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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[strickman]

thanks lanny,if everyone lived by example.it would be better for all of us.esp. in this hobby.keep it up -this is a great thread.your clerical abilities amaze me.but how do you make such long post,when i get started i run out of room and can't see what i'm typing .bear in mind i am no pro at this.but am trying,i need a larger message window.

 

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[dunc]

Lots of good information here, but more than anything else, I really appreciate your writing style and effort.

 

[Unicorn]

Lanny....That was a thoroughly good read, funny.....informative......and very well written. Have you ever given thought to writing a book. I am sure you have many stories you could tell. Thank you.


Unicorn

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lots of good information here, but more than anything else, I really appreciate your writing style and effort.

Thanks so much for your generous words Dunc.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

thanks lanny,if everyone lived by example.it would be better for all of us.esp. in this hobby.keep it up -this is a great thread.your clerical abilities amaze me.but how do you make such long post,when i get started i run out of room and can't see what i'm typing .bear in mind i am no pro at this.but am trying,i need a larger message window.

Thanks for your kindness--if you type your message in a word processing document, and then copy it and paste it in the message window--you should have all kinds of room. Hope this helps.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny....That was a thoroughly good read, funny.....informative......and very well written. Have you ever given thought to writing a book. I am sure you have many stories you could tell. Thank you.


Unicorn

Wow--what a generous compliment--thanks so much!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

The thing that strikes me most about your latest installment Lanny, is that if your bucket had contained rich material, you'd probably have lost it all in a head over heels freefall instead of a relatively controlled slide! Such is life...

Looking forward to the next segment of this tale with "great expectations".

Jim.

 

[strickman]

o.k. time for lanny's memoirs---

 

[extractor]

Extractor--thanks! Hope it helps in some way.

All the best,

Lanny

Your post helps in a big way! Thanks for all the time ya put in them.

 

[Dragons_Fire]

I think I have read every post here twice now. There has been some amazing stories. Keep them coming please! And Lanny, if you are ever looking for a noobie partner in southern AB (if there is any gold here), let me know because I would love to learn from a master such as you!

Danny

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi all. It truely is amazing how gold works its way into those hair line cracks that just seem impossible. But of coarse we dont really know what the land form has been through over the years in its make up & the depositing & re-depositing of gold along with it. We can have but a fair idea but often to the new kid on the block scratching there head as they look at a place to start looking for gold & think, Where the hell do I start. Often the beginner has that "beginners luck" as we, "older & wiser" "know " where the gold is supposed to be.....right.....After all we have done all the reading, research & put in the many many hours of field work. Experience, I think they call it. But we as prospectors, over the years, & as we have read many times, know that GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT. I remember reading that for the first time many years ago, & just like many that will read it for themselves for the first time, will think, What a bloody stupid statement. But over time, of coarse, it all makes sense & is so true. There is often no rhyme nor reason as to where & why the gold is where it is & where it has come from. Again research of an area will help, because you wont be the first to try to work it out
Getting back to the fine hair line cracks. I have washed down many a smooth exposed bedrock that is above the normal today level of a creek. Taken the nozzle off my pressure hose & blasted it as clean as a whistle to expose those tiny hair line cracks. Get all that surface sands, clays & grits off them to expose them. You will be gobsmacked as to the flakes of gold, up on their edge, that have worked their way into them. I made a special creving tool to clean them out. Here is a pic of some of my crevicing & fossicking gear. Some home made & some of coarse arent.
At the top is the magnifying glass, standed crevicing scraper, 3lb hammer for smacking the estwing gad bar which is a priceless tool for opening up cracks & crevices as Lanny has stated, now to the left is the two crevicing tools I made. They are made from an old builders hand saw steel blade. Very strong, thin & very flexiable. Ideal for those thin hair line cracks. To the right of these are another crevice scraper & a little snuffer bottle. The snuffer bottle is another great little tool for sucking up gold from your pan from amongst the back sands, or great to suck up a piece of gold you may have spied in a crack or sitting on bed rock in shallow water. The tape measure is to measure the gold nuggets we find here in New Zealand. They can be that big....Na just kidding It is set at 800mmm to give an idea of size. Below the tape is two hand crevice sucker pumps I have made. One is 40mm,1.5", & my main weapon for sucking out cracks n crevices. By using just the main pump body I can suck up material as big as 1.5" & dump it straight into a pan. When down to the bottom narrow cracks I attach the nozzey parker retention chamber that is great for sucking up water & then blowing it into the cracks to flush up & out any goodies. It is then just a matter of sucking up before it has time to resettle & it drops into the rentention chamber to be tipped into a pan for final clean up. By doing this pumping & sucking action into cracks & crevices you can really clean them out, & all by hand, No noisey motors & pumps. The bigger 2" sucker pump I use for cleaning up shallow bed rock quicker that the 1.5". Being longer you dont have to bend over but can suck & dump straigh into a pan or bucket. I dont use the nosey parker attachment on this one. Below all this is the fine classifyer sieve screen.

