Help I think I found gold but I am to new to this....

[Ashman]

Thanks to my brother I have spent almost a year metal detecting and have had a complete blast with all of our hunts together. He has been banging on my head to join this forum and has had nothing but great things to say about treasurenet so here I am.

Recently 5 weeks ago my wife and I relocated from the Virginia Beach, Virginia to Sun City, California and it has been in experience to say the least.

I have been trying to learn about places to go and ended up in the San Bernardino National Forest talking to a ranger and learning about the laws and places I can go hunt. This is when I learned more about GOLD PANNING and just how much fun it can be.

I just joined GPA and I went to a claim that is close to where I live and thought this will be easy, dug up some dirt and started classifying it.

Holy %$#$ I think I see gold in my pan, well I was wrong so I thought. I even tested some and yep it’s gold. But the little nuggets are very dull looking not the shiny butter colored I was told they should be.

Then I also see 100’s or more tiny flakes in my pan. There is some black sand but not like I have seen on some videos.
Fool’s gold and how to tell the difference?

I have been told things like real gold color will not change when you move from side to side that fool’s gold will have color variations, well on tiny flakes and specs the colors are hard to tell for me somewhat, hell it all looks like gold, lol….

Also real gold will not float that it will stay on the bottom, ok I have seen the different flakes float to the top those are is easy to spot, but what about all those tiny specs on the bottom. Hey if its real gold specs there I want them. The way I see it at the end of the month it all adds up.

If I do have real gold how can I clean it up better and how and where can I sell it?

I am completely new to all this and I am really looking for any kind of help I can get.

Also maybe I am not testing my gold right but here is a pic of a couple flakes with the 22k acid.


Also here is short video of whats in my pan, this is after using my sucker bottle 5-6 times, as you can see there is some sand with it as well. Still learning how to separate the sand from the gold....

 

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[goldenmojo]

Pan all the junk out and if it is gold you will know it.

 

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[Nathen]

We've panned and panned. The "gold" moves in the pan but it's way smaller than any of the material in the pan. I want to get some 100 mesh or even 150 mesh screen but I'm leaning on the side of not gold and can't justify putting more money into the materials to find more of it.

We have some green chalkboard that we could make a miller table out of for no cost but time and that might help us out if we can get it classified down more I suppose.

He has a couple of isolated flakes that he's trying to find with the microscope but is having trouble finding them. I'll report back if we can spot it.

 

[johnedoe]

Classifying the material is a "must do" to improve your recovery, and if you are going to put your cons on a miller table you absolutely have to classify ..... Remember the golden rule.... "If everything in the pan is the same size. Gold rules."

 

[arizau]

Hey guys. New here. Got a question. My dad thinks he's found gold and I keep tellin him it's pyrite. It shines in the pan but moves easy. Really small pieces of flour. I built a blue bowl to see if it moves like gold or not and the pieces stuck even with water on pretty high blasting all the rocks and black sand out.

He bought a microscope because it's too small to picture. I keep thinking pyrite.



Thoughts?



Woah holy bump from me. My bad it wasn't far down on the list

One thing you may not be aware of...Gold still looks like gold when it is out of direct light (shaded) while other material that looks like gold in full light changes appearance and no longer looks like gold when it is shaded.

Tiny gold is most easily panned, etc. when it is not competing with larger sized material so screening is in order as was suggested.

Good luck.

PS: Is the material in the photo from placer concentrates or from crushing a rock? It looks like the latter.

 

[Nathen]

It's from a gravel pit and the sample was taken from on top of clay that we found when digging down some with our skidsteer. It didn't seem like we were digging crushed stuff from the rock crusher tho it seemed like we were digging more in untouched stuff lower than the level they are working at. I could be wrong tho and this could be crushed fines? To me it doesnt look like gold because when you put a bright light on it it glitters while moving in the pan and I've read gold doesn't glitter. I just gotta find someone that knows more than us that can say yes or no haha.

