Chris Ralph, Professional Prospector
Chris Ralph, Professional Prospector
My name is Chris Ralph, and I am a Professional Prospector - I make my income finding gold, silver, gemstones and mineral deposits which I sell to mining companies. I have a degree in Mine Engineering and I've been digging my own gold for more than 40 years. I've found gold in Africa, Australia, Alaska and all over the western US. This channel is about: 1) Teaching you how to find your own gold and gemstones; 2) Outdoor Adventures in the field exploring the western USA and other locations. 3) I cover diamonds, crystals gemstones and other topics of interest related to geology. Come along with me and we'll have some fun, make some friends and learn a lot about the geology of prospecting for gold. I've got lots of plans for new videos, so please subscribe to my channel and let me know your thoughts in the comments on my videos.
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Awesome video !
Can't understand how folks can complain about these excellent videos explaining the geology of Nevada and how it relates to turquoise and gold
Awesome video! Thank you! I am just beginning to read your book!👍
Glad the video was helpful! I think you will like the book.
Fish on! Clicked the bait!
Hope you enjoyed it.
Hey Chris- I just cant find any info out there on gold detectors that have the ability to penetrate through 4-5m solid bedrock. Working on a project that is on land but below sea level. The only way is to detect from the surface but I am struggling to find the correct detectors / scanners to penetrate through deep rock basalt to locate the exact cavity with the gold inside. Please can you advise what equipment would be appropriate . Much appreciated
You are struggling because there are no detectors which penatrate that deep. The physics is impossible, so they don't exist.
This is real what I am looking for and what does this have in appearance?
We have an English language translation problem.
So the fusion coating is similar to an egg shell of molten material? And are the thumbprints a result of the underlying material burning off and the fusion material filling in and forming a skin over the void for lack of a better term? I assume the fusion materials are higher temperature materials that don’t burn off quite as easily generally speaking.? 28:34 except for a smooth skin, the meteorite at this timestamp reminds me very much of an old coal ‘clinker’ that my grandpa showed me when we were digging around his barn. They used to throw the old coal clinkers around the base of the barn to stop animals from digging. I remember that same pockmarked look to it, but it was rough and not smooth
The fusion crust is a thin shell. The thumbprint divets are burned out not filled in.
I love you, Chris Ralph Professor, sir brother man you are so selfless giving you’re just a wonderful human being seriously I really mean that man you really have helped me out in my life because following one’s dreams everybody pushes you around and I reached the jubilee age of 50 and I I did it man I did it with people like you That like to help out people like me and share their knowledge and wisdom and have this zest for it in this passion, hands-down you’re awesome. I hope to meet you someday in person I wanna go. I wanna hunt for gold with you. I wanna smoke some marijuana with you too, but I wanna complement you too because you are more than an expert, you’re like a genius is genius, but you’re better than that because you love to share everything. I was just speaking my free mind and heart. I have a question though too about the formation of nuggets because there’s just this fascinating thing let’s take an example of bonanza gold. Let’s just take a big chunk of courts right and it’s got this little string of gold running through it like maybe just a millimeter and with and it’s just runs all through this giant piece of quartz right and it’s together. It’s like this string of gold. It’s all one unit now here’s my question. Does the gold form into a nugget from being trapped inside a giant piece of courts And just get smashed up from falling down the hill and rolling around in the water for a long time it makes sense to me. The nuggets would form this way. I hope I’m clear my question. If not, I will clarify later after I get some sleep and after my mind clears because well I’ve been dealing with an issue for quite some time now and the only thing I could do was go gold prospecting Because I can’t work for anybody or anything and I can I can work but I’m blithering now I’m just talking too much but I wanted to tell you that I had nothing except just a dream and a little bit of education and willingness and after listening to you, I don’t know how I stumbled on you online, but I listen to your videos all the time And I found a piece I found. I discovered Motherlode of the Motherloaded country and it’s been a couple