Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

[Lanny in AB]

Do you love to chase the gold? Please join me--lots of gold hunting tips, stories of finds (successful and not), and prospecting poetry.

Nugget in the bedrock tip:

I had a visit with a mining buddy this past weekend, and he told me of an epic battle to get a nugget out of the bedrock, and of what he learned from the experience. I thought some of you might like to learn from his mistake.

While out detecting one day, he came across a large sheet of bare bedrock. The bedrock was exposed because the area had been blasted off with a water cannon (a monitor), by the old-timers! It was not fractured bedrock, in fact it was totally smooth.

He was not optimistic at all of the prospects of a nugget. But, for some reason (we've all been there) he decided to swing his detector over that bedrock. After a long time, just as he was about to give up on his crazy hunch, he got a signal, right out of that smooth bedrock.

There was no crevice, no sign of a crevice, nada! So, he had to go all the way back to camp to get a small sledge and a chisel. The signal in the rock intrigued him, but he still wasn't overly optimistic. For those of you that have chased signals in a similar situation, sometimes there's a patch of hot mineralization in the bedrock that sounds off, but this spot, according to him, was sharp and clear right in the middle of the signal, not just a general increase of the threshold like you get when you pass over a hot spot in the bedrock.

Anyway, he made it back to the spot and started to chisel his way into the bedrock. If any of you have tried this, it's an awful job, and you usually wind up with cut knuckles--at the least! Regardless, he kept fighting his way down, busting out chunks of bedrock. He kept checking the hole, and the signal remained very strong.

This only puzzled him all the more as he could clearly see that it was solid bedrock with no sign of any crevice. He finally quit at the end of the day, at a depth of about a foot, but still, nothing in the hole.

An experienced nugget shooting friend dropped by the next morning to see him, and asked him how the hunt was going. My buddy related his tale of the mysterious hole in the bedrock, and told the friend to go over and check it out, and see if he could solve the riddle.

Later in the day, the other nugget hunter returned. In his hand was a fine, fat, sassy nugget. It weighed in at about an ounce and a quarter! After my friend returned his eyeballs to their sockets and zapped his heart to start it again, he asked where the nugget had come from.

Imagine his surprise when he heard it came from the mystery hole!! He asked how deep the other guy had gone into the bedrock to get it. "Well, no deeper" was his reply.

So, here's the rest of the story as to what happened. When the successful nugget hunter got to the bedrock, he scanned the surface got the same strong signal as my buddy. He widened out the hole and scanned again. Still a solid tone. He widened the hole some more so he could get his coil in, and here's the key and the lesson in this story, he got a strong signal off the side of the hole, about six inches down, but set back another inch into the side of the bedrock!!

My unlucky friend, the true discoverer of the gorgeous nugget's resting place had gone deep past the signal while digging his hole!!

Now, of course, a good pinpointer would easily solve this problem. The problem was, my buddy didn't have one, so why would he widen the hole, right? Well, the other guy was the one with more experience, and that's why he did. It was a lot more work, but what a payoff!

So, my buddy's butt is still black and blue from where he kicked himself for the next week or so for having lost such an incredible prize.

Some nugget hunting lessons are harder than others to learn. . . .

All the best,

Lanny


P.S. When in gold country--check the bedrock, regardless of whether it looks likely or not! Mother Nature likes to play games sometimes.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

This little poem is dedicated to Jim and his wife, Merry Christmas!

*** I write western or cowboy poetry for my own enjoyment and to have some fun. This is a short narrative poem. ***

Underneath The Christmas Tree

I’m a sleepin’ in my bed
Toys is dancin’ in my head
Then I wakes to Ho-Ho Noise
Stoppin’ dreams of all those toys.

Rolls out of my sleepin’ nook,
Creeps down stairs and takes a look
Don’t know what I’m gonna find
Boyish thoughts fills up my mind...

Who’s that dude beneath the tree?
That ain’t Santy, no siree.
Santy with a cowboy hat?
Somethin’ sure is wrong with that!

Dressed in red and white it’s so
Heard him laughin’ Ho, Ho, Ho!
This here dude, his hair is black,
And he’s got no Santy pack,

Plus he’s lost a cowboy boot,
Smells of booze, this here galoot.
I’m a thinkin’ mighty quick
This for sure, it ain’t Saint Nick.

