Getting Gold in old gravel pits?

[Swampbuckster]

Went out to an old gravel pit today with a small pond at the bottom to work my pan. Can anyone give me any advice? Had a hard time finding any black sands. Sampled areas below tree roots, on steep run off hills, at the base of the pond where the sand and gravel washes into the water, in front of large boulders. Are there specific areas I should be looking for? BTW This pit hasn't been in service for 20 plus years. And wow! Are there a lot of rocks!

 

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[russau]

dig deep for B.S. and gold! the sand and gravel plant i used to mess around in got their material from 150 foot down with a clamshell bucket. and it was from the anceint Mississippi River channel that is about 5 miles away from the current river.

 

[Goodyguy]

See if you can find where the gravel was removed down to the bedrock. Then work the remaining gravels next to and in the cracks of the bedrock.
It's best when the material is dry to use a gasoline powered vacuum to work the cracks in bedrock. Then classify and pan out the collected material. Or if you dont have a vac, you can shovel the gravels into 5 gal buckets and classify it and run it through a highbanker. Count on spending several days at it.

Other than that you could also use a dredge to get at what's in the bottom of the pond.

GG~

 

[Edson]

Also make sure the pit is in an area that produced gold to begin with. You can dig all day and as deep as you want but if there wasn't any gold there to begin with, your just pounding sand...
Edson

 

[Goodyguy]

Edson..... I see you are not familiar with prospecting for glacial drift gold. But you are right about not finding gold where there isn't any.
However, a lot of glacial gold has been found where it's not previously been known to exist.

If you only look where glacial gold has been known to be found then you may miss out on an un-tapped source. Although glacial gold is known to be found at gravel pits and quarries all over the northern states of Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. as well as my home state of Indiana, I have still occasionally come home empty handed...... But then that's why it's called prospecting instead of mining.

For more info: http://midwestprospector.com/glacialgoldinfo.html

The key to success is persistence
GG~

 

[Edson]

Edson..... I see you are not familiar with prospecting for glacial drift gold. But you are right about not finding gold where there isn't any.
However, a lot of glacial gold has been found where it's not previously been known to exist.

If you only look where glacial gold has been known to be found then you may miss out on an un-tapped source. Although glacial gold is known to be found at gravel pits and quarries all over the northern states of Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. as well as my home state of Indiana, I have still occasionally come home empty handed...... But then that's why it's called prospecting instead of mining.

For more info: Glacial Gold Mining

The key to success is persistence
GG~

Hello GG, love your posts and you got some great looking DIY equip.
Never have looked for glacier gold. So I guess it could be there. Some day I'll get over to your neck of the woods and try it out and maybe learn something new.
We have an area here in So. Calif. that has a lot of fine gold and small flakes spread all over a large area. Just about every gravel layer has some gold in it, like mother nature dusted the whole area. We concentrate our efforts on the dry washes and gullies that drain the deposits. We only dig down about 6-10" under the biggest boulders we can find until we hit clay then scrape about an inch of the clay and move on cause there's nothing in the clay. Good drywashing when soil is not moist. But I prefer wet screening down to 3/16" and then taking the material home and running it through my DIY dip box. 98% recovery, some is so fine you almost need a microscope to see it.

Later.
Edson

 

[Goodyguy]

Hello GG, love your posts and you got some great looking DIY equip.
Never have looked for glacier gold. So I guess it could be there. Some day I'll get over to your neck of the woods and try it out and maybe learn something new.
We have an area here in So. Calif. that has a lot of fine gold and small flakes spread all over a large area. Just about every gravel layer has some gold in it, like mother nature dusted the whole area. We concentrate our efforts on the dry washes and gullies that drain the deposits. We only dig down about 6-10" under the biggest boulders we can find until we hit clay then scrape about an inch of the clay and move on cause there's nothing in the clay. Good drywashing when soil is not moist. But I prefer wet screening down to 3/16" and then taking the material home and running it through my DIY dip box. 98% recovery, some is so fine you almost need a microscope to see it.