years now and I finally put a couple pieces online to sell, but you know a lot of these pieces are different though. They’re like they’re like that one piece of California has in some museum And it looks like a bear. Remember that piece you showed it looks like a bear so these pieces that I have you know eventually when everything gets in order, you know I’m gonna make a chess pieces and chessboards once I learn how to cut the courts and you know there’s another one I got where the pieces look like different Continents and countries and I want to put them together in this cool little art thing and then sell it it’ll be worth more than the gold of itself entertaining right now I don’t necessarily mean to be entertaining. Let me tell you right now is better than blithering late night to myself about nonsensical things that only stirring to self loathing I cannot publish this for. I am just rambling on like a madman like a madman like a mad Hatter I got exposed to too much mercury. I think when I was in gold country I was really thirsty and I was drinking all the water in the river and it was tainted with mercury, but I was really not too concerned with it cause there’s a lot of water coming from the mountains, oh I’m just in pain right now. It just hurts. My muscles aren’t working right. Just thought somebody would listen out there and say ha ha that’s kind of funny right now. I’m really hurt right now. I just cut myself. Please erase this message Mamma Mia. I didn’t really cut myself. I scratched a cut and it hurt really really bad my back out of whack and I don’t know how to erase it and I just turn this off. OK, I don’t care. I’m publishing this. I just went on a little rant and rave because I’m in a lot of well. I’m suffering. I’m not in pain. There’s a difference between pain and suffering suffering. We can manage pain something else, but never mind my tangents here Chris, Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia, cause stupid voice recognition doesn’t work right Anyhow Chris, I really don’t know how to thank you you really have saved me because you remind me of what it was like when I was going to school 25 years ago and people were in education and learning and doing things and exploring. I really appreciate your encouragement because sometimes when I go out there by myself, I still feel like I’m in a police state, and your encouragement is right you validate the mining act that was passed by Abraham Lincoln, giving anybody the right to stick a claim
hello hello my dad owns couple of 100 acres of land Mexico. His land is part of an unesco site. We went out there and found a cave that was shining inside. I broke off some pieces and it looks like gold. How can I find out
I do not offer a mineral ID service, mostly because it’s not as easy as you think. Usually, minerals cannot be identified from just a picture. I'd say finds someone local who is knowledgeable. Or pay to have a lab analyze it.
Funny but I think east, it started here and was all but forgot about. And people look over it everyday in foolish ways.
Lots of gold was found in the Eastern states.
Hi Chris. I love your videos and book! I met you a few years ago at a GPAA event in PHX. I'm an Army guy at Fort Huachuca and Greaterville is my normal hunting grounds. I've read all the material I can get on the area but if you have any pointers, I'd be grateful to hear them. Thank you. Keith
Lots of gold has been found around Greaterville. Be persistent in your quest. Finding gold is not easy.
Lovely video Ralph. You are so soft spoken and simple when you explain stuff. Not over complicated. I just purchased a gold monster 1000 last week. I generally prospect Nevada county and placer county once a week. Generally every Monday or Tuesday. I sure hope I can learn this machine and learn some new spots. History, geology, and some know how. Wish me luck! I’m going to try some hydrologic mines Monday maybe North Columbia and Dutch flat. Thanks again Ralph. Your the man!
Glad it was helpful! Best of luck to you. I have other videos on the Gold Monster too.
@@ChrisRalph I’ll check them out! I just got back. Really had a hard time finding a hydraulic mine that was public for me to prospect and not private.. so I went down to the river to check bedrock and wow it just would beep at everything lol. Something I’ll need to learn. A hydraulic mine sounds fun to walk around in just couldn’t find somewhere to go
I found a 1974 one cent piece in the Walmart parking lot.
yes, that has a lot to do with Midwest gold.
@@ChrisRalphall joking aside, I had head from relatives who settled in the Johnson County area there was gold found along Kill Creek.
magnetic sonar
Cannot detect small non ferrous objects like gold.
@@ChrisRalph seems to me like it works like a sonar does in the water but with magnetic not acustic wawes and on the gorund , did i make a bad comparison ?
Gold pan i will feel like a Pioneer
Ok.
