Any Ideas on what this is????

[Davidail]

My son and I discovered a bright yellow clay / sand up in Rabun County GA 2 days ago while working a small creek bed. The clay like substance was about 24" down in the creek bed as we was digging for bed rock. We were using the Super Mini Bazooka, When the clayish substance was placed onto the Bazooka it dissolved very quickly and turned the creek a bright yellow. Looked as if we had poured a gallon of yellow dye into the creek. When we left and crossed the creek almost a mile away the water there was yellow as well. and this was from less than a 5 gallon bucket full. It was late and we had to stop our dig, we did a clean out on the Bazooka and had a few 60 mesh pieces of small gold in it
Yesterday we returned to the creek and worked the same hole and some more of the yellow clay. I ended up taking a 1 gallon zip lock bag sample and we panned some of it down. When panned it is like Yellow dye as it dissolves, Once the dye from it is gone there's a bright Yellow sand left behind, with a trace of Gold in it. Not sure if the ZGold was from the clay or sand which keeps filling the hole
Is this Monzarite Sand? I know the 1896 GA Gold Deposits book mentions this sand being discovered in Rabun County, but it doesn't mention the dye part. As for the clay / sand it sticks to the shovel when digging it, but when handled it s coarse, not slick. It appears to be around 10-12" thick and I am hoping to find bedrock on down.
I've researched the internet and I am hoping it is a false bedrock and hopefully we will hit bedrock soon. This area was mined off and on numerous times during the 1800's and alot of gold was found. I can't believe they worked this area and didn't hit this Clay, Maybe we've gotten lucky and found a area they missed. We have found almost 1 gram of Gold in 9ea 5 gallon Buckets. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. We will be back tomorrow working on this same area, I will post some pictures soon.

 

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[Astrobouncer]

Here's the mineral list for that area, and I must say its quite mineralized. I would be very excited to be poking around there. You can find all kinds of goodies though I dont see monzanite or zircon listed (zircon would be my first thought on those if it was listed, so perhaps its titanite instead, check out all the minerals on the list and try and get some properties on one so you can test it).

Rabun Co., Georgia, USA

As to what it is well here's a map of the soil types, this will tell you exactly (might take a few seconds to load I had to refresh it a couple times to get it to work):

http://soildatamart.nrcs.usda.gov/manuscripts/GA651/0/rabun.pdf

Good luck!

 

[aussco999]

Davidail:

It sounds to me like you found a vein layer of yellow ocher (also spelled ochre).

"Yellow Ocher is a natural earth containing clay tinted by hydrous forms of iron oxide, such as goethite, and traces of gypsum or manganese carbonate. Yellow Ocher was designated by the mineral name limonite. Depending upon the content of Hydrated Iron Oxide, the color of ocher varies from light yellow to golden. Like Red Iron Oxides (hematite), Yellow Ocher is found around the world and has been used as pigments".

The various colors of ocher (red, brown, blue, yellow) have been used as a paint pigments since antiquity.

If it's a low angle vein (false bedrock), there's a very good possibilty of micro-fine gold content.

But, beware of the un-educated tree-huggers. As you have found out, ocher will tint the water over a long distance.

Good luck,

John

 

[Aurabbit79er]

Yea Limonite, off the 15 frwy at the 60. That's how to get to my sisters house.

 

[Davidail]

Thanks Astobouncer, very interesting info. I still haven't ruled out the monzanite sand, Like I stated above the 1896 GA Gold Deposit manual talks about monzanite sand being discovered in a test hole at the Hedden Mine back in 1896 they had it assayed back then to see what it was, We worked the same area again today and panned out some more of the C;ay/sand and after the dye part washed away it looks just like the online imagines of Monzanite.
Doesn't rally matter as we work down through it this morning and dug down almost 60" below the creekbed and no bed rock, No gold either. Went about 50 ft. on up the creek to a sand bar and found plenty of color small fine gold. You need to come to Rabun county one day lots of nice areas to work it all Public lands but I've been working it for over a year now and have never even seen a Forest Ranger. As for seeing people, The areas Im been working are so remote I've maybe had 12 -14 vechicles pass by in all my trips over the last year.

 

[Davidail]

Yep The tree huggers are everywhere now days.. And I am on public Lands.
Thanks for the Info, not sure what it is, Still leaning towards Morzanite Sand.

Davidail:

It sounds to me like you found a vein layer of yellow ocher (also spelled ochre).

"Yellow Ocher is a natural earth containing clay tinted by hydrous forms of iron oxide, such as goethite, and traces of gypsum or manganese carbonate. Yellow Ocher was designated by the mineral name limonite. Depending upon the content of Hydrated Iron Oxide, the color of ocher varies from light yellow to golden. Like Red Iron Oxides (hematite), Yellow Ocher is found around the world and has been used as pigments".

The various colors of ocher (red, brown, blue, yellow) have been used as a paint pigments since antiquity.

If it's a low angle vein (false bedrock), there's a very good possibilty of micro-fine gold content.

But, beware of the un-educated tree-huggers. As you have found out, ocher will tint the water over a long distance.

Good luck,

John

 

[Davidail]

Here's a picture