Later.
Edson

You are welcome here anytime.... but It's really not worth the trip since all the big nuggets are out west. Hopefully I'll find some on my next trip to the pacific northwest this summer.

Got any photos of your DIY dip box? Sounds like a great recovery tool for fine gold
I built a decent drywasher 2 years ago and still haven't used it yet.

Go for the gold!
GG~

 

[Swampbuckster]

See if you can find where the gravel was removed down to the bedrock. Then work the remaining gravels next to and in the cracks of the bedrock.
It's best when the material is dry to use a gasoline powered vacuum to work the cracks in bedrock. Then classify and pan out the collected material. Or if you dont have a vac, you can shovel the gravels into 5 gal buckets and classify it and run it through a highbanker. Count on spending several days at it.

Other than that you could also use a dredge to get at what's in the bottom of the pond.

GG~

Thanks Goodguy. I don't know if there is bedrock though underneath. I don't know of any bedrock around this area. At least, have never seen any. I was thinking about the dredge at the bottom of the pond while I was out there. Just need one. I think my next mission would be to dig some different concentrates from different locations around the gravel pit and take them home and run them through my re circulating sluice.

 

[Swampbuckster]

Also make sure the pit is in an area that produced gold to begin with. You can dig all day and as deep as you want but if there wasn't any gold there to begin with, your just pounding sand...
Edson

Well, I've been doing well on plenty of areas around me. Especially considering "There's no gold around here"! I am finding tiny flakes in mostly every creek/ stream I work, so there is definitely gold in the area. When I'm out there though, walking up and down the steep banks, I am trying to picture every time it pours, how the water works it's way down those steep banks. Considering they are all stone on top, I would guess any black sands and gold would filter there way down through the gravel. So deeper does seem like a good theory. I only had my small hand shovel (garden size) So it was tough to penetrate the gravel. I will have to bring a bigger shovel with me next time, dig down a foot and more and try from there.

 

[Edson]

You are welcome here anytime.... but It's really not worth the trip since all the big nuggets are out west. Hopefully I'll find some on my next trip to the pacific northwest this summer.

Got any photos of your DIY dip box? Sounds like a great recovery tool for fine gold
I built a decent drywasher 2 years ago and still haven't used it yet.

Go for the gold!
GG~

Here's a pic of my DIY dip box and some of the gold it catches, all those little dots are gold, micro gold that is:








The first 24" is truck bedliner material (1/2" drop riffles) and 3M pad in the middle, then 1/4" groved door mat material under some expanded metal for the last 24". Underneath it all I have ribbed mat to catch the stuff that works it's way down and gets trapped.
I prop it up between two buckets and use a small bucket to "dip" and pour water into the sluice to slowly wash my 3/16" classified material. As soon as the riffles are filled with black sand I dump and wash the sluice into a 5 gal bucket and start again. I only take it apart and do a final clean out at the end of the day. With 10 gals of water I can do this for 4 hrs, 2 hrs if there's a lot of clay. I feel that if you have a constant flow of water you will lose a lot of your fines and thin flaky gold. With my slow pouring water when needed method, the gold stays put until I dump it. It's a cross between a rocker box and a sluice. I run my buddies tailings off his drywasher and recirculating sluice and always find gold he missed. I keep testing my tailings and find one or two specks once in a while. So if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Got to go pan some cons from my last rip out.

Edson

 

[Goodyguy]

Here's a pic of my DIY dip box and some of the gold it catches, all those little dots are gold, micro gold that is:
The first 24" is truck bedliner material (1/2" drop riffles) and 3M pad in the middle, then 1/4" groved door mat material under some expanded metal for the last 24". Underneath it all I have ribbed mat to catch the stuff that works it's way down and gets trapped.
I prop it up between two buckets and use a small bucket to "dip" and pour water into the sluice to slowly wash my 3/16" classified material. As soon as the riffles are filled with black sand I dump and wash the sluice into a 5 gal bucket and start again. I only take it apart and do a final clean out at the end of the day. With 10 gals of water I can do this for 4 hrs, 2 hrs if there's a lot of clay. I feel that if you have a constant flow of water you will lose a lot of your fines and thin flaky gold. With my slow pouring water when needed method, the gold stays put until I dump it. It's a cross between a rocker box and a sluice. I run my buddies tailings off his drywasher and recirculating sluice and always find gold he missed. I keep testing my tailings and find one or two specks once in a while. So if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Got to go pan some cons from my last rip out.