Rolls him over, takes a peek
It’s that batch I saw last week.
He’s been flirtin’ with my ma!
Man this sure sticks in my craw.

All dressed up as Santa Claus
And he’s done it just because
He’s been sparkin’ with my mom,
Talk about a Christmas bomb.

So I toddles off to bed
Things is workin’ in my head...
Christmas morn what will I see
Underneath that Christmas tree?

Lanny


-Batch/Bach, western slang for bachelor
-Sparkin’, courting, dating
-Santy, western slang for Santa
-“Stuck in one's craw”, western slang for something resented, or upsetting

 

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[63bkpkr]

Hi Lanny, it seemed odd for you to have definitions there for some of the words as I knew them all. Then I went hmm, I am 74.5 yrs of age so OK likely a few out there that these would be new to, so fair enough for them to be there. Christmas morning is coming along right quick but I suspect my present will come in 2019. Keep on enjoying, Herb

 

[Eyeball]

Ever mindful that I'm posting on Lanny's thread,
I utter mumbling sounds to look holy, and offer my thanks to him in appreciation.
Thank you Lanny.


Update on the "Dirt",
Brought home from this last West coast trip.

Portland OR, was the "flipflop" on this trip, and I saw enough really nice places to collect samples from on my way back which should have been the same as heading out.

I picked up some riverside dirt with a little gravel in it in Oregon and that was all I that Murphy was going to allow me to manage, there were better spots by far on the rest of the way home in Idaho, Montana and South Dakota, but I didn't get to stop to take some time for myself as everything was rush rush.

I wanted badly to get back to the Pierre, SD area to sneak a bucket full of stuff out of the Antelope creek, but as Murphy does, the trip was changed slightly, just to eradicate that area all together, and instead to now head East via Fargo, and then South to Sioux Falls to load out for home, omitting what I thought would be a productive sample.
Then I had to hammer down ("bring that in as quickly as you can") and go and unload it, something that normally NEVER happens, .

Oh well, it was still nice to have spotted a few areas where I can get some samples on a later date, and in better weather.

So,...I got home and couldn't resist to process what was really not ideal dirt, but after 4 hrs of slow (to make it last) classifying, screening and panning, I ended up with some nice fine material to play "prospector" with. Yey!

After the (for me) fun part of panning, I ended up with an incredibly whopping 3 tiny hard to see flakes out of 2 1/2 gallons of formerly Oregon dirt, which is now providing traction in my snow covered and frozen icy driveway.

All said and done, enough color was had to be able to say that I was "successful" to some extent, but not really enough to want to talk about a whole lot

The point of all of this though, was to see if by instinct I could (there was no "evidence" of previous old geezers searching), apply some, in my case, freebie theroretical knowledge from the awesome few rich threads here at T-net, and wow myself with a good result.

IMHAHO, only the best, smartest and persistent, resourceful prospectors are the ones to have found "substantial" deposits or results, other than maybe the few lucky ones who may have hurt themselves stumbling over the nuggets in the old days.

My resolve and hope is to be counted amongst the successful souls who have never given up their goal to hunt, and find, the indeed elusive yellow metal.

Merry Christmas to all of you, and may every bottle be uncorked without fizzing on you.

eyeball.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Ever mindful that I'm posting on Lanny's thread,
I utter mumbling sounds to look holy, and offer my thanks to him in appreciation.
Thank you Lanny.


Update on the "Dirt",
Brought home from this last West coast trip.

Portland OR, was the "flipflop" on this trip, and I saw enough really nice places to collect samples from on my way back which should have been the same as heading out.

I picked up some riverside dirt with a little gravel in it in Oregon and that was all I that Murphy was going to allow me to manage, there were better spots by far on the rest of the way home in Idaho, Montana and South Dakota, but I didn't get to stop to take some time for myself as everything was rush rush.

I wanted badly to get back to the Pierre, SD area to sneak a bucket full of stuff out of the Antelope creek, but as Murphy does, the trip was changed slightly, just to eradicate that area all together, and instead to now head East via Fargo, and then South to Sioux Falls to load out for home, omitting what I thought would be a productive sample.
Then I had to hammer down ("bring that in as quickly as you can") and go and unload it, something that normally NEVER happens, .

