The Quest for Maine Gold

[Johnnybravo300]

Most of the basic testing you'd do, figuring out what state the gold is in, free mill or chemically bound in the rock and if that's even feasible. If theres an actual ore body or just a one inch wide seam with some gold in it and surrounded by waste rock. Its how much you want to put into it and you could determine that yourself. And that's assuming it hasn't pinched out just below the surface! Theres too many scenarios to list.
Even a low grade ore body can erode significant placers worth placer mining yet the ore body isnt worth digging at the source or has eroded completely. Gold downstream doesn't always mean theres a lode upstream worth digging out but it's all worth testing if you can find it.
I'd try to determine the approximate size and grade of what you've got before anything else. Mining reports from that area might give you some idea from what others have found. Other metals will surely be present but if theres not enough gold it wont pay so I'd just start with that and keep it simple.
And that's just a few of the headaches and expenses before you make any money!
One things for sure in mining, if it doesn't cost you cash you'll pay with your body haha.

 

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[OreCart]

Most of the basic testing you'd do, figuring out what state the gold is in, free mill or chemically bound in the rock and if that's even feasible. If theres an actual ore body or just a one inch wide seam with some gold in it and surrounded by waste rock. Its how much you want to put into it and you could determine that yourself. And that's assuming it hasn't pinched out just below the surface! Theres too many scenarios to list.
Even a low grade ore body can erode significant placers worth placer mining yet the ore body isnt worth digging at the source or has eroded completely. Gold downstream doesn't always mean theres a lode upstream worth digging out but it's all worth testing if you can find it.
I'd try to determine the approximate size and grade of what you've got before anything else. Mining reports from that area might give you some idea from what others have found. Other metals will surely be present but if theres not enough gold it wont pay so I'd just start with that and keep it simple.
And that's just a few of the headaches and expenses before you make any money!
One things for sure in mining, if it doesn't cost you cash you'll pay with your body haha.

That is what is strange about this outcropping; there are no veins. The quartz is disseminated throughout the bedrock. It might be a piece of quartz the size of a quarter, or it might be the size of a plate, but it is like this outcropping is a tossed salad of quartz, galena, silver, iron pyrite, copper pyrites, and melanite. I have never seen anything like it.

You can actually see this on this particular sample. If you look at the rock at the very top, the bedrock fully entraps a pocket of quartz. The more the face is broken off, the more quartz is found. Not veins of it, just little pockets all through it. I would say about 20% of the outcropping is quartz, with the rest being other minerals and rocks.

I have no idea if this is a good thing, or bad. Good in some ways because all those layers has the potential to have gold in them, but bad because it could mean separating a lot of waste rock.

 

[Bob207]

Im in the bangor area and got a 2 1/2" dredge/highbanker combo. If you got a water source near the gravel pit it would be real easy to see whats in the pit. Look me up this summer if you want to do it.

 

[OreCart]

Im in the bangor area and got a 2 1/2" dredge/highbanker combo. If you got a water source near the gravel pit it would be real easy to see whats in the pit. Look me up this summer if you want to do it.

Sounds good if you think their might be gold there. We could look over some exposed bedrock I have in the pit and see if there is anything settled out around the ledge.

Its good gravel, small in size (2 inch minus bank run), and very "sharp". By that I mean, the State Soil Engineer has me mix overburden into the gravel so that it compacts better for my heavy haul roads. I am not sure if that is a good sign or not in a placer find, but it is what I have.

I got some mini-equipment we can work with though, like a backhoe and dump trailer so that we do not have to shovel. I HATE shoveling. I am not sure how many tons your system can handle in an hour, but I can move 2 tons an hour MAYBE, so we could get your setup to water and move the gravel to it easily enough; at that rate at least.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Skip the XRF testing and get a real fire assay. Same price and the fire assay is a lot more accurate.

XRF readings are disregarded in the mining industry for base metal assays. XRF only samples a very small area and at best only read a few mm deep. A fire assay is the least expensive accurate way you can get a reading on the whole sample.

Sampling is a learned skill. If you just send in a piece of your best looking ore you will get assays that don't relate to the value of the deposit itself. Probably the best bet in your situation is to take a pound or so of good looking ore from several different locations, crush and pan. If you find gold then you will need to take larger samples from the location that showed gold. Send those for a fire assay to get a general idea of how much gold the best of the ore contains. That will be the number you can hope for on your best mining days.

I've used this fire assayer for years. They are good, professional, quick and inexpensive. They aren't the only assayers there are others that do just as well.

