Hi all! My name’s Ryan and I’m new to this forum. I’m a beginner who knows little about prospecting, and am here to learn. I’m writing a novel set in 1870 about gold prospectors, and want to describe the process accurately—from tracing and digging methods to geology. I’ll probably ask many questions.
My first one is this: when panning yields alluvial deposits, what are typical ways to trace them to their source? For example, I know one way is to search hill slopes alongside the stream for…