Oh well, it was still nice to have spotted a few areas where I can get some samples on a later date, and in better weather.

So,...I got home and couldn't resist to process what is really not ideal dirt, but after 4 hrs of slow (to make it last) classifying, screening and panning, I ended up with some nice fine material to play "prospector" with. Yey!

After the (for me) fun part of panning, I ended up with an incredibly whopping 3 tiny hard to see flakes out of 2 1/2 gallons of formerly Oregon dirt, which is now providing traction in my snow covered and frozen icy driveway.

All said and done, enough color was had to be able to say that I was "successful" to some extent, but not really enough to want to talk about a whole lot

The point though, of all of this, was to see if I could sort of guess by instinct (there was no "evidence" of previous old geezers searching), and applying some, in my case, freebie theroretical knowledge from the awesome few rich threads here at T-net, could wow myself with a good result.

IMHAHO, only the best, smartest and persistent, resourceful prospectors are the ones to have found "substantial" deposits or results, other than maybe the few lucky ones who may have hurt themselves stumbling over the nuggets in the old days.

My resolve and hope is to be counted amongst the successful souls who have never given up their goal to hunt, and find, the indeed elusive yellow metal.

Merry Christmas to all of you, and may every bottle be uncorked without fizzing on you.

eyeball.

John, I really enjoyed your little running tale of your ground-gathering exploits.

I have done the same thing, stopping to gather some dirt to see if there was any promise in its offered willingness to lure me in. Sometimes yes it's holding gold, many times no it's not, but it's the lure of the thought of the possibility of the gold that spurs me to stop and gather, to dig and screen, to load and haul, to concentrate and examine . . .

When it gets really bad for me, and I start to gather dirt in ridiculous places, is when it's in the dead-middle of winter, and I just have to get out and scratch the itch the only way possible, by finding some exposed dirt that isn't frozen into a mass so hard a small nuclear-thermal device is required to liberate it.

Yes, dreams of springtime nuggets and jolly flakes of gold always dance merrily in my head at this time of year . . .

All the best, and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all,

Lanny

 

[Eyeball]

lanny,

I was already impatient for the glorious coming of early Spring as always, but especially now since I re-entered the hobby.

I diagnosed myself with the fever and got my second opinion also.
I'm sooo hooked that there are almost no other thoughts or needs, just the need to hunt, I may need therapy, or group sessions and a 12 step system or something, as I am now thinking to dig my driveway for samples lol.
So I gathered my scattered panning gear remains, a couple of detectors, and have bought some used and new gear also, just to be ready should the snow have flaws in its deposits or when the Spring fairy finally says it's been enough!

Sorry to hear that you and others have the same symptoms, but you guys have probably had them for a lot longer, and seemingly without serious consequences, so maybe the acquisition of new equipment and boredom taxes have also been YOUR medicine to ease the pain.

That makes me feel that there is hope for a cure or at least a way to medicate the hunt virus.
I am glad you also admitted to the need to dig or bag random dirt to sneak home for injection into the prospecting vain as it were, rather than cause skin damage from scratching.

Thank you for the priviledge of posting here on your thread, I feel at home enough here to like to call it home.

Regards and beers...err...Cheers.

I'll be back, (Think (nugget Terminator)).

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Lanny, it seemed odd for you to have definitions there for some of the words as I knew them all. Then I went hmm, I am 74.5 yrs of age so OK likely a few out there that these would be new to, so fair enough for them to be there. Christmas morning is coming along right quick but I suspect my present will come in 2019. Keep on enjoying, Herb

Hi Herb, I sure do hope that you have a wonderful Christmas, and a Happy New Year as well.

As for the definitions of what to you are common allusions, it's true, lots of younger stock might not know them like we do.

I'm interested to hear what your 2019 Christmas present will be; keep me informed please as I love to hear about surprises.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

lanny,

I was already impatient for the glorious coming of early Spring as always, but especially now since I re-entered the hobby.

I diagnosed myself with the fever and got my second opinion also.
I'm sooo hooked that there are almost no other thoughts or needs, just the need to hunt, I may need therapy, or group sessions and a 12 step system or something, as I am now thinking to dig my driveway for samples lol.
So I gathered my scattered panning gear remains, a couple of detectors, and have bought some used and new gear also, just to be ready should the snow have flaws in its deposits or when the Spring fairy finally says it's been enough!

