Black sand deposition, vs gold deposition?

[Ragnor]

Sooooooo, another question I got bouncing around in my head. Do you guys tend to find that large black sand deposits tend to be right with or a little down stream of the larger pay streaks? I know that black sand can indicate gold. Everybody knows that , right? But lets say you have a black sand beach on an inside bend. Would you expect the gold to be directly under that beach or a little up stream of it? Another example, I know I have seen areas with a bunch of black sand washing out of the bank but when i panned it, it's just that. blacksand, no gold. Or just a few fine flower specks. If you were going to dig to bedrock at the site of such a deposit would you dig right where the black sand is leaching or above it/up stream?

Do you just dig strait down? Or do you go just ahead of the black sand area (up stream)?

I am getting good gold from blacksand deposited up on bedrock, There is a spot just down stream with a large pile of blacksand (a literal blacksand beach). Should I just dig down on the blacksand beach to bedrock? or should I go up stream ahead of the black sand deposit where the larger rocks are to dig my hole? Just trying to save myself wasted effort.

 

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[Capt Nemo]

On a stream, I'd try just above it. Gold is heavier, and should drop out just before the black sand does. Does the upstream edge of the black sand show more gold in sampling?

On a lake or ocean deposit, the waterline might have more than the black sand that's pushed higher up the beach. One spring, I watched Lake Michigan start making a lens of black sand on top of a sandbar of blond sand. That would indicate that any gold with that BS would be out in the lake. My last trip to Lake Superior had me hitting about .3g for 24 6 gal buckets of BS that washed high onto the beach. Last fall, I hit the same amount out of half the number of buckets down near the waterline. The waterline is where most of the cobble/gravel is found on the beach. I think that might be where most of the gold really is.

 

[MadMarshall]

I am familiar with your other threads. It is of my opinion you are goin about this the wrong way. I suspect you are sampling but I fear you are taking sampling for granted.. You will have to take samples at different depths and a whole lot of them.. The best advice I can say to you is read the gold.. Forget about black sands and floods and bends in river ect ect.. Let the gold tell the story. Its easy to overwhelm yourself with all the generalities of finding gold. Forget about all of it. just go find gold
digging/sampling is never a waste of effort.. Guessing is a waste.

 

[goldhog]

While mineralization is something we all look for I have come to ignore "black sands" as any indicator of "good" gold deposits,
and rather simply focus on samplings for gold. (And samplings at the right levels)

I think your question however is about can the SURFACE.... deposits tell a story about what's on the bedrock below.

I have come to pretty much ignore what the SURFACE tells me, other than YES.. there is gold here.
I never rely on the surface testing as an indicator of the bedrock / pay values.
Best run I've had in 4 years came from an area that had crappy surface testing results.
It was producing 4 grams every 30 minutes.
An unheard of amount for our area.
I prefer to do small but deep test holes and separate the testing by LAYERS of pay and deposits.
It's a PAIN... but record your results VERY WELL and apply them to a map.
Over time you might see a STORY.... that is hidden by 1000's of years of overburden.

Doc

 

[Goldwasher]

l look for the bigger pieces of hematite, pyrite, magnetite or whatever heavy minerals break down and make up the heavy sand in the area. That and the bigger cobble and like Doc mentioned not what you find on the surface tend to lead to the better concentrations.
I also look for sub-surface rusty layers as they tend to be old flood layers of black sand that oxidized on or near the surface and weren't eroded by later high water. The oxidization process makes them cement together and they can hold gold on them like false bedrock as ell as have flood gold in them.
Hunting black sands tends to be hunting flood gold.Its hard to make flood gold pay in most areas. But can indicate here gold is moving through or here concentrating areas and pay streaks are.
Hoping to find gold by focusing on finding black sand unfortunately can lead you away from gold.

 

[ClaimStake]

follow the heavies and you'll find the gold. usually anyway.

I've found places with lots of iron but not a speck gold.

 

[Jason in Enid]

The problem with black sand is that there is WAAAAY more of it than gold. Just because a place was a good spot for BS to drop, doesn't mean there was gold present at the same time (and conditions) to drop. Assuming you have gold and BS together, I would look for an area of mixed BS and cobble at the head of the BS zone. Keep sampling upstream and watch the amount and size of gold recovered.

 

[Ragnor]

While mineralization is something we all look for I have come to ignore "black sands" as any indicator of "good" gold deposits,
and rather simply focus on samplings for gold. (And samplings at the right levels)

I think your question however is about can the SURFACE.... deposits tell a story about what's on the bedrock below.

I have come to pretty much ignore what the SURFACE tells me, other than YES.. there is gold here.
I never rely on the surface testing as an indicator of the bedrock / pay values.
Best run I've had in 4 years came from an area that had crappy surface testing results.
It was producing 4 grams every 30 minutes.
An unheard of amount for our area.
I prefer to do small but deep test holes and separate the testing by LAYERS of pay and deposits.
It's a PAIN... but record your results VERY WELL and apply them to a map.
Over time you might see a STORY.... that is hidden by 1000's of years of overburden.

Doc

Thank you

 

[Ragnor]

Thank you folks for the helpful answers. I spend 3-5 days a week as time permits up on my claim now that the water dropped enough to start working. It's always tempting to just go for the easy gold (flood gold) but as mentioned, it's hard to make that pay, mostly it just covers gas money. It's a hard hike in and out and I have allot riding on figuring out where the good gold is concentrated. The dredging part will be easy, but figuring out where the deposits are outside the main channel is time consuming, labor intensive work. I got lucky and had some young guys to help me on the last dig and we got some much needed sampling done. I am keeping records of my locations and recovery. I know the gold is there. It's just a matter of figuring out the most productive areas. The picture is slowly coming into focus. It's a tough gig as a one man operation and finding in shape people for help these days is tougher than finding the gold. I do appreciate the folks on here willing to share what they have learned. It's one thing finding enough gold to awe your buddies. It's a whole nother thing to make it pay for food and gas and to fill the barn with hay before winter. I take it seriously and I am just trying to be as efficient as possible. Digging an empty hole may help to figure out where the gold is not and will help in the long run but it is also a wasted day as far as not adding any more gold to the jar. Thanks again to the fellahs willing to share information.