prospector

n.
One who explores an area for mineral deposits or oil.

Prospectors are people who explore for minerals. For many nineteenth-century American prospectors, the hope of one day striking it rich was a lifelong preoccupation. Their explorations accelerated westward migration. The influx of miners and then settlers after gold discoveries forced the Cherokees from Georgia; the Sioux from the Black Hills of South Dakota; and the Arapahos, Cheyennes, and Utes from Colorado.

By the mid-twentieth century representatives of giant corporations, who relied heavily on geological research and sophisticated detection equipment, were doing most of the prospecting in the United States. Increasingly, the minerals that they sought were those related to energy production, notably petroleum and uranium.

Bibliography

Johnson, Susan Lee. Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.

Trafzer, Clifford E., and Joel R. Hyer, eds. Exterminate Them: Written Accounts of the Murder, Rape, and Slavery of Native Americans during the California Gold Rush, 1848–1868. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1999.

IN BRIEF: A person who searches for deposits of valuable ores, minerals or oil.

A prospector might be out in the hills for weeks before finding a possible site for a mine.

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: someone who explores an area for mineral deposits

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