Sorry to hear that you and others have the same symptoms, but you guys have probably had them for a lot longer, and seemingly without serious consequences, so maybe the acquisition of new equipment and boredom taxes have also been YOUR medicine to ease the pain.

That makes me feel that there is hope for a cure or at least a way to medicate the hunt virus.
I am glad you also admitted to the need to dig or bag random dirt to sneak home for injection into the prospecting vain as it were, rather than cause skin damage from scratching.

Thank you for the priviledge of posting here on your thread, I feel at home enough here to like to call it home.

Regards and beers...err...Cheers.

I'll be back, (Think (nugget Terminator)).

John,

You've waxed eloquent on the symptoms of the golden malady, and I enjoyed the read, thanks.

When any gold hunter gets a good case of the fever, some celebrate while others mourn, but only a true acolyte of the pursuit will ever understand.

All the best, and I wish you many happy adventures as you chase your golden dreams,

Lanny

 

[Eyeball]

Howdy folks,
Just to ask here first,

Will any of the Fisher elliptical 11" DD coils fit and interchange with the GB-pro? Or will certain ones change/interfere with the accuracy or frequency of the machine?
I would like to try switching back and forth between the 6-1/2" pinpoint that's on it, and buy an extra 11" elliptical DD rather than to carry two Detectors, for the purpose of having both wide and narrow patterns to search with.

Thanks and Merry Christmas.

 

[meMiner]

Howdy folks,
Just to ask here first,

Will any of the Fisher elliptical 11" DD coils fit and interchange with the GB-pro? Or will certain ones change/interfere with the accuracy or frequency of the machine?
I would like to try switching back and forth between the 6-1/2" pinpoint that's on it, and buy an extra 11" elliptical DD rather than to carry two Detectors, for the purpose of having both wide and narrow patterns to search with.

Thanks and Merry Christmas.

I was wondering the same thing. I have an old(ish) gold bug 29er and have a large coil for it. I was going to try the opposite of you, and see how it works on a Fisher F75. The attachment is the same. I don't think it will hurt either the coil or detector to try. What I don't know is how to test if the result is optimal...other than air test, by running some sample nuggets and rings under it.

 

[meMiner]

I was wondering the same thing. I have an old(ish) gold bug 29er and have a large coil for it. I was going to try the opposite of you, and see how it works on a Fisher F75. The attachment is the same. I don't think it will hurt either the coil or detector to try. What I don't know is how to test if the result is optimal...other than air test, by running some sample nuggets and rings under it.

FYI - I just tried a 13" NEL coil that I had bought for the Gold Bug SE on my F75 SE. Seemed to work fine.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 1

November is not usually a time of year that I get to chase the gold. By the time November rolls around, the ground usually requires some dynamite or something equally powerful to break through the frost to get to the gold. However, this year has been a year of exceptions. In
September, we had early snow and frost that carried into October, and that doesn’t happen very often. After the early blast of Artic bad temper, the weather shook itself out until the first week of November with temperatures above average, so this allowed the chance to engage in some gold sleuthing when normally I’d be reduced to only dreaming of chasing the gold.

I have two sons, the eldest loves to chase the gold, while the other will chase the gold given the opportunity, but he doesn’t have the same level of passion. My eldest was with me on this trip, and he was with me on our epic gold adventure when we truly slew an army of nuggets early in the summer (I don’t think I’ve posted that story yet), so he was eager to have a chance to hone his detecting and sniping skills.

The area we dropped into to work was full of bedrock pinnacles. These pinnacles were formed of an iron-hard bedrock, so hard that big equipment had negligible effect. Smoke was pouring off the bucket teeth and blade of the excavators as they tried to outmuscle the mother rock. As a result, there was a section of ground about the size of two school buses parked side-by-side, but just a bit longer. Looking down into the excavation, there were three pools of water as well as a small stream of clear seepage water running diagonally across the northern, more elevated end of the bedrock. The southern end was where the largest pool of water was, and the eastern side of the excavation had a culvert that was collecting the water from the stream to then divert it through a long series of interconnected culverts to a sump where a six-inch diesel powered pump was working night and day to keep that sump cleared.