Biggest gold discovery is Yamashita and Marcos gold. Marcos gold in Central Bank of the Phil and UBS bank of Swiss over 600000 metric tonnes according to Karen Hudes of World Bank.!!!😮😮😮
Discredited FAKE news. Simply untrue. It would mean Marcos owned all the gold on planet earth - and then some. Marcos was wealthy, but not that wealthy.
❤
Thanks.
I found this stone and it has. 4 linepoint
OK.
I have a meteorite with Nano diamonds and i tested it with acid for silver and platinum and it tested as platinum is that possible for a meteorite
You didn't say what test you used to show your meteorite was platinum. If it was hydrogen peroxide, you demonstrated why that test is worthless. Lots of things bubble in hydrogen peroxide. Meteorites can contain tiny traces of platinum - like a 10 pound meteorite might have 10 cents worth of platinum.
Wow I am identifying different grounds and rocks thank you Chris great shows keep up your videos 👍
Glad you like them!
I had a piece of Namibian . It was full of nickel. It had a platted core and looked beautiful.
The etch patterns on the iron meteorites are beautiful.
Anyone else remembering back to saturday mornings in the 1970s? Scooby Doo!
Not sure of the link between Scooby Doo cartoon and meteorites.
I mean, to be fair eating a rock is better for your health than eating a McDonalds hamburger. And future civilizations will probably find McDonald’s cheeseburgers and assume they’re fossilized but in truth just waiting to be eaten.
There rocks rich in Arsenic, lead, uranium, and other toxic metals. I don't want to eat them. Take a look at this: kzread.info/dash/bejne/k2qts5OSiMi1dqg.html
Open your Bible and read. You will find more wealth in those pages than the entire earth contains. It is written: what benefits a man to inherit the earth and lose their salvation?.
You should Open your Bible and read. The meaning of life is faith in the Messiah Christ Jesus. Take a look at this video I did: kzread.info/dash/bejne/fZp9q5Sdgtbdnaw.html
why would you come here to be contradictory? get a life
I recently got a side by side which takes me to places I thought would be interesting and fun to metal detector and thought the idea scenario would be something like one of those gold hunters for scanning the surface and a multimodal one for other type of metals. Does that sound reasonable?
Be careful in choosing your detector. See: kzread.info/dash/bejne/d3po0aivg6vIetI.html
This ma talks. N talks I want to learn by you showing with the actual parts.
You already know everything, so just start building.
Thinking forward to my pit diggings, and the potential flood burst fan. I have several logical 'timelines' and geological premises I am relying on toward the likelihood I will find gold on my 100acre glacial till/river bench. The first one is that glaciers exploit specific local weakness in the bedrock by plucking, and the final landscape reveals that bias, such that the gully I refer to is the result of preferential erosion, first by ice, then by water. The principal host rock is Meguma group, pushed up onto Avalonia during the Alleghenian orogeny, continental shelf sediments of sandstone and shale originally deposited in the Ordovician off North Africa. Monzogranite plutons, melted from the subducting oceanic plate, rose to emplace in the 'now metamorphosed' Meguma, liberating and concentrating gold into the quartz-rich water, and filling the fractures as the standard model. Those fractures are the very weakness the hydrologic system exploits, and the deepest erosion features are likely evidence toward First year stuff so far, I think. Behind the cliffs where the gully is eroded there sits the plateau crown of a monzogranite pluton, and I find hard white bull quartz outcrops sitting proud on the tops of the ridge that surrounds my claim to the N, W and S. Those qualities give rise to my interest. I still have a question about how much the standard freeze-thaw cycle and solution activity would affect a quartz sample as it sits under a living forest for 10000 years. Will I find the gold continues to be liberated, and thus sunk to the first impermeable surface, or is that time period too short to see much change in the 'ore' released. I plan to examine every stone I pull out while I'm digging, I'm going to try and identify the source location as local or distant. The Younger Dryas only created local glaciers, moving fresh sediment only a couple miles in my direction, but a lot of the original sediment was left by the Laurentian ice sheet, with stones as far away as northern Quebec. I also want to identify the cross-section of the paleo-channel to gain a better understanding of how deep the till bench was worked. I have questions about how quickly clay layers form, the progress of water settling the glacial till before soil develops. I expect I will discover a lot more once I start to dig with a scientific interest in front of my lust for gold :)
Best of luck to you in your prospecting.