I'm looking for smaller screen today and see what we can find.

Thanks for all the help so far!

 

[bobw53]

We've panned and panned. The "gold" moves in the pan but it's way smaller than any of the material in the pan.

Once you SEE gold in the pan, and realize how HEAVY it is, how it looks, and how it behaves.... you'll always know it....

I suggest a search on e-bay for Gold Fines you can get a 0.1 gram back of mixed sizes for under $10, looks like some are going for as low as $4 or $5... .1 grams
is worth about $4... Or if you want a bit of fun, buy some paydirt... Problem with that is some is just seeded with all like size pieces of gold, and may not contain
any fine gold, and what you really need to see is how the small stuff behaves and looks.

Either way, once you see it, you'll know it... And there won't be any question.

 

[arizau]

Once you SEE gold in the pan, and realize how HEAVY it is, how it looks, and how it behaves.... you'll always know it....

I suggest a search on e-bay for Gold Fines you can get a 0.1 gram back of mixed sizes for under $10, looks like some are going for as low as $4 or $5... .1 grams
is worth about $4... Or if you want a bit of fun, buy some paydirt... Problem with that is some is just seeded with all like size pieces of gold, and may not contain
any fine gold, and what you really need to see is how the small stuff behaves and looks.

Either way, once you see it, you'll know it... And there won't be any question.

Nathen
I agree...Once you see it you will never forget what it looks like and how it acts. This is a good source for practice material and it is possible you will get an actual payback for your investment. Gold Concentrates for Sale

Watch these videos too. How to Pan for Gold

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

 

[Nathen]

I had that idea too. I bought .1 gram of fines last week and they should be here early next week. It was like $7 for it. I worked a little today with my bluebowl and ended up with flakes stuck to the bottom like it should with my water on full tilt. Good sign. It wasn't enough to grab and pile for a picture but I had some concentrate that was extra we didn't run and I snapped a few pics of it in the pan. One with the flash and one without. It's really a difference under the light so I'm still leaning towards not gold. Here's the pics and I'll report back when my gold fines show up.





Thanks again guys.

 

[Nathen]

It won't let me edit my last post but reading up on fools gold I've kinda leaned towards mica. My eBay gold is supposed to show up Monday according to the tracking number. I'm so skeptical about all this and my dad just sees shine and jumps at the it's gold conclusion haha.

 

[goldenmojo]

Nathen If you see color only with a flash it is not gold. When gold is in the pan you will know it. Even the smallest of specs will stand out. The key is to get all the junk out of your pan where you only have black sand and gold. Keep stratifying your pan and bleeding off the lights until you get to black sand only. Good Luck in your pursuits.

 

[Nathen]

That's the conclusion I'm at now. I think my old man is finally on the fools gold train. Too bad too because we had a decent setup going with 30' of ground already stripped haha. It was a learning and bonding experience though. We will find some somewhere. Thanks for the help guys! I really do appreciate it!

 

[goldenmojo]

You might have gold in the 30' stripped area but there are a few questions that need to be asked at this point. Does the area have know gold deposits? What made you pick this spot? How deep did you dig? Did you sample many spots in the 30' area? Can you take a couple of pics and post them? We may be able to help if we see what is going on. Sometimes the top foot of material is littered with flood gold and black sand and some times there is only gold in certain areas and very little black sand.

 

[panman1963]

It sounds like it is mica..gold will float on water tension. I use hot water less water tension with jet dry or dish soap. Then if you swirl the water even the smallest peice of gold will stay planted to the bottom of the pan mica will flutter around. Easier way to tell is if you rub it between your fingers mica will break into pieces or decinagrate gold will not.. I hope this helps you

 

[Nathen]

It's a gravel pit that's stripped down 30' from surface and another 2-4 feet deep you hit clay. Figured if anything was there it would be on or above the clay. The pit size is about 35-40 acres. This is in northern North Dakota near the souris river. There was a gold mine south east of us on the same river but it was 40-50 miles south. There are a bunch of "coulies" made from glacial runoff to the main river and this gravel pit it located in those areas. The rock material looks rounded not jagged so I was guessing it was tumbled around in a river or something.

