Question Regarding Surprise Gold Today

[Buckshotnc]

A couple of weeks ago I took post hole diggers and dug down maybe 3-4 feet before hitting some large rock, the location is among some large ultramafic rocks on my farm hoping to find a ruby, sapphire or even a rarer diamond. The rocks are located on a ridge close to a creek but 15-20 ft above the level of the creek now. I finished panning out the bucket of material today which was probably 3 gallon or so of material and much to my surprise there was some color in every pan, small flakes similar to what I find in the creek.

My question is do you think this is alluvial gold and in the past the stream was this high on the ridge or do you think it was in place in the soil ?

The terrain does not look like what you would call a shelf it is pretty steep today.

I've not looked at the concentrates and small gravel yet under the microscope to check for gemstones, if I find anything significant will post about it later.

 

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[loco oro]

hey buckshot,that stream was up there at some piont in the past ,and the gold you are finding is more than likly alluvial ,those benches alot of times will get undermined over time and wont be a (bench) any more and will end up very steep,if it was just ditrious from a lode source it would likly have matrix on it and would be angular in nature.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Placer deposits will form, get washed away and reform over and over. A prime example of this is the area that I turned Drywallman onto in San Diego. He's working a small stream that's set between a couple of hills. Up on top of those hills is an old riverbed that has been pushed up over the ages through geologic action. So the gold that was in that old river was pushed up with the bed and has washed back down to form a new placer in the stream. Depending on how active the area is, this process can happen several time over the ages.

Over the years I've learned how to look at an area and "see" how it looked thousands of years ago. I'm not always right, but usually I'm not too far off.

I see you're in western NC. I spent a few months in the Asheville area on a job. Saw a lot of areas that I'd have loved to be able to do some panning in but I just didn't have time with my work hours. It sure is a beautiful area.