In plain English please

[bottlecap]

Some of you have probably seen some of my threads and noticed I recently started panning. So far I have found some gold, nothing substantial but different sizes ranging from tiny to really tiny. I am located in Mn. and we have gold in some of the rivers and creeks here, all pretty small stuff, what I am wondering is how does it get there? I have done some reading about glaciers, flooding etc. but still don't know that I quite grasp the whole concept and I have even seen some differing opinions on the matter. Our rivers here flood like crazy, we just went through a good week and a half with rain every day or night, rivers were raging. Is the gold I find just gold sitting in the dirt banks of the river that gets cut out of the river bank and into the river? Is it carried from Canada? I am also wondering if small gold will sit in gravel or if it will continually sink until it gets to a hard layer. Some of the best gold I have found wasn't on a hard layer of any kind, just in gravel with nothing to stop it from sinking, at least nothing within the couple feet I had dug down. Other spots it seems like I don't find a thing unless I hit the rock hard clay layer on the river bottom. What the heck? Just confused. I feel the better I understand where it comes from and how it gets there the better chance I have at finding it. Thanks for any info!

 

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[goldenIrishman]

That's actually a pretty easy question to answer bottlecap. ALL OF THE ABOVE!!! There were a LOT of Glaciers up your way that pushed the gold south out of Canada. While it was being pushed it was also getting ground up like coffee beans in the morning. Hence the small size in your area. When the Glaciers headed back north, the gold they had dragged down with them stayed behind and the "normal" actions of floods and erosion have worked on moving the gold around like it does in most places. If the ground hadn't sprung back up quite a bit once the weight of all that ice was removed, that would make a huge lake that would make the Great lakes look like farm ponds.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Plain English?

Gold, is where you find it.

 

[kcm]

Irish gives a good account. Ok, let's try this:

Imagine the glaciers leaving little specks of gold all over the place, sort of like when there is a hail storm. When it floods, the water is able to wash the gold into the main channels of the waterways. The gold will normally deposit itself in natural riffles - areas of lower pressure. Imagine a rock in the water - the water hits one side of the rock very hard (high pressure), while the other side is a lower pressure.

When it floods, gold will migrate from the highest points to the lowest point it can go. Everything outside the banks might still move around in a massive flood, but maybe not into a river. It would instead move to the lowest point it finds (imagine a dip in the woods, like where a large tree stump once was). Any gold that is around and above that low spot might get washed down into the low area. It's often difficult to find slight low areas along waterways, but is easy to sample along paths of flowing water, which also would offer the most reliable chances of finding gold in appreciable quantities.

As gold likes to find the lowest point it can go to, much of the gold in MN may very well be down 1 or more feet, below the rich topsoil, sitting on top of the harder layer beneath. Frost heaving helps the small gold to work deep into the soil. As there is SO MUCH soil to move for such a small amount of gold, it just isn't feasible to mine large areas. The profits just aren't there.

Wish I had seen this earlier - I'm about dead on my feet now! Hope this makes SOME sense.

 

[bottlecap]

Irish gives a good account. Ok, let's try this:

Imagine the glaciers leaving little specks of gold all over the place, sort of like when there is a hail storm. When it floods, the water is able to wash the gold into the main channels of the waterways. The gold will normally deposit itself in natural riffles - areas of lower pressure. Imagine a rock in the water - the water hits one side of the rock very hard (high pressure), while the other side is a lower pressure.

When it floods, gold will migrate from the highest points to the lowest point it can go. Everything outside the banks might still move around in a massive flood, but maybe not into a river. It would instead move to the lowest point it finds (imagine a dip in the woods, like where a large tree stump once was). Any gold that is around and above that low spot might get washed down into the low area. It's often difficult to find slight low areas along waterways, but is easy to sample along paths of flowing water, which also would offer the most reliable chances of finding gold in appreciable quantities.

As gold likes to find the lowest point it can go to, much of the gold in MN may very well be down 1 or more feet, below the rich topsoil, sitting on top of the harder layer beneath. Frost heaving helps the small gold to work deep into the soil. As there is SO MUCH soil to move for such a small amount of gold, it just isn't feasible to mine large areas. The profits just aren't there.

Wish I had seen this earlier - I'm about dead on my feet now! Hope this makes SOME sense.

