Why I find gold only very shallow on the ground?

[antony]

Hi everybody! The weather was great today, though a bit cold, but I went to my favourite river to sample and prospect for a few hours.

The thing is that I can find gold ONLY a few inches deep. When I dig for 3-4 feet, I find no gold. This is really strange and I thought that I should find more gold and bigger in deeper depth. I really don't understand how is this possible.

I sampled a big area and it's the same thing again and again. I already dug three deep wholes and also I sampled 20-25 shallow areas. It's the same story. No gold if I go deeper than 5-10 inches...

What this "surface" gold means? Does this mean that the gold is new and the river is moving new gold because of the rains in this season?

Thank you for your help and suggestions as always!

Here are some pics. I also found some nice peaces in some shallow crevices:

 

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[antony]

Also since its pretty certain that we aren't gonna dig your spot...how about a wider perspective shot incluing background and general terrain. and if you want give us a more specific region you may be surprised what info some of us can dredge up...understand if you want to keep it private. just let us know how else we can help.

Hi again Goldwasher! Thank you for your suggestions. I will try now to give you more details about the area I'm prospecting and some photos and information.

The river, as I already mentioned, is called Gallikos. It's an ancient river with hard big rocks and lots of black sand anywhere I'm prospecting. The terrain is mostly flat with no high banks, although there is a near hill that I sampled with no luck at all.

Here is a map link and some screenshots from the specific areas I prospect:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9232499,22.902252,626m/data=!3m1!1e3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bd6zeroztaqc2y8/Screenshot 2015-11-03 00.21.48.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kg10nq1bdqe6hy7/Screenshot 2015-11-03 00.22.08.png?dl=0

As you can see the river doesn't have very specific flow pattern and it changes all the time. Also there are crop fields around it.

I will share more bellow. I did my research for a few days now and I will share more details I found about the river.

 

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[antony]

First time I ever heard anyone complain about not having to dig deep for their gold.

I know exactly what you mean Kevin but I'm just trying to find bigger nuggets. The gold I find looks really really small and I don't know why I don't find bigger pieces deeper on the ground.

 

[antony]

Ok...so, they dredged on that river http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Photo-of-Gold-mine-North-Greece-at-Gallikos-River-/251501181126...If looks like late 30's to me makes sense. I would try to find where they dredged. There is writing on the back of the photo maybe there are clues..

here is some minedat info it has info on a book written about the alps...and local names in Greek Gallikos River, Thessaloníki Prefecture (Salonica), Macedonia Department, Greece

Sometimes boring Government papers have good info http://www.ypeka.gr/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=MAmwtVxaohA=&tabid=475

Science paper aliakmon river greece: Topics by WorldWideScience.org basin greece case: Topics by WorldWideScience.org mention mining
Like I said I would try to find out where they were dredging or any large bench(riverside) mines were....Their tailings are going to be a source of gold plus what they were digging...I would also try to make friends with some one who works at or knows some one who works at a aggregate( gravel) plant....They source their material from old channels and will have an Idea on gold in the area.....Hope some of this helps

That was actually a great photo and I bought it

I did a little research and here is what I found:

1) There was a gold processing plant ΝΟΤ in the area but on a near city called Serres. They indeed had a big machine on this river that was digging for river sand in the late 1940's-1960's.

2) Price of gold was dropping and they closed all operations in 1961. I didn't yet found where they were dredging sand from or where did they have the gold processing plant.

3) The river has a big history of gold prospecting and placer gold in general. Actually an English war correspondent and author George Frederick Abbott, visited the Gallikos river area in the 1903 and wrote an awesome book about the gold prospectors in there. Here is a link to his book. Check page 48! https://archive.org/details/taleoftourinmace00abbo

 

[dave wiseman]

From the picture of the gold you've found it all appears to have travelled a distance.You mention flat ground and a meandering river.Perhaps your far from the source and not on the original main channel.Have you looked at the gold with a loupe and noticed any minute particles of quartz?The original quartz veins or stringers might have been narrow and shallow in depth and are eroded away.

