Hi Lanny,

That particular gold had shed from a quartz leader out onto a flat. We couldn't find any left in the reef when we dollied some of it, but some of the gold closer to the reef stil had quartz attached.

Yes, we have quite a few ancient gold-bearing channels. We call them "deep leads". Many of the richest finds were in deep leads - Kanowna, Bulong, and others.I've read old accounts of wash going 100 oz to the bucket, etc. The gravels in them are often cemented together with calcrete or silcrete.

That bloke you mention who posted about going down with a hammer and chisel fo a 2 oz nugget was probably going through calcrete (calcium hardpan deposit). There's a lot of it around the goldfields in WA. It occurs in massive form or as nodules.

A mate and I spent hours digging a piece out last year using crowbars, sledgehammers and rock chisels. We were being careful as we didn't want to damage the nugget. It was about a foot from the surface to the calcrete, and another 4 or 5" deep in the calcrete to the top of the nugget. It took both of us a couple of hours of solid work to get it out. Once we'd chipped off most of the calcrete, we weighed it, and estimated the nugget to be about 5 oz. We had to put it in acid for a few days to get the rest of the calcrete off. Unfortunately some pieces fell off during acid treatment, as it was a spiky and fragile nugget that looked like it had formed by precipitation of auriferous solutions in the calcrete. We were left with one main piece of 4 oz, a half oz piece and a few grams of smaller bits. I've heard of people spending several days digging out one signal in calcrete. At least if it's that deep in the calcrete, it's likely to be a couple of ounces or more, making it well worthwhile.

Later,

Steve.