You'll probably be hiking in a state park or on private land, where someone has given you permission You might do a little digging or chiseling, but no serious mining. You won't be heading to a specific mine or looking through pre-dug piles of gravel - you'll be searching for gems and minerals already at the surface, exposed by rock falls and erosion. Hunting for gems can be as simple as heading out into the wild and seeing what you can find on a walk. However, some fee digs charge a percentage of the wholesale price of any rough gems you find. Essentially, you're leasing the mineral rights to whatever you find. Fees can range from $50 to $100 or more, depending on the length of time you spend at the site. Or, mines might provide material from deep underground, where the average gem hunter couldn't go. Some mines even import rock and dirt from other regions so people may search for exotic gems normally not found in that area. Fee digs attract both tourists and gem hunters. In addition to mine tailings, some mines prepare gravel and dirt deposits specifically so people can come and dig, looking for gems. Sometimes you can comb through mine dumps for free other mines charge a fee to dig through their remnants. It usually isn't worth the time for these groups to sort through leftovers in order to find small gems that they missed, so they just pile it in a place called a mine dump. When a large-scale, commercial mining operation extracts minerals from the ground, it ends up with leftover gravel and dirt.
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