For a small miner if you can't crush and pan to recover the gold you probably aren't going to be able to make a profit mining the deposit yourself. Even then you are going to need to see values around 3-4 grams of free milling gold per ton before you break even.

That's 3-4 grams per ton average for all the material mined and processed, not just the best looking ore. That's why your best assay sample will probably represent your best possible mining day, a lot of what you mine and process will have much lower values. Don't fool yourself into thinking you have a good deposit just because some pretty samples test high. A lot of miners have been ruined by their own optimism. It's better to keep prospecting for a good paying deposit than to fool yourself into mining a deposit that just doesn't have enough gold to be worth the expense of mining.

 

[OreCart]

Hey thanks; Clay Diggings and everyone else.

I have started to crush some of the sample rocks up, but I have not got very far. I spread out a tarp, then drove over the rock with my bulldozer, but my grousers are pretty good and keep the rocks from really being crushed between the steel and concrete. I made a hand breaker to get it down the rest of the way, but that broke from all the pounding it was taking. I'll have to build a stamper to operate off my tractor to get it down to dust I guess.

A couple of other considerations too in all this, is power and access, My gravel pit has a heavy haul road going to it, and is just off a paved road with electricity available (though not three phase). But it is going to take making a heavy haul road 1400 feet back into the woods for the lode mine, and of course no electricity.

Th gravel pit also has no restrictions because it is grandfathered; we have been digging out of that pit forever, and we have been her for 9 generations (1746). I can chase a deposit as far as I want. But the hard rock quarry would be limited to an acre under Maine law without restriction because it would be a new quarry.




They sure do not make it easy any more to make your land work to pay for itself.

 

[Bob207]

Sounds good if you think their might be gold there. We could look over some exposed bedrock I have in the pit and see if there is anything settled out around the ledge.

Its good gravel, small in size (2 inch minus bank run), and very "sharp". By that I mean, the State Soil Engineer has me mix overburden into the gravel so that it compacts better for my heavy haul roads. I am not sure if that is a good sign or not in a placer find, but it is what I have.

I got some mini-equipment we can work with though, like a backhoe and dump trailer so that we do not have to shovel. I HATE shoveling. I am not sure how many tons your system can handle in an hour, but I can move 2 tons an hour MAYBE, so we could get your setup to water and move the gravel to it easily enough; at that rate at least.

Not sure how much dirt it could handle. Bucket every few minutes not sure what yardage would be. I used keene a52 sluice to build my combo around. Here is a quick vid of it running as banker the first time i fired it up....

 

[OreCart]

Wow, that is a nice set up!

You would have to decide where is the best place to set it up (in the gravel pit or in the stream that leads to the gravel pit), but how it was fed would be up to you.

I can feed it either way, my log trailer has a lot of limitations, but its ability to dig and carry gravel is one thing few backhoes can do. With only a 12 inch wide bucket though, it could dump directly into your high banker so that we do not have to shovel.

Sadly, I have a picture of it digging, and I have a picture of it with its dump body on it, but not the backhoe and dump body together for some reason. This video by the maker shows how it works with the backhoe and dump body on it. the voice is annoying I know however...

 

[OreCart]

The Log Trailer kind of deserves its own thread, but if the right ore was found, could be a cheap way to process it.

I say that because the above video only shows it using it for its designed use. I voided the warrantee after the second day, but being a welder (retired from BIW), I built my own implements for it like a grader blade for smoothing my heavy haul roads, a feller-buncher, an upside down woodsplitter, etc. It would not be a big deal to put a breaker on it to bust up bedrock either.

I use it for everything, and with the optional powerpack, I can hook it to my SUV, Bulldozers, Tractor, Skidder, etc...anything with a hitch, so no PTO or hydraulics needed. I got it up to Bangor Tractor a few years ago.

 

[bucksport]

Cool story so far. I am also in the Bangor area. I will be following this thread as it unfolds.

 

[arizau]

Hey thanks; Clay Diggings and everyone else.

I have started to crush some of the sample rocks up, but I have not got very far. I spread out a tarp, then drove over the rock with my bulldozer, but my grousers are pretty good and keep the rocks from really being crushed between the steel and concrete. I made a hand breaker to get it down the rest of the way, but that broke from all the pounding it was taking. I'll have to build a stamper to operate off my tractor to get it down to dust I guess.

A couple of other considerations too in all this, is power and access, My gravel pit has a heavy haul road going to it, and is just off a paved road with electricity available (though not three phase). But it is going to take making a heavy haul road 1400 feet back into the woods for the lode mine, and of course no electricity.

