it work out for you?  You can answer in the comments section.