Edson

Always great to see some good ol' Yankee ingenuity at work

GG~

 

[Youngladd]

Went out to an old gravel pit today with a small pond at the bottom to work my pan. Can anyone give me any advice? Had a hard time finding any black sands. Sampled areas below tree roots, on steep run off hills, at the base of the pond where the sand and gravel washes into the water, in front of large boulders. Are there specific areas I should be looking for? BTW This pit hasn't been in service for 20 plus years. And wow! Are there a lot of rocks!

When working gravel pits. use your detector in all metal first. Typically there is no junk or trash in gravel pits. When your detect rings it will be one of three things. Iron, native copper, gold. Because all these are heavier than most rocks they are usually all found together. Also look mineralization such as red colorization in the glacial strata from iron or green colorization from native copper. Most glacial drift is sorted and where there is gold there is almost always iron and copper nearby. Iron can be in the form of black sand, pyrite, hematite, magnatite or red broken down mineralized iron. Then when you find these things then pan it all you can usually find color. Sometimes gold nuggets can be found in gravel pits laying on or near bedrock also.

You can find iron without gold but you will always find gold with iron in nature.

 

[shanevic7]

just look in the metal stack and then you can move to the other areas of your grave pitt

 

[ohiochris]

Anyone have any tips on how to locate these pits and gain permission to use them ? Especially in Ohio. ?

 

[Gold Maven]

Chris,
here's some gold I found a couple weeks ago in a gravel pit in Ohio. Just over 3 grams.
Wash plants concentrate heavy material, even when it isn't very rich, thousands of tons every day tend to accumulate some gold.
Getting permission is the hard part. OSHA,MSHA, and Insurance companies have strict rules regarding anyone visiting a pit.
If you don't know someone, old abandoned pits can be good.
Look for old sand screws, or even where they once were, as they drain them in cold weather, the heavies get dumped on the ground, and they are still laying there.
A little research should turn up some old pits close to you. There are over 700 current pits, i believe.
Good Luck.

 

[ohiochris]

View attachment 661912 Chris,
here's some gold I found a couple weeks ago in a gravel pit in Ohio. Just over 3 grams.
Wash plants concentrate heavy material, even when it isn't very rich, thousands of tons every day tend to accumulate some gold.
Getting permission is the hard part. OSHA,MSHA, and Insurance companies have strict rules regarding anyone visiting a pit.
If you don't know someone, old abandoned pits can be good.
Look for old sand screws, or even where they once were, as they drain them in cold weather, the heavies get dumped on the ground, and they are still laying there.
A little research should turn up some old pits close to you. There are over 700 current pits, i believe.
Good Luck.

Thanks. Ive been searching the internet for substantial leads on old or abandoned gravel pits for a while now ( in northwest OH. ) and havent turned anything up yet. Im about to think the only way is to spot one while out driving around. Maybe if I stay on the lookout for long enough some will turn up.

 

[Gold Maven]

What town, or county are you in? I'll see if I can find something for you.

 

[ohiochris]

Thanks. Ive been searching the internet for substantial leads on old or abandoned gravel pits for a while now ( in northwest OH. ) and havent turned anything up yet. Im about to think the only way is to spot one while out driving around. Maybe if I stay on the lookout for long enough some will turn up.

Im in Findlay , Hancock county. Ive been searching the general northwest OH area , there are a few "operating" gravel mines in this area but the majority of the quarrys are harvesting limestone so they may not be on a good site for glacial gravel deposits.

Thats some very nice gold in your pic by the way.

 

[Gold Maven]

Yeah, that's limestone country.
I built a couple bridges years ago in that area, and we had a hard time finding gravel.
The ODNR has a gravel distribution map on line. Doesn't show much in Hancock.
Good luck.