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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[EagleDown]

Awhile back in one of Gramps posts he talked about Agenda 21 and I said I was going to look into it. I have and I tried to post my "finds" but could not figure out how to get them on here. This evening driving home from work I heard a news story about some college giving classes in "Sustainable Living" and that is a Agenda 21 phrase. It brought my blood pressure up so I thought I'd try to post this.

I researched and Agenda 21 is real, it is here in America, it is part of a land grab as well as built to take away the rights of every Legal United States Citizen. Look it up, its on the internet. Agenda 21 is actually NOT legal in the U.S. as any state involving itself with it is making an agreement with a Foreign Entity to End the U.S. as we know it. This past weekend I met an Ex South Affrican who worked with the U.N. for about 4 years so I asked him about Agenda 21. He hung his head and said "don't even go there"! He explained that it is real and is aimed at doing what its charter says and it will end the United States of America. All living will be done where the World Government tells us to live and if you go where we are not supposed to go, that is out in the outdoors we will be jailed. No prospecting, metal detecting, panning, sluicing, dredging, nothing, nothing, nothing.

So there is my report but its nothing new to Lanny as he's seen it up his way. This country and free thinking people are in for a fight......63bkpkr

In a few minutes, I'm heading back up to the Merced river for a few days,
so, I'll leave you with this to think about. Easy to understand and explain.

Agenda 21 in One Easy Lesson | National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA)


This is one of the greatest dangers we, as Americans,
are facing right now!! Bring us down and the rest of the
world will "crumble".

Eagle

 

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[Oakview2]

Finally--the snow is making a rapid and hasty retreat. Of course, that much anticipated event means that soon I'll be back up in the mountains--doing what I love best--trying to solve the mystery of where Mother Nature's cached her gold.

For those of you new to the passion, there's a lot to learn this time of year if you're observant. You'll notice all kinds of things that will provide you tips on how to locate the gold later on in the season when the runoff ceases, and when the stream levels drop. Cruise back through this thread and carefully read some of the excellent tips that have been posted over the years by generous prospectors on how to find yourself some sassy gold!

All the best,

Lanny

I'm guessing someone is charging his batteries, and dusting off the gear and grinning from ear to ear

 

[EagleDown]

Hokay, I'm back from the mountains/river. I just thought I'd pop in and show why it's a good idea to take photos of areas of interest while the water is still running, (as was posted earlier). The first photo is the one that was posted on the previous page. The second photo was taken a week ago. Now, you can see where the rocks and gravel have accumulated.

 

[EagleDown]

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Can you spell S-P-A-M ??

 

[Lanny in AB]

54000 views and counting! That means many are reading your post more than once. Ever thought of being a writer... proffessional, I mean? TTC

Thanks Terry--I'm working on my book. I've been getting a lot of valuable input from interested people; however, getting the time to write is proving to be the greatest challenge.

Thanks again for your very encouraging words.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Eagle,

Excellent photo to show the extreme differences in high water and low-to-no water flow. I love your great exemplars. Well done.

All the best, and I hope you're getting some gold by now,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Oakview,

Thanks for your comments. I just got back from the mountains--had a whole group of Cheechakos up to the mine. They had a blast, and found a little gold to boot. The weather is making it very nice for getting in to the high places now--finally. The creeks and rivers are way up, and with the snow melting at the higher altitudes, the streams will soon hit flood stage and the boulders will be rumbling down the canyons.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Just a few words about surface runs:

For those of you that don't know what a surface run is, it's a deposit of gold carried by high velocity water that was draped and dropped right on the surface. Up here, it sometimes happened when a glacial dam broke loose and a gush of water would blast out a placer deposit moving a band of gold and ancient stream run leaving it to be deposited in a very thin layer over a very wide area.

We've found them by following color. Gold is not the color I'm speaking of--the color of the soil is what I'm referring to. The accompanying material is quite distinguishable by the orange color of the dirt (due to all of the oxidizing iron materials [ironstone or magnetite, hematite, and pyrites]). To get to these deposits, the leaf litter and decayed matter that darkens the uppermost covering of soil has to be removed so that the pay can be exposed. (Sometimes we'll find a surface run due to it being exposed on the side of a hill by erosion--sometimes we find surface deposits by detecting or by sampling where the Oldtimers seemed to be working out in the middle of nowhere.)

This past weekend, a group of rookies I was inducting were getting pickers and flakes out of just such a deposit, but many of them went right through the deposit (it runs only about two inches in depth) and then they started blanking in their pans.

It's important to remember that when you locate a surface deposit to just work it by following the color. Don't work the material above it, and don't work the material below it (of course you have to take a bit of the material beneath it, but just don't keep heading down thinking the deposit continues into the material below it for any depth).

