Re: Newbie questions: ( Surveying "virgin" creeks, home panning, suburban watersheds,etc.) Long Intro !

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 18:06:14 GMT, "Steve Peek" <speek@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>Look for culverts in out of the way places. The ridges act like riffles
in a 
>sluice box. Scoop out the concentrate & pan carefully. If there is gold
in 
>the creek it will already be concentrated in the culvert.
>Good luck,
>Steve

 Hey ! That's a clever idea. It raises another question for me that maybe
you
could answer. Basicallly, I guess it would be like this:

>Is it better to pan *upstream* or *downstream* of obstructions ?

For instance, in the case of the culvert, would gold placer being swept
downstream
tend settle out at the entrance to, inside of, or at the exit of the
culvert?

And likewise for rocks, logs,etc. - As long as there is curent flow
over/around the
obstacle which side will be more productive ? Water will tend to "dam up"
on the
front side, but will tend to form little eddies on the downstream side.
IIRC, fish are
usually on the downstream side as that's where potential food settles out.

I'm just curious, but I bet I'm not the first to ask either,

Andrew