Mine is a match to 26:33 in this video and also the one before it that had chondrules!
Congratulations on your find.
Chris, another aspect of "persevering" is the "free" exercise we get while hiking, bending and digging. How many folks buy a membership at a local gym, go for a month or so and drop off making excuses... SO, by detecting, you are getting a free "Gym Membership", fresh air, cleaning up the environment and EVENTUALLY that nugget will be found and the "key to that nugget door" has shown itself to be very real ! Read on... Great video and words of advice from you sir (I will admit here that I purchased a Whites Metal Detector which I sold after digging only lead & trash in the El Paso Mountains, moved to Southern Oregon and bought a Minelab from a dealer in Placerville) I purchased numerous books, ICMJ magazine, read-up on historical sites, but got discouraged and sold the Minelab at a loss to a young man in Cave Junction, Oregon, who promptly went out and found his first nugget) This all took place was approximately 10 years ago. Embarrassing indeed ! Just purchased a Gold Bug Pro and after watching your videos (along with a few more terrific video posters here on KZread, I will now dedicate myself to finding my first nugget and PERSEVERE ! (ICMJ magazine is a terrific resource folks !)
ICMJ is of course a fine magazine, but I am no longer on staff, having retired a couple years ago. Metal detecting is tough and far to many get discouraged with the steep learning curve.
Very alsome vidio glad you made this 1 I'm a prospector plus rock collector. Thanks for sharing another great vidio
Glad you enjoyed it.
@8:50 That is the beautiful thing about the Bazooka Hydraulic Sluice Box. If you have a Heavy piece of Ore, it will get caught on the Classifier.
OK.
Thanks for another informative post I’ve been following you for a while I just ordered your book and am looking forward to reading it I’m getting close to retirement and prospecting is on my bucket list
Sounds great. Prospecting is a very enjoyable pastime.
Just so you know, your older videos are just as valuable to us prospective prospectors as your new videos. I have a LIDAR image of my camp property, I bought the exploration rights, and I'm heading there tomorrow for a 2 week vacation. I have untouched paleo-channels within my river bench that might date back to the Younger Dryas. The glaciers excavated a gully for that watercourse into a cliffside, and there was a note of 'auriferous veins' found in that gully, back in 1876. That location was not mined as it seemed expended by the erosion process, which should have left that sediment on my property. In addition there seems to be an outburst flood debris fan where the stream entered my property. I am not even sure my government supports placer mining even if I find a placer deposit, but for 2 years, at least, I can explore the potential. I will log all my work toward the claim 'work investment', I hope my process qualifies as work done. I am planning specific test pits along the inside bends. I might be 5 years out of time on this video, but I will give an update as I get started. I have much reading to do, if only to see how I might progress to mining if I prove my claim. Thank you for you gift of knowledge. I place you alongside my university profs, Georgia Pe-Piper and John Waldron, both accomplished research geologists. Geology is the best science because the proof is in your hand.
Best of luck to you in your efforts.
When I was gathering sand samples a couple of years ago., i would examine the samples with a loop. I was amazed that almost all the grains in the samples were very colorful even transparent. they ranged from clear to yellows oranges, reds and deep purples.. I wasn't interested in stones then , I was looking for traces of gold. This area was a large source of gold for the Spanish in the 1500s, We always found garnets and other colors the size of grains of rice. I thought of them as just quartz.
Interesting. Garnet is a common mineral and comes in all colors.
very interesting presentation. L appreciate your expertise. I curious what your opinion is about what minerals or gem stones are washed out and discarded in trommel tailings.
Going to do a video soon on prospecting guide to gemstones.
Diamonds from outer Space
Yes, they power space ships.
I would like the gemstones id video!
It's coming.