As a side note, we've also found nuggets in surface deposits--it seems the bigger the gush of water, the more power it had to carry heavier pieces of gold. If the blast of water was carrying boulders as well, be sure to detect behind (and if you can move them) under the accompanying boulders as well. The same stream deposition rationale that works in rivers applies to surface deposits (anything that would slow the velocity would create a low pressure area to allow the gold to drop out).

I detected a deposit like the one mentioned in the previous paragraph and found some nice multi-gram nuggets this way. It was amazing--the surface deposit was resting atop a decomposed bedrock and clay layer. There was nothing in the clay or the decomposed bedrock--it was a total waste of time. Everything was on the surface--no deeper than six inches at it's deepest point of deposition. My buddy found a beautiful six gram nugget only two inches down. The miner that was placering the deposit retrieved nuggets up to ten grams by simply following the boulders--moving them, and then taking all of the material from under them, around them, and for a short ways downslope (downstream in stream parlance) from the boulders. It was the most unique mining operation I ever witnessed--very precise and methodical--almost surgical.

In several test areas, he moved everything, just to be sure he wasn't missing the gold, and it was very unproductive. So, he went back to his pick and choose spot mining method and achieved his best recovery rates. He had a backhoe and a wash-plant. He had jars of gorgeous character nuggets--nothing flat or hammered at all in any of it. I'm guessing the deposit was probably an ancient Tertiary channel that got plowed through when a huge glacial dam burst through it in a perpendicular thrust, then gouged it out right down to bedrock, and laid it down in a thin blanket, over a wide area. It was very remarkable.

Well, I've rambled long enough.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Lanny Laddy,
What a wonderful post that is for its content and to hear from you once again. So you've gone ahead and come back in out of the brush and bugs and it sounds like you've had the opportunity to find some gold. Which machine were you using? Your absence has been noted by more than myself and it is indeed good to read from you again.

My full time job is turning into more than that as this morning it was announced we are far behind and will need to work Fridays as well as Saturdays for the foreseeable future. And the 4th of July holiday will be only the 4th and not a five day weekend as was hoped for. So much for the backpacking trip with my son and the GMT over the 4th or going to Hefty's claim as instead I will have my nose to the grindstone. Oh well, it will pay the bills! The water in the Northern Sierras is reaching the point where it will soon be safe to go play in it as long as the storm that's up there now does not drop much more than it already has.

The highbanker project that seemed so simple has also taken a back seat to the work, sigh if I had only understood last year when I was out in the mountains for three months I would have enjoyed it even more than I did.

Good to hear from you, keep on finding the yellow metal and thanks a bunch for sharing your experience and information.

63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny Laddy,
What a wonderful post that is for its content and to hear from you once again. So you've gone ahead and come back in out of the brush and bugs and it sounds like you've had the opportunity to find some gold. Which machine were you using? Your absence has been noted by more than myself and it is indeed good to read from you again.

My full time job is turning into more than that as this morning it was announced we are far behind and will need to work Fridays as well as Saturdays for the foreseeable future. And the 4th of July holiday will be only the 4th and not a five day weekend as was hoped for. So much for the backpacking trip with my son and the GMT over the 4th or going to Hefty's claim as instead I will have my nose to the grindstone. Oh well, it will pay the bills! The water in the Northern Sierras is reaching the point where it will soon be safe to go play in it as long as the storm that's up there now does not drop much more than it already has.

The highbanker project that seemed so simple has also taken a back seat to the work, sigh if I had only understood last year when I was out in the mountains for three months I would have enjoyed it even more than I did.

Good to hear from you, keep on finding the yellow metal and thanks a bunch for sharing your experience and information.

63bkpkr

Herb,

It's so nice to know that things are working out for you, and in your economy, I'd imagine that you're quite thrilled to have more than full-time income right now. Well done, and I'm sure that they're very lucky to have all of your skills and unique knowledge.

It's a bit of a downer, I'm sure, that you can't get out in the hills, and I feel for you not being able to go chase the gold.

Hang in there and hopefully things will slow down enough that you'll still get a chance to find some sassy gold before the snow flies in your neck of the woods. As well, one of these days you'll get your gold machine finished as well. All things in their proper time my friend.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Went out to a spot close to camp the other day. Dug in the bedrock in a little gulch. Threw the bedrock in a pan for my wife. And, I couldn't believe it--panned out a sassy nugget. It showed up right quick in the crease of the pan.

To backtrack a bit, it was so dark, she was holding a flashlight for me while I worked the material. We arrived in camp late and she had the fever to move some dirt.