Over the entire area of the bedrock, there were many buried, small gutters with high, then lower humps, and throughout the area, there were those pinnacles of super-hard bedrock, some of them rising up almost four feet resulting in an area that could not be cleaned out properly by the modern miners with their big equipment. The area was perfect for detector and sniping work, so that’s how we decided to tackle it.

To be continued . . .

All the best,

Lanny

 

[gold tramp]

Been waiting many moons to hear the tale of that handful of yeller !
Gt...

 

[Lanny in AB]

Been waiting many moons to hear the tale of that handful of yeller !
Gt...

Hi GT, and thanks for dropping in. As for this tale in the post above, this is one that happened at the end of the season, with the other one (that I think you're referring to) happening during the summer. Regardless, I'll do my best to write both stories before the ground thaws and lets me get back to chasing the gold.

We had unseasonably warm weather which delayed turning the ground to stone, but the ground sure is solid now, and it will be for quite some time I'm sure.

All the best, and thanks for your comment,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Dear Mr. Lanny,
Your full attention to your thread has not been with us for some time, longer than any of us ever expected! It is good to have you back other than for very brief comments. The post above is replete with suggestions, taunts and what if's and I'm sure that "in time" you will continue with several of your thrilling tales accompanied by Majestic Photos of the country where you and your sons play with maybe one or two showing just maybe a wink of color and of course a full course of your Poetic best in your descriptions of Gods Country! Till then, my very best to you and yours! Snow in the Northern Sierras is expected this weekend..............63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 2

First, we set up the detectors, then started to ground balance our machines. The first thing I noticed was the iron bars were high! It didn’t seem to matter where I swung the detector, the background feedback was high in iron. I knew instantly that was going to affect the detection depth on the VLF, and the high concentration of iron in the bedrock was also going to cause problems for the Minelab PI as well, and that heavy mineralization did run interference on both machines. (After all, whether a VLF [very low frequency] or a PI [pulse induction] machine, they’re both wired to find metal, and iron is definitely a metal. For whatever reason, many rookies forget this fact, and they think there’s something wrong with their detector if their machine won’t ignore high concentrations of iron.) Moreover, when I’d get a signal, the numbers would jump around and would not pin dead on, which they do quite often in milder ground, necessitating that I dig down to the target, disturb the target, then scan again.

Of note, many times nuggets were over the top of big pieces of ironstone, or under or beside them, and sometimes chunks of gold were sited in intact material that overlay thick bands of high quality iron that was running in veins about two inches thick! With all of the natural metal everywhere, it was turning out to be a challenging day. In fact, several times I got the coil over such thick intrusions of iron that the detector overloaded; now, that really is hot material to try to find nuggets in for sure! Furthermore, depth was seriously limited, and the proof of this was that in any material around several inches thick, which was still tight on bedrock, I couldn’t even get a reading on half-gram pickers down in the bedrock cracks.

*** Prospecting tip: when your detector is finding good and juicy concentrations of nuggets in some sections of bedrock with milder conditions, yet the detector is so obviously struggling to handle the conditions in still other sections, break out the sniping tools! The detector has already proven to you that the gold is there in concentration on the bedrock, so you must be smarter than your detectors’ limitations (PI or VLF) due to mineralization. Instead of fighting a losing electronic battle, put the detectors down and test, test, test by sniping!! We were amazed at what we were missing due to the detectors’ blindness in those severe conditions. Yes, amazed really is the right word as we took home a lot of gold we’d have missed if we’d dumbed ourselves down and only relied on the detectors’ brains which had a serious case of iron flu. ***

To elaborate, we knew the sassy pickers were there because sometimes we’d get a broad signal over an area, something normally interpreted as ground noise, not as a positive target, yet by digging and panning, we gathered all kinds of pickers in the pan the little VLF would normally scream on. The proof of good gold certainly was in the pan! However, on this day, the symptoms of the iron flu offered only silence from the detector. The iron mineralization had clearly infected both machines as the PI wasn’t doing any better on the small stuff because a positive target to any detector is a positive target, whether ferrous or non-ferrous.