 

[antony]

You really need to research the area from a geological view point. Over the millennia, rivers change their course, land gets pushed up and eroded away. What was a river channel a hundred thousand years ago may now be a bench halfway up a hill.

Looking at what you've found so far, some of the pieces look to have made quite a trip over the years while some of them are still pretty rough. Looks to me as if some is "local" and other has been worn down by traveling down a stream.

I'm kind of curious about the Greek Mining laws as well as the laws in other countries. Any chance of giving us a quick run down on the basics?

Thank you for your great notes and suggestions! I tried to ask and find more details about the Greek Mining laws. Actually the "mining" laws are very string and hard. I mean, you cannot easily get a license to mine an area.

About gold prospecting, even if you're only using a pan, you might have trouble with the authorities. The law is not very specific about it and they might accuse you for having a real "mining" operation...

So you can't just dig even your property for gold. You need a license for that. Also we don't have areas that in US are called "mining claims".

I have the specific documents with the complete Greek mining laws but it's in Greek. Tell me if you need it and I'll send it to you. You can translate it on Google in case you want to read it.

 

[antony]

From the picture of the gold you've found it all appears to have travelled a distance.You mention flat ground and a meandering river.Perhaps your far from the source and not on the original main channel.Have you looked at the gold with a loupe and noticed any minute particles of quartz?The original quartz veins or stringers might have been narrow and shallow in depth and are eroded away.

Thank you Dave! There are a lot of smaller channels that all lead to this main channel. I'm now trying to find them all and prospect them. I've read a few articles today about some of the names of those smaller channels and I might find something better in there.

Also there is so much quartz on the river that I can build a house with it... I once tried to smash some quartz rocks with a homemade rock-smasher I made in order to see if there is any gold on them, but didn't find anything yet.

Here are some pictures of my greek-rock-smasher (c) machine below







I know those are not quartz but you can see also some rust-iron material I can also find in the area.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Hi Kevin! I'm taking a lot of samples and even though I don't find much, it's so much fun working on the river and spending my weekends in there

It is just a mystery how can I find gold so close to the surface.

If you come to Greece it will be pleasure to meet you an help you find a great place for your vacations!

Here are my today's embarrassing findings Not much of course and most of them are very fine gold. I've used my loupe on my iphone to take the picture. You can see how small they are compered to the pen's nose. Also you can see some quartz and black sand particles in there, and some dust

View attachment 1229807

Nice looking gold!!

 

[dave wiseman]

Basically it's a waste of time and effort just to crush up float quartz.If the quartz was picked near a vein that you know carries(gold bearing) than you may want to crush it up and pan it out.Have you come across any quartz veins in the various branches of that river?Any veins in situ(those in place) should be sampled.Keep checking all your gold finds with a loupe for roughness/and or the smallest amount of quartz attached to a piece..even a tiny color.Also by reading the history of the area,whether government reports,personal accounts or newspaper stories you might get clued into what you can expect to find/or not find.Has any big gold..nuggets or hard rock quartz species ever been found in that area?

 

[Goldwasher]

Hi again Goldwasher! Thank you for your suggestions. I will try now to give you more details about the area I'm prospecting and some photos and information.

The river, as I already mentioned, is called Gallikos. It's an ancient river with hard big rocks and lots of black sand anywhere I'm prospecting. The terrain is mostly flat with no high banks, although there is a near hill that I sampled with no luck at all.

Here is a map link and some screenshots from the specific areas I prospect:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.9232499,22.902252,626m/data=!3m1!1e3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bd6zeroztaqc2y8/Screenshot 2015-11-03 00.21.48.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kg10nq1bdqe6hy7/Screenshot 2015-11-03 00.22.08.png?dl=0

As you can see the river doesn't have very specific flow pattern and it changes all the time. Also there are crop fields around it.

I will share more bellow. I did my research for a few days now and I will share more details I found about the river.

good Job I like the picture glad you bought it. what does it say on the back?

 

[antony]

good Job I like the picture glad you bought it. what does it say on the back?

I will get the Photo probably tomorrow and I will tell you exactly what it says. It's difficult to find out from the scan.