Got a couple of questions for you Chris. First I want to thank you for passing on all your knowledge. Im new to this hobby. Now I have come to the conclusion that the western united states has most of the gold. When you talk about using a metal detector you say to go to old gold mines, check their tailings and the ground around the site. We dont have that here. So I have been panning some brooks and one river in my area. I go on the inside of curves dig some holes there, and behind big rocks.Sometimes I dig down as much as 3 feet. I haven't found any black sand. So ether there is no black sand. Or the bed rock is much deeper than I can reach. Or there is no clay bed taking the place of the of the bed rock. I see Garnets and garnet sand. Alot of mica and quarts. There are some people putting out video's telling people that there is gold in my sand and I need to get it out with chemicals. I did use a powerful lupe 60x and 90x, and I could see a few pieces of gold. Is it worth the time and money to extract this microscopic gold? Thanks Chris. I'm learning alot from you and others. Mark.
First, no its not worth it unless you see loads and loads of fine gold with your magnification. I don't know where you are searching so hard for me to suggest anything. As I said in the video, there is gold in many places, but its not really everywhere.
@@ChrisRalph Thanks Ralph. I'm searching in Maine. The glaciers came through new england too. Maybe they didn't leave as much as the midwest.
I've seen large multi-ounce nuggets from Maine, and not from glacier material.
Humor me... We have all seen the two fisted drinker, pistol shooter... How about designing a way to use a VLF and a Pulse Induction machine side-by-side with some type of device in the middle that will cancel out any negative problems using the two types of metal detectors together ? Elon Musk can probably solve this ? Sorry folks, long drive, back at my RV winding down with a cold one and a bizarre idea. I bought a Fischer Gold Bug Pro (Walmart... great deal right now ! and hopefully NOT a Chinese knockoff ?) Ralph, weigh in !
Even if that could be done (and I have my doubts) - it would weigh 30 pounds. As far as a gold bug, if bought from Walmart, it's should be genuine.
I live in jhburg
You live in the right country for finding gold. There are lots more gold deposits than just the Witwatersrand.
I would love to discover gold
You live in the right country for finding gold. There are lots more gold deposits than just the Witwatersrand.
Always something to learn from each video thanks
Glad the videos are helpful!
Your videos are very helpful thankyou .I have a question about a rock I recently found some have said that it is toramaline but I'm not sure your expert opinion about it would be great.
I get quite a few people every day who want me to ID their rock and mineral photos. I do not offer a mineral ID service, mostly because it’s not as easy as you think. Usually, minerals cannot be identified from just a picture. Please watch my videos on how to Identify minerals for yourself. Part 1 can be found here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/f6SfuZdxisi3nMY.html and Part 2 can be found here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/rIOL0ZZyiJyWl6Q.html and Part 3 can be found here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/kZWWl7Cnl7XShto.html - Those videos should answer a lot of your questions.
omg its real thanks
Glad the video was helpful!
I found something that looks of silver. Now what do I do with it? 20lbs worth.
Lots of things can look like silver, including lead ore. First be really sure of what it actually is.
@@ChrisRalph thanks for the advise. How would I test if it was lead or not?
Great info. Have always been curious about meteorites from just plain rocks.
Glad it was helpful!
But i appreciate your videos, thank you
Glad they are helpful!
Chris the new white gold is Spodomene,its in the end lithium oxide, Look no further than Newry,Maine 1.5 billion dollar deposit , California is loaded with it.
Spodumene is a lithium Aluminum silicate. It can be a gemstone too. It take a lot of work to convert it to lithium oxide which sells for around $30 a pound. Lots less valuable than gold.
30,000 dollars a ton of spodomene
Did u know gold sulfate is in Quartz all u need is boiling brine, add HCl to form zinc chloride, the gold cements
I have 5 gold detectors original gold bug, small and standard coil, all of White's gold detectors especially the gmx, next is the good XRf spectrometer Olympus XRf
Thers gold salts in chloride and looks nothing like gold buddy,The late great Charles L.Butler, would agree with me,boy he loved using zinc powder and and fuse in flux the AU
Yes, salts do not look like metal - I never said they did. Table salt is made of Sodium (a metal) and chlorine (a poisonous gas) but table salt is something we add to a lot of our foods. Its not like either of the things that make it. Same is true of gold salts.