Furthermore, with such a massive concentration of ironstone and banded iron in the bedrock, shallow depth was the rule of the day, and smaller targets that were normally a breeze to hear on average bedrock either didn’t make a peep or the broad disturbance in the threshold sounded like ground noise. To compound matters, many of the nuggets and bigger flakes were pancake flat. Now, for those of you that have done a lot of detecting, anything on edge is much harder to detect vs. a target lying flat and face-up or one which is resting at a fairly shallow angle while mostly face up. Moreover, with many of the larger flakes being so flat and on edge, going super slow while using small coils was a necessity to try to hear any tiny fluctuations in the threshold that day amongst all of the iron clatter. However, just try to imagine the concentration required to filter the genuine gold signals from the false signals generated by all of that iron, and you’ll have some picture of what we struggled with.

All the best,

Lanny

To be continued . . .

 

[Lanny in AB]

Dear Mr. Lanny,
Your full attention to your thread has not been with us for some time, longer than any of us ever expected! It is good to have you back other than for very brief comments. The post above is replete with suggestions, taunts and what if's and I'm sure that "in time" you will continue with several of your thrilling tales accompanied by Majestic Photos of the country where you and your sons play with maybe one or two showing just maybe a wink of color and of course a full course of your Poetic best in your descriptions of Gods Country! Till then, my very best to you and yours! Snow in the Northern Sierras is expected this weekend..............63bkpkr

Herb, great to hear from you as always, and I look forward to the day you'll post some more pictures when you get the chance to live another one of your California golden adventures. It's good to know you'll be getting some snow, but also good to know you won't be trapped in the deep freeze like we are here right now, with temperatures hovering around -30C; that's just too stinkin' cold!! But, it does give me a chance to get caught up on some of my writing though . . .

All the best, and thanks for dropping in,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 3

Even though the bedrock was super hard in that location, it did have some fractures, but it was a rare exception to find any breaks in the stone that had much depth due to the hardness of the rock. However, what that bedrock did have was lots of little gutters with bends indented into it, decorated with twists and dips, and those made for some great little gold traps for sassy pickers, lonely nuggets, and juicy flakes, and there was lots of gold to go around, and I do mean lots!

When conditions would allow, we scrubbed the coils right tight on the bedrock listening for faint breaks in the threshold or for those aforementioned broader signals, and every time we’d get a hit, we’d shut off the detectors and go to work with the sniping tools. After cleaning the twists and turns of the little gutters, we’d detect them again and find gold that could now be heard because we’d removed so many ironstone chunks with the sniping tools and the super-magnets.

However, the non-magnetic dark hot rocks (one less oxygen molecule from the magnetic ones I believe?) still caused trouble, but there were less of them compared to the the truly troublesome ones we’d got out of the way. (The iron bands couldn’t be dealt with by detecting though, and I’m sure we left gold behind along their edges when we finally ran out of time.) By continuing to scan the bedrock, we hit some nuggets in the 2-3 gram range as well, and a few bigger ones to boot—right sassy, beefy brawlers. Regardless of the bigger pieces, lots of flat nuggets were wedged down in any crack they’d been able to work their way into while travelling over that iron-hard bedrock, and we really had to work to liberate them.

In addition, we took our time to carefully scan any clay or channel material that was stuck to the sides of those bedrock pinnacles I mentioned early in the story, and by careful scraping after we got a positive detector response along those sides (when we could), we captured a lot of additional pickers from their slopes. Having already learned from our previous finds in hot ground, we’d shut down the detectors after finding any detectable gold on around or near the base of the pinnacles as well, and it sure paid off with lots of nice gold we would have missed electronically. In retrospect, it was somewhat ironic that we had to revert to age-old gold gathering techniques used thousands of years ago because our modern electronic wizardry was overwhelmed and outclassed, but that just goes to show why it’s good to be well-rounded in gold getting techniques, with a healthy collection of excellent tools as well to use for specialized purposes; because, does anyone really know what they’ll be up against when Mother Nature’s been scheming and plotting to hide her gold?

