tell me what you think.

[simbad42]

Hello all, i would like your opinion on this area as to if it could be a good place to look for gold.
a bit of a geologic description for the image.
the blue green streak near the bottom of the image is a stretch of a canyon with high amounts of serpentine with a creek that runs year round.(sorry its a crappy gmap)
and up near the top from right to left there is a string of several clusters of geothermal hot springs. the hottest one i think is 121deg (F).
so i am a bit uncertain if i should look around the creek by the serpentine for Mesothermal greenstone gold? or should i be digging around the hot springs for Epithermal Deposits.
any and all comments and questions are welcome.

I have chosen to hone in on this spot because the geographic morphology of the area. and it makes the most sense after spending hours and hours going over old legends of the chumash going up from one side of the mountain and saying the estimated distance by mule road. and then from them going up the valley from the other side of the mountain.(and coming back with lots of gold) i know its not a myth. for i have seen the gold treasures made from the gold the chumash brought to the Spanish missionaries in the catacombs of the mission in town when i was brought down there to the seed vaults.

that being said, i have no clue as to if the Chumash where looking in the possible Mesothermal area, or the possible Epithermal area;
what do you think?

 

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[goldenIrishman]

If I remember my California history right, the Chumash were not into hard rock mining and it's thought that they took advantage of placer deposits in the area. If you've got water there to pan I'd say check out the geothermal vent areas near the hot springs first.

Oh.. And welcome to the forum! And you're also right...









...... It IS a crappy map!

 

[mcordell]

For me, the prospecting is more exciting than the mining. I would grab my pan and lace up the boots. Hit the game trails it's time to hunt! I think our Mendocino geology is quite similar to yours and I find gold here. Great luck to ya.

 

[simbad42]

@ goldenirishman thank you for your insight, about the chumash. i am iching to go out and pan, so you would choose to pan at the hot springs, i have been to them many times. it is a local way out in the woods party spot. and i have never seen any fumaroles and the springs with the most flow have been tapped and have a hose put on them so people could fill up the stone and cement pools with the spring water. not sure if that could be a problem also i might add that the canyon with the serpentine formations has a year round creek running through it. so i could also pan there.

@ mcordell i want to pan and sluice more than mine also. plus the legend says that the missionaries blew up the hill side and covered the place they had been mining a the start of the Mexican Revolution (i think at one point some sort of gunboat diplomacy was used to be shown where the chumash were going to get the gold, the lore gets blurry right before 1910..hmm) i digress thank you.

 

[Fullpan]

Panning/ digging around partyers isn't much fun - I'd do the canyon first just to be uninterrupted. If you find serpentine contact zone with other rock forms,
you might start sampling there and look for old coyote holes on the slopes - gl

 

[Doitlaynstyle]

Try overlaying this database over your area there.

Free Gold Maps; New user interface