That just goes to show that you never know what you'll get or what time of day you'll get it--I was shocked. I've walked over that spot many times. I'll certainly be doing more digging there as my wife's staked her claim!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[nuggy]

Hi Lanny, goes to prove the old adage - where she be, there she be, and where she's not, she baint. Well that is the way I was told it, strange language and all.

Your story reminded me somehow of the time my buddy and I were driving in to our workings, and ran across some folks stopped on the side of the road having a picnic. The guy with me knew one of them and went to chat for a while. After a few minutes I wandered off to see what their kids were up to in a tiny creek nearby. They had been catching crawlies (fresh water crayfish), and had found a couple of specs of gold, and a real nice 2 or 3 gram chunk! They asked if I thought it was gold, and I told them it definitely was. They had a hub cap for a pan and continued searching while my buddy and I went off to work the dredge.
I never told anyone about what I had seen that day, and wasn't until a few years later I thought of it again. I lived closer to the spot by then, and went back to see what I could find. I spent all day walking up and down that part of the road, and though I did about 40 pans in similar spots. I'm still not certain I was in the exact right place. The best I could find was a couple of tiny colours in my pan. Another day I spent a serious amount time searching fruitlessly with my old gold bug 2 as well.
To this day I don't know if they went at it and cleaned out all there was over a period of time, or if I just can't quite get to the right spot. That road is long and rough with many tiny creeks beside and crossing the roadway. I'll probably end up going back there for another look one day....
Good luck Nuggy

 

[Lanny in AB]

Nuggy--so nice to hear from you again. Ain't it strange the way it goes with finding the gold--those kids finding that nice piece just like that--it's such a puzzling thing, but it sounds like they had lots of fun chasing the crawlies.

I've chased known gold places and been skunked myself--it is a frustrating experience.

All the best Nuggy--stay in touch,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Hi Lanny,
So "the Minelab 5000 is the best PI machine for on land gold hunting". Have you had any experience with the White's PI units or any opinions about them?? Just wondering!.............63bkpkr

Then on another note - Once I do get out into the hills I've a particular river gorge stuck in my mind with massive hunks of rocks in the river that can be easily slabbed off. You know the kind, the ones with 1/2" cracks, 1/4" cracks and the like that will be totally submerged during spring floods or during any good down pour lasting a few days kicking the CFS up to 9 or 10k. There will be overhead cliffs and goodness knows what will be found up there, I mean besides rattlesnakes and old mining camps. I guess I'd just need to keep in mind that "Gold is lazy" and wave my detector over lazy looking places but what if one of those spots yawned at me?? But I digress - so can you picture this place in your mind and if so what items of interest should I be looking for. Again, just a thought........Herb

PS - the shinny hunk of stainless steel is the section of the SuperRedhawk .454 barrel I had removed so it would not get in my way when I'm cliff climbing.

It's about 5 cm long

 

[gold nuggets]

Not sure I would want to be anywhere near the receiving
end of that SuperRedHawk 454 Herb. If ya missed, the slug
whizzing by would probably knock ya over anyway! Careful
playing around on those cliffs....probably don't need to say
that but will anyway. Gold Nuggets

 

[63bkpkr]

Hi There GoldNuggets,
Missing is not part of the equation but if that did happen I'd imagine it would sound like one of those large black round "Bee's", I will use that term as I lack the knowledge of what they actually are. The 454 is quite a caliber as it will pierce 3/8" thick steel plate which is the reason I purchased it because as it can do that it will protect me from anything on the North American Continent as well as many other locations. I've had some very large North American Critters approach me and to date I've only had to use the 454 as a noise maker and was then left alone. At one time I had the opportunity to fire into an 8" diameter pine tree trunk from about six feet away. Just like in Hollywood movies a chunk of tree came off the entry side of the tree. On the opposite side of the tree was the exit hole and the tree that was four feet in back of the initial target tree had an entry hole but no exit hole.

I do my best to be safe on those cliffs, walls, ledges, mountain faces, avalanche chutes and the like and have since 1964 when I first began my trips into the mountains. I don't recall how many years back it has been but at one point I decided I needed to know how to tie proper knots in Nylon climbing ropes. I purchased a book, a climbing harness, a few climbing/rapelling assist devices, a long length of static line and began training. I'd found this box canyon with a 200' waterfall and chose that as one of my first major rappels over a cliff "with real equipment". The real equipment made the trip so much friendlier than the first time down and back up. The many pools underneath/down stream from the waterfall are filled with native Rainbow Trout mostly 18" to 24" in length and really wide from the dorsal fin to the bottom of the belly. Just a gorgeous place that few people visit as it is only a 'little bit tough' to get there. Heck, the climbing gear alone weighs about 30 pounds. Alas, I could not locate the pictures of the 200' waterfall and fishing so attached are a couple of the insurance policy I carry with me when I "go out there"..........Enjoy.......63bkpkr