On a different note, we used the waterproof coils to search the bottom of the pools and we found some gold that way too, but not much as where the pools were, the bedrock had been softer which allowed the excavator buckets to dig deep. A Cheechako (greenhorn) and a Sourdough (seasoned miner) joined us in the excavation for a while, and they too found gold, with the lucky Cheechako hitting a nice multi-gram nugget (the size of my thumbnail) with his detector, a chunk that had been drug, with some larger rocks, off to the side of the bedrock drain that was channeling water into the culvert of the drain. We were happy for him, and happy for the Sourdough (a veteran of many a gold chase) too who sniped like a man possessed with the pure golden fever, a sight to behold! Well, he walked away with a nice catch of pickers and small nuggets in his bottle as he’d set up a little high-banker so he could process more material. However, neither of them came close to our tally in weight, but they sure had fun, and we did too.

It was a great day, and I walked out with lots of growly golden rattlers in my gold bottle (that bottle had weight issues, good ones though) and my son did better than me as he went back the next day in the rain and rescued a third more gold than he’d gathered the previous day. As for me, I was content to just hunker down in my wet-weather gear and watch him have fun in the drizzle, and then I helped him haul his equipment out of the excavation up the boulder strewn slope back to the waiting 4X4 diesel. However, what should have been an easy exit from the site got highly sketchy in a hurry as the rain had caused a big slump right across the road by sliding muck down the north side of the excavation, with the mess beginning about seventy-five yards from where we were working. Moreover, it’s a good thing my diesel has lots of clearance or we’d still be glued there in the goo, but with the high clearance and the awesome torque of that diesel, it chewed us safely through. Now, if I’d have been in my gasoline-powered 4X4, which has lower clearance and not near the torque, it likely would have been a bad ending to a great gold trip.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

LANNY!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[63bkpkr]

Lanny has anyone ever mentioned to you that there is a possibility that you might have a way with words! ..............63bkpkr

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Golden Grams of Goodness: Part 3

Even though the bedrock was super hard in that location, it did have some fractures, but it was a rare exception to find any breaks in the stone that had much depth due to the hardness of the rock. However, what that bedrock did have was lots of little gutters with bends indented into it, decorated with twists and dips, and those made for some great little gold traps for sassy pickers, lonely nuggets, and juicy flakes, and there was lots of gold to go around, and I do mean lots!

When conditions would allow, we scrubbed the coils right tight on the bedrock listening for faint breaks in the threshold or for those aforementioned broader signals, and every time we’d get a hit, we’d shut off the detectors and go to work with the sniping tools. After cleaning the twists and turns of the little gutters, we’d detect them again and find gold that could now be heard because we’d removed so many ironstone chunks with the sniping tools and the super-magnets.

However, the non-magnetic dark hot rocks (one less oxygen molecule from the magnetic ones I believe?) still caused trouble, but there were less of them compared to the the truly troublesome ones we’d got out of the way. (The iron bands couldn’t be dealt with by detecting though, and I’m sure we left gold behind along their edges when we finally ran out of time.) By continuing to scan the bedrock, we hit some nuggets in the 2-3 gram range as well, and a few bigger ones to boot–right sassy, beefy brawlers. Regardless of the bigger pieces, lots of flat nuggets were wedged down in any crack they’d been able to work their way into while travelling over that iron-hard bedrock, and we really had to work to liberate them.

In addition, we took our time to carefully scan any clay or channel material that was stuck to the sides of those bedrock pinnacles I mentioned early in the story, and by careful scraping after we got a positive detector response along those sides (when we could), we captured a lot of additional pickers from their slopes. Having already learned from our previous finds in hot ground, we’d shut down the detectors after finding any detectable gold on around or near the base of the pinnacles as well, and it sure paid off with lots of nice gold we would have missed electronically. In retrospect, it was somewhat ironic that we had to revert to age-old gold gathering techniques used thousands of years ago because our modern electronic wizardry was overwhelmed and outclassed, but that just goes to show why it’s good to be well-rounded in gold getting techniques, with a healthy collection of excellent tools as well to use for specialized purposes; because, does anyone really know what they’ll be up against when Mother Nature’s been scheming and plotting to hide her gold?

On a different note, we used the waterproof coils to search the bottom of the pools and we found some gold that way too, but not much as where the pools were, the bedrock had been softer which allowed the excavator buckets to dig deep. A Cheechako (greenhorn) and a Sourdough (seasoned miner) joined us in the excavation for a while, and they too found gold, with the lucky Cheechako hitting a nice multi-gram nugget (the size of my thumbnail) with his detector, a chunk that had been drug, with some larger rocks, off to the side of the bedrock drain that was channeling water into the culvert of the drain. We were happy for him, and happy for the Sourdough (a veteran of many a gold chase) too who sniped like a man possessed with the pure golden fever, a sight to behold! Well, he walked away with a nice catch of pickers and small nuggets in his bottle as he’d set up a little high-banker so he could process more material. However, neither of them came close to our tally in weight, but they sure had fun, and we did too.