Here are some pics of crevice sucker in action & gold found in this crevice

Notice the little quartz stringer beside the crevice

I got many small picese of gold out of these hair line cracks

The white bucket is sitting on top of the little creeks material covering the bed rock that I am digging down & putting through the sluice box. Very small & low flow creek. Had the entire creek flow dribbling through the box. Had to preclassify all the material to minus 10mm or the box wouldnt do its work. I now wonder how many bigger bits I chucked out . Beside the shovel is the 2" hand pump sucker which I used once down to bed rock with the shovel.

This material from the sucker I would dump straight into a pan & this is what I would get

Happy golding

JW

 

[dave wiseman]

Great Stuff JW........

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

JW,

You do the best illustrated, instructive posts I've seen anywhere. I wish you would start a thread or two, providing this type of information plus anything else that comes to mind. It's fun, its interesting, and you illustrate straightforward techniques that hobbyists should be able to easily duplicate.

I'd be interested in learning how you fabricated those hand pumps. I've seen them elsewhere. I have not looked for them, but also don't recall seeing any for sale in supply shops. A quiet, convenient alternative to noisy pumps/dredges, especially since creeks in some gold areas are becoming enclosed by urban sprawl, or are off limits to dredging.

If anyone knows where these are available, I'd like to get a few, so please post a supplier. John, very well done... with thanks!!

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi Jim, Many thanks to you for your comments. A picture tells a thousand words..... You will notice in the pic of the bed rock how the little quartz stringers have been displaced on the fracture , crack, lines. It is a greywacky basement rock which is sedimentry in its make up but after is was laid has been effected by the volcanics & heat source that played a big part in the building of the Coromandel Peninsula & its geothermal & hydrothermal gold deposits. I guess this is where the quartz got deposited when in its heated liquid state through the cracks in the ground. There is also a lot of pyrites & some beautiful cluster samples as well as impregnated through the greywacky itself. Very little quartz float in the entire creek itself. Odd......& buggered if I can find any trace of the stringers that those rich little specimens have come from. This little creek was one of the very few in the Coromandel that was ground sluiced in the very early days for alluvial gold. More dentital gold than alluvial as they sluiced the shingle & talas material of the surrounding steep sided valley walls that plunge into this little creek & I would say at a guess they used the creek as a natural sluice box. Blowing all this material down & through the creek. Then cleaned up the bedrock to recover what they had washed down from the surrounding hill sides. What I am getting is stuff they missed in their clean up. Guess it is easier for me to get into the nooks & crannies with my suction gear. I have used my little 2" suction nozzle dredge here but it drained all the water pretty quickly plus it was noisey & there is a popular swimming hole in the main river that this creek flows into not far away. So wasnt too keen on running the motor & pump when people were there.

Here is a pic of my little 2" suction nozzle set up. You will notice that it is the same box I used as my sluice box in the above pic & also in that pic you will see the header box in the very top right hand corner sitting up on the bank.

Happy golding

JW

 

[strickman]

hey ---you boy's been slacking on this thread! need more

 

[kiwi jw]

Too busy finding gold...... That should be, To busy looking for gold ....

JW

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Hi Strickman and JW,

Strick, me and JW have been away posting on a new site to help get things moving a bit. I think Lanny may have headed south for some nugget hunting. I seem to recall maybe on one of my former threads here that he mentioned the possibility.

Jim.

 

[strickman]

i understand,got to help get it going-i visited his site as well.sometimes i frequent other sites as well -i usually just lurk in those ,trying to bone up on tactics.for some reason i feel at home on this one,and it's more user frendly.later on i might join his as well.i was just trying to RIB-ya'll and keep this thread going .it has been one of my favorite threads,and it was getting quiet.i need more .

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Hi Strickman,

Yes I agree with you about TNet being the place where I feel most comfortable. Maybe it's because here we are dealing with lots of folks who are not miners, or trying to generate incomes from precious metal hunting. Or some other business related agenda. Just regular hobbyists out to enjoy a fascinating interest regardless of what happens with respect to finds. I enjoy just shooting the breeze about prospecting equipment, and have always been intrigued with metal detectors for prospecting use. If these things did not take me out into the great outdoors, I'd have no interest at all.

I enjoy hearing about others' adventures, and seeing their finds. It's all about living, whatever that happens to be for folks. For me, it's mostly about this hobby and the interesting people and places it takes you. I've tried nearly anything a regular guy can reasonably do, but this is one interest that has always remained with me, when the others faded away.

See ya,

Jim.

 

[kiwi jw]

Well said Jim. I couldnt agree more. Must admit I "feel" very comfy on this site also & that has to do with the great bunch that are regularly on here. There is no bickering, slander, back stabbing etc that other sites seem to develope through ego's & politics.
I have been a bit busy on Steves site & that is through no disrespect for this site. But over the years I have "lurked" on many forums to find a comfy one & noticed the many fine posts, info & advise that Steve so freely gives. I, like many, have developed a huge respect for Steve. Even though I have never met him or know him personaly. The internet has made the world a very small place & brings us into contact at the quickness of tapping a few keys. I felt it my way of saying thanks to Steve by getting involved on his new site to push it along. He is a very busy person in his own right.
I have always maintained & plugged this treasurenet site to all I communicate with on this gold fossicking & general detecting hobby. I will be frequenting both sites & enjoy immensely the comradery between like minded people who share the same interests in these hobbies.

Happy hunting

JW