 

[Lanny in AB]

Herb,

As to your first question--I've not had experience with the White's PI's for gold detecting. In fairness--I've only read what some others have said that have used both the Whites and the Minelab PI's. I assume you're asking about the TDI Pro? Here's what Terry Soloman had to say about it after swinging it for hundreds of hours, "Sorry, but I MUST disagree on the TDI. Very few serious nuggetshooters use this machine. I swung one for about 200-hours, and I was underwhelmed. I know two people that found nuggets with one. Both were 3-grams or better and less than 5" deep. In other words, A GMT, Goldbug II, or Lobo Super Traq will outperform the TDI. If you are going to hunt gold with a PI machine, do not waste your time with a TDI. Get a used Minelab, or just hunt VLF with one of the machines mentioned. Gold prospecting is expensive and hard. Shortcuts and going cheap leads to pain and ruin in the goldfields."

But, in fairness, I haven't used one myself--so I can't comment on having used it, but Terry's been up the trail and over the mountain after the gold for a long time.

As far as the gold in cracks and crevices--I can speak to that. One of the problems you'll have with your detector is depth penetration straight down into those cracks. Unless the gold is fairly shallow (and then you're detector will sniff out the nuggets just fine), you'll have to find a way to bar/pry off the sheets so that you can detect down the sides of the perpendicular sheets of bedrock.

Detecting above (coil flat on the ground) bedrock sheets like that will require you to use a coil that will be large enough to punch deep, but then you'll lose sensitivity to the shallower stuff. So, I'd detect it with a very sensitive sniper coil first to see if there's anything close to the surface, then I'd hit it with progressively larger coils, going very slow and listening very carefully for any slight change in pitch or threshold (you'll have a hard time because of the bedrock on either side of the crack or crevice restricting how close to the target you can get your coil), and you should work that way until you've exhausted your size of coils working until you hit the maximum size that you have in your arsenal.

The other way to get more depth to target ratio, but it's hard work, is to break of the tops of the sheets of bedrock. This will buy you a few more cm's of depth, but it's very hard work (depending on the hardness of the mother rock, of course), and as you hammer and break the tops of the sheets, the shock of the disturbance you create will drop the gold deeper in the crevices.

The other option, as referred to earlier in the post, is to work at creating a side that you can expose (if that's possible), then pry apart and bar down (slip a small pry bar or a long, heavy large-sized pry bar into the cracks and crevices) on one side of the formation you're working, until you can literally rip the sides down several feet (or as far down as the formation will allow). Then, you'll need to run your detector very carefully up and down the perpendicular face you've exposed.

And, of course, the same rule of "slow and careful" applies. As well, if you're close to water, and you've hit the bottom of one of those crevices, carefully scrape out any material (if it's little river rocks and stones tightly packed with signs of oxidization--that can be a great sign!) and pan it all. Be sure you've got some different sized household spoons (ones you can bend and shape for specialized sniping tools--not the best dining set pieces in the house, please!!), a slot screwdriver with a 90 degree bend on the end, various small scraping tools or picks, a stiff-bristled brush, a narrow soft-bristled brush (narrow paint brush) and a little dust pan or small plastic shovel (like the ones in kids' beach play [bucket and shovel] sets), and pack a plastic bucket you can deposit the whole works in.

So, if you pack the aforementioned gathering and collecting materials with you on your "crack" expedition, you should have what you need to get the job done.

I'm off to the mountains for a bit, but I'll check back later.

All the best Herb,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Not sure I would want to be anywhere near the receiving
end of that SuperRedHawk 454 Herb. If ya missed, the slug
whizzing by would probably knock ya over anyway! Careful
playing around on those cliffs....probably don't need to say
that but will anyway. Gold Nuggets

Thanks for dropping in, and thanks for your comments to Herb--he's a great guy.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[gold nuggets]

Thanks for dropping in, and thanks for your comments to Herb--he's a great guy.
All the best, Lanny

You are welcome Lanny....I always check this thread for information from all the knowledgable members that post on it. I'm not a newbe but I figure someone will always have information on a better way to do something and besides, the pictures are great. Best of luck this summer season...... Gold Nuggets and Herb is a great guy for sure.

 

[Lanny in AB]

July 4th is coming fast--all the best to all of you--have a great Independence Day!

I'm off to the mountains to have some fun. I'll check in here when I get back.

All the best,

Lanny