It was a great day, and I walked out with lots of growly golden rattlers in my gold bottle (that bottle had weight issues, good ones though) and my son did better than me as he went back the next day in the rain and rescued a third more gold than he’d gathered the previous day. As for me, I was content to just hunker down in my wet-weather gear and watch him have fun in the drizzle, and then I helped him haul his equipment out of the excavation up the boulder strewn slope back to the waiting 4X4 diesel. However, what should have been an easy exit from the site got highly sketchy in a hurry as the rain had caused a big slump right across the road by sliding muck down the north side of the excavation, with the mess beginning about seventy-five yards from where we were working. Moreover, it’s a good thing my diesel has lots of clearance or we’d still be glued there in the goo, but with the high clearance and the awesome torque of that diesel, it chewed us safely through. Now, if I’d have been in my gasoline-powered 4X4, which has lower clearance and not near the torque, it likely would have been a bad ending to a great gold trip.

All the best,

Lanny

Howdy Lanny… thanks for sharing your gold sniping experience with us. It looks like you guys found a real honey hole at that site. Your son was wise to return the next day. It is always a good idea to harvest the bird in hand while you can do so.

Your comment about hotrocks got me thinking that prospecting country means having to deal with quite a variety of hotrock types. Interesting, but not much fun for the VLF operator as a rule. In our area of northeastern Ontario, the ground-balancing PI units silence the non-conductive hotrocks belonging to the mineralogical oxide group. These include the red-hot positive “metallic” signals generated by the reddish-brown iron oxide maghemite, and most but not all signals produced by minerals belonging to both the sulfide and arsenide mineral groups as well.

The non-conductive, but magnetic susceptible iron oxides such as magnetite, maghemite, and in some areas specular hematite are the usual culprits that trouble electronic prospectors using VLF units. Various dark rocks associated with serpentinization or metamorphism such as black serpentinite could possibly be included with this group.

Photos of some potential “hotrocks” are included below for readers who might appreciate some visual help with hotrock identification. Magnetite is not included because most goldhunters are probably familiar with it. But we should point out that the variably magnetic and conductive pyrrhotite pictured separately below has widespread occurrence. Its size typically varies from fingernail to multi-pound variably-shaped configurations, and the surface weathers to quite a dark brown discoloration from the original pale yellow of a fresh surface. It normally responds strongly to both PI and VLF units, and at least in our territory is considered to be the foremost bane of electronic prospectors.

Conductive graphitic rocks often associated with metamorphic outcrops represent a widespread conductive type of hotrock with no magnetic properties. Similarly, we occasionally detect some of the dark sulfides, for example the sooty-grey, conductive copper sulfide chalcocite. It looks like a typical darker hotrock, has no magnetism, produces a very strong “metallic” signal to VLF detectors, but won’t react to my PI units. Unless there is some surface (green) oxidation present, I doubt most detectorists would recognize it in the field.

The list of potential arsenides that produce strong VLF signals is lengthy, but most of our conductive arsenides here in northeastern Ontario tend to be light-hued, grey-white, or silvery on a brittle fresh surface. Some of the common ones, for example, skutterudite, safflorite and copper colored nickeline also react strongly to PI units, but fortunately arsenopyrite only reacts to my VLF units. Its signal strength seems to be more dependent on its grade and structure than many of our complex arsenides. There is no point in listing the arsenides because there are numerous varieties, and many cannot be specifically classified without sophisticated lab analysis. The important thing is to realize that quite a variety exists in many areas we frequent, and that may apply to some of your areas too.

Congratulations on what looks to have been an outstanding gold recovery experience for both of you guys. We do enjoy reading your gold adventure tales, and look forward to more now that winter is firmly entrenched in the West. Oh yes, we’ve seen the weather reports for your area!!! All the best to you Lanny, thankyou, and please convey our best regards to your son.

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