Th gravel pit also has no restrictions because it is grandfathered; we have been digging out of that pit forever, and we have been her for 9 generations (1746). I can chase a deposit as far as I want. But the hard rock quarry would be limited to an acre under Maine law without restriction because it would be a new quarry.




They sure do not make it easy any more to make your land work to pay for itself.

DIY pulverizer...A capped pipe or piece of rod steel that fits inside a larger pipe welded to a plate steel base or just set on it can be used to pulverize rocks in short order. Break the rocks to fit in larger pipe, insert and pound away with the smaller pipe or rod.

 

[OreCart]

DIY pulverizer...A capped pipe or piece of rod steel that fits inside a larger pipe welded to a plate steel base or just set on it can be used to pulverize rocks in short order. Break the rocks to fit in larger pipe, insert and pound away with the smaller pipe or rod.

Yeah that did not work, the powder just jammed in the bottom of the pipe.

The part that broke was the handle welded onto the end of the ram. I did not really make it out of anything stout figuring the angle iron would be good enough, but it folded up like soggy taco. Obviously it was to light duty because I am not THAT strong!

The bulldozer trick might work if I can get two thick pieces of steel plate and sandwich the rock between them once I break them down to size driving over them a few times. Jeesh I would think something would have to give, and it would not be the bulldozer or the steel plate!

 

[OreCart]

I thought about making a quick, easy arrastra driven by my drill press too. Just break up the rock, set it on slow and then see what the rock looks like after a few hours.

 

[gold tramp]

Tilled my garden yesterday, probably plant next week, thought since you were a farmer, you would get a chuckle out of the Southerner, planting a garden in Feb.
Gt

 

[OreCart]

Tilled my garden yesterday, probably plant next week, thought since you were a farmer, you would get a chuckle out of the Southerner, planting a garden in Feb.
Gt

I sure did! My birthday is on May 8th and I have yet to see a year where we could not drop the plows before my birthday. Some years it looked like we could, but something always came up and we had to wait. The rule in Maine is, "Never plant before the full moon in May", again, another rule I have never seen thwarted.

It was -4 degrees below zero this morning (f), not a lot of snow this year, but definitely a cold winter. Still I will take the cold...Maine is the ONLY state in the nation that does not have poisonous snakes. :-) We have snakes, but a big one is 2 feet long and a garter snake, still lethal in that they can give a person a heart attack and kill that way!

 

[OreCart]

As you guys know, I have cancer and there is nothing they can do in Maine, so I am going for treatment at a research hospital out of state. It is right next to my inlaws house in New Hampshire, and he is a gold panner, so I am going to bring some of this pulverized rock out and see if he will pan it for me.

All that glitters is NOT gold, but it sure does glitter.


Now I just got find it. I was afraid the kids would tip it over (yes four daughters ages 5, 12,13,14 can get rambunctious), but now I forgot where I put it. It is a Tiny House so I had to put it some place safe, but now I cannot figure out where that is! Don't that beat all? I can find potential ore on 2500 acres, but not a container of dust in 1100 square feet!

 

[63bkpkr]

OreCart,
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Cape Cod Hospital
27 Park Street
Hyannis, MA 02601

Phone:
(774) 552-6454



Fax:
(774) 552-6018

He uses Ablative Devices to Kill Cancer Tumors in a few minutes, one procedure is usually all that is needed. The Device that I am familiar with is made my MedWaves Inc. in San Diego California and has been on the market since late 2005. The results have been so good with the MedWaves device that they are using it to kill Cancer Tumors in the human Brain.

I hope this information may be of help to you. Best Regards.................63bkpkr

 

[OreCart]

That sounds like good stuff, but I am not sure that it will work in my case even though they think I have brain cancer. Mine appears to be on the Pituitary Gland which is rather small and fragile, so we shall see. I will be there tomorrow and get special imaging that can go that deep into the brain and yet see minute detail; imaging that just does not exist in Maine.

I had always attributed my cancers to being a welder where I was bombarded with radiation from all that x-raying, but it seems now it might be attributed to Agent Orange. Being a farmer it could be Round-Up as I have certainly been around that, but at this point Agent Orange seems to be the more likely culprit at this point though.

 

[travis.gore.79]

Wow that trailer is bad ass. Hell you could just mount the wash plant on the trailer,and feed it with the backhoe.

 

[OreCart]

Wow that trailer is bad ass. Hell you could just mount the wash plant on the trailer,and feed it with the backhoe.

I never thought of that! Great idea!