Hi all. I don't get by here much but I wanted to ask a question that I've been curious about, since my father inlaw has decided to move to Alaska to mine for gold. I'm no metallurgist, I am but a lowly engineering student that is still seeking my associates degree. But it does seem to me, with my limited knowledge of such things, that one should be able to at least tell what type of metal is under the ground (or laying on your shop floor) with a scan of some type.
For example, doesn't every metal give off a certain, measurable magnetic field? If so, wouldn't some instruments or scanners be able to pick that up, and then be able to tell you what type of metal was there? I was wondering, because the method he's using to try to get some of the gold seems... archaic at best. Simply letting water flow through a sieving machine, and collecting the particles. Well of course anyone who thinks about it, would realize that there are probably much larger sized chunks of gold, at various depths beneath the bottom of the river/stream that he is mining in. And the water is only 1 foot deep (or less) in some places.
Of course the trick is locating the larger chunks, as the river/stream is miles and miles long. Where do you dig? How deep? Is there some way to pick up the weak magnetic field that gold has? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here? I haven't gotten far in my engineering studies, but I remember hearing somewhere that all metals have a magnetic field which surrounds them, but of course this will vary from metal to metal. Thus, gold would have its own, and once you calibrated your equipment or had sensitive enough equipment, you may be able to tune it to detect only gold.
Is this possible? If not, how far off base am I?
For example, doesn't every metal give off a certain, measurable magnetic field? If so, wouldn't some instruments or scanners be able to pick that up, and then be able to tell you what type of metal was there? I was wondering, because the method he's using to try to get some of the gold seems... archaic at best. Simply letting water flow through a sieving machine, and collecting the particles. Well of course anyone who thinks about it, would realize that there are probably much larger sized chunks of gold, at various depths beneath the bottom of the river/stream that he is mining in. And the water is only 1 foot deep (or less) in some places.
Of course the trick is locating the larger chunks, as the river/stream is miles and miles long. Where do you dig? How deep? Is there some way to pick up the weak magnetic field that gold has? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here? I haven't gotten far in my engineering studies, but I remember hearing somewhere that all metals have a magnetic field which surrounds them, but of course this will vary from metal to metal. Thus, gold would have its own, and once you calibrated your equipment or had sensitive enough equipment, you may be able to tune it to detect only gold.
Is this possible? If not, how far off base am I?
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