O.k. so then theoretically there is a spot I found some decent gold, it is a small gravel deposit on the river bank side of a small island, it is very shallow when the water is low but below the spot I have been working there is a deep hole that is a bit too deep for me to get at, basically a scour hole in the river right below(downstream) the gravel, when the water really gets low I will hit that scour hole, thinking maybe that scour hole could be collecting a lot of gold because it is really low but it's like a small bowl, there's no way the gold could make it back up and out of that hole.

 

[kcm]

Sounds like a plan!

 

[enamel7]

Look for the gold just below the scour hole, where the material from the hole was dropped out. That's where it will be.

 

[kcm]

Well, maybe. I'd definitely check the gravel bar out....probably first. Even though the gravel bar is higher, most of MN is fairly level ground. Even with the larger floods, it might well be that the gravel bar traps out the majority of the gold before it reaches the lower spot in the stream/river.

 

[austin]

English? English? We don't need no stinking English. El oro es en el aqua. Es muy facil. Va a el aqua para obtener el oro, y tambien tomate un bano. Adios compadre y mucho suerte...

 

[kcm]

Eh, what do you know? You can't tell the difference between Austin and San Antonio!

 

[meMiner]

Oh, by the way, if you find any, Canada wants it's gold back. LOL

I don't know your location, but it sounds like you are finding flood gold. Rule of thumb, look at the waterway and concentrate your sampling on spots where the water flows during high water in a straight line (a line from corner to corner and especially look just below the upstream corner where the water slows and any downstream obstructions like behind big rocks or on exposed bedrock). Look for cobbles (round rocks) that are softball size and up and dig there - where this size rock falls out is typically where fine gold will also drop out). Normally, you only dig about the top 8" for flood gold. Normally, if you find a hot spot on a larger creek, you can count on it replenishing in the next big flood (moving gold from upstream and concentrating in the same spot). The deep hole that you describe is not full of rocks for a reason. If it is because it gets scoured during flood, it will not likely have the fine gold. But quickly checking it out will tell you what you want to know. If you are diving it, careful of the sides for falling rock as they might be unstable (no clay and small material gluing them in place). Once in a while, such holes can be terrific.

 

[Jeff95531]

Plain English?

Gold, is where you find it.

Couldn't agree more. Sometimes (no-always for me) it's a very small pocket here and there...and mostly not there. Still trying to get to the rhyme and reason part of it myself.

BTW...a deep pocket in an otherwise level stream bed is something that MUST be at least looked at. Am I right

 

[bottlecap]

Just need the water to drop another foot or so and she'll be wide open for exploration!

 

[goldenIrishman]

Eh, what do you know? You can't tell the difference between Austin and San Antonio!

Now now KCM! Just because a person is geographically challenged......

Couldn't agree more. Sometimes (no-always for me) it's a very small pocket here and there...and mostly not there. Still trying to get to the rhyme and reason part of it myself.

BTW...a deep pocket in an otherwise level stream bed is something that MUST be at least looked at. Am I right

As has been said on here many times before, low pressure zones! Being able to get out and observe high water events (safely of course) can really show you a lot and help you to locate those "drop zones" where gold leaves the flow. If bottlecaps "glory hole" is in the direct flow then it's a good chance the gold could have washed out of it. If it's offset from the flow, it could act like a blue bowl and concentrate the gold. This is one reason that understanding at least the basics of hydrology is important to prospectors.

 

[wtetro]

Listen to Irishman and all this experience. If you see a hole, or a gravel bar producing better than average color, no matter how small, hit it...but hit it by sampling. I use 10' squares when looking at flood gold on a bar here in AZ. I document each hole to try and find a pay streak...no matter how much experience you have, a prospectors greatest weapon is a pan and shovel. You should look at every gravel bar, they are created by low pressure zones similar to what gives an airplane wing lift. That hole you speak of, again, you never know, but it's a hole and can be of the stream coarse and as mentioned, act like a blue bowl, or might just flush out in high flow, the latter, less likely since rivers and creek change flow and current direction regularly. In english, gold is where you find it. It might get old hearing this, but I have found gold 75ft in elevation above the stream I'm working where I found nothing below and visa versa. Dude, just try it out. I think I'm speaking for all here, you will never stop learning where gold is. That hole might hold an ounce, or a spec of fly poop, but you don't know til you check it out...hit that hole and gravel bar, might be worth it, maybe not, but you will learn and gain more experience dude. Let us know what happens.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Well said wtetro! A big part of my fascination with gold prospecting is the hide & seek game with ole Mother Nature!