When you put the material in the water on my bluebowl with warm water but no jet dry there are tiny pieces of gold colored material floating on the surface. Actually most of this color in the pan is from shaking up the bluebowl and letting material dust run out of the feed hose into my pan. It does eventually sink to the bottom of the bowl and the larger pieces dont wash out with high water flow.

There was a bunch of magnetic black in the bowl too so that was a decent sign but I still don't believe it's gold. My stuff will be here tomorrow and I'll try somehow to make it the same size as the stuff in the pan and see how it looks/moves.

I tried getting pictures of the area but my phone died when we got there. Murphy's law also made sure I didn't have a charger with ha! Will update again

 

[goldenmojo]

No phone charger at a most vital time. I know that one. There might be gold somewhere in the walls of the 34 feet depth of the pit. There would be a lot of sampling to do but if you have access and time color might be found at a different level than the contact point. I have no knowledege of how gold was deposited in North Dakota but hope to see some pictures of the area. Good luck. Sorry i could not be of any help to you.

 

[Nathen]

Any help is better than no help and I appreciate it all! My gold showed up and the first thing we did was get it under the microscope. It looked very porous almost like lava rock (my first thought). I can see how it wants to float on the water and man did it want to do that. So after looking at it under the scope and light (100x microscope) I seen bright gold on the stuff I bought but later when we put the golf under the scope it wouldn't show any gold color but only showed silver coloring like some of the other stuff we panned. I dropped one of the smaller pieces in the pan and it sunk right to the bottom fast in the water. I decided to clip a couple of small chunks off it to more closely replicate the sizes of the other flakes in the pan. I could get the medium and large pieces I clipped off to separate from the other material but I had no luck getting the smallest Mose similar size piece to come out of the other material. It was all tied up with the gold colored flakes in the pan. Idk what to think of that honestly. No matter how many times I moved it around I never seen the tiny gold piece stick in the pan where all the other stuff moved. Here is a couple pics I took. Is it just me that didn't know it was so porous lol?


It's been pretty rainy here lately but when it's better I'll drive down and snap some pics of the pit and land around it.






Just as a comparison this is all under the same magnification as the other pictures. The pieces of whatever we are finding are super tiny!


I got another idea too. If anyone is bored and would like to see this stuff in person I could send out a film canister full of what we have. Any takers? Haha

 

[johnedoe]

Sure.... Go ahead and send me a sample, I'll see what I can do with it.
PM me for my address.

 

[panman1963]

Looks like gold but it may be pyrite.. The final test that will tell you exactly what it is squish it with pliers if it is gold it will smash into a thin piece if it is pyrite it will shatter into tiny pieces!!!

 

[panman1963]

Even if it is pyrite the good news is where pyrite is found there is a pretty good chance that you'll find gold also. It's not always the case though iron pyrite comes with iron ore and gold is associated wit iron ore & magnetite

 

[Nathen]

Sorry for the delay on replies. I got totally sidetracked with wedding planning and getting married and a new job so I have had zero time to work with this. We are planning on looking into the Mercury idea for retrieving the ultra fines. We built a retort for it but misplaced the 20# of mercury we had stored from years ago. We sent a sample to a jeweler we know and he confirmed there is gold in it but lots of it is imbedded in tiny veins in Quartz. We are going to build a screener to classify larger amounts to get larger amounts to sample. It looks like our material is down to about 70 mesh but the gold is roughly the size of 100-120 mesh. I got some larger pvc pipe given to me I could build a small trammel out of to help wash the rocks over a screen but idk if a trammel is needed as the rocks aren't dirty/muddy. Maybe a screen on a shaker table would classify better. I'll update this by the end of the summer at least. Thanks again guys for all the help!