I need some advice

[2fishon]

I recently got permission from a landowner to prospect on his property. This property is at the mouth of a canyon that is in a gold-producing area. The water from the year-round stream is collected in a cement weir that is about 40ft long and 20ft wide. It's also about 10ft deep, with a concrete bottom and sides. When the weir fills up they use a backhoe to clean it out. It's full now and there are piles along the sides from when they cleaned it out in the past. Now for the advice part, how would you go about working this sand and gravel? I have access to a small trommel, would that be the easiest way to process a large amount of material?

 

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[russau]

as long as you can use the trommel, id go ahead and run it. about how many yards of material do you have ava.? if alot, can you use a Bobcat to move the material to save your back? how much time will you have to work this? the Bobcat will not only help you run this material but then you can spread it out where the land owners want it to save them the job. always good to help them out aswell!

 

[2fishon]

We'll use a backhoe. There is probably 15 pickup truck loads of material so far.

 

[2cmorau]

have ya done any testing?

 

[2fishon]

Nope. That will be the first thing I do.

 

[russau]

sounds pretty exciting! what about the heavy material that is left in the concrete pond? anyway to suck it out?

 

[Terry Soloman]

sounds pretty exciting! what about the heavy material that is left in the concrete pond? anyway to suck it out?

I would be sucking it out - dredging(?) into a highbanker/sluice setup! I agree with Russ - How Exciting!

 

[russau]

i agree but i didnt know if he lived in Cal or not! ive been thinking of the barges on the Mississippi River that haul the sand. they clean them out with a clamshell bucket. im surge they dont get all the heavies from the bottom of that barge. weve been doing sand and gravel plants and finding lots of fine gold in their hoppers IF they let you in to clean them out during off hours!

 

[2fishon]

I think you guys are right about the dredging at the bottom. That's probably where most of the good stuff will be. I have a buddy (same one with the trommel) that has a small dredge. I am thankfully not in California. This is also on private property. I hope to get back to this spot in the next month or so. I'll take pics.

 

[tinpan]

hi so if it takes a gram of gold or bigger to 8 inches in a million years . How much gold do expect to find in the wash build up of a modern flow stopper? Flour or flood gold may be but that is so small.

tinpan

 

[2fishon]

You're right. I'm not expecting to find anything but fine flood gold. I seriously doubt if any nuggets would make it that far.

 

[Terry Soloman]

You're right. I'm not expecting to find anything but fine flood gold. I seriously doubt if any nuggets would make it that far.

Gold, even micro-gold, is 17-times heavier than 97-percent of all the other material. Agitation, even from water current, does a lot more to settle heavies than just laying in the dirt, slowly sinking over eons... Water, moves gold - not wind, not the sun, not fire - just water.

I have seen one desert rain move 15-feet of overburden, right down to bedrock! I am getting itchy just THINKING about it! Best of luck to you!

 

[2fishon]

We had an incredible amount of snow pack this year as well as a very rainy spring and summer. The mountain streams are still running well above normal. I'm just hoping there's some gold in there somewhere.