Anyone seen some clay like this before?

[Huelten]

Was out doing some digging around this weekend and came across some very weird clay that i haven't seen the likes of before. What caught my eye was the surface dirt was was a dark blue color, did some digging into the ground test panning as i went down. I would say about 70 percent of what was in my pan was pure quartz, tons of it. Whats really weird is that in the walls of the hole i was digging you could make out lines of powdered quartz running through the clay. No test pans showed any gold so i moved on to another hole but i am really intrigued by the material. Im wondering if this is worth pursuing a little more, has anyone worked any material like this?

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Blue? Anytime you get dark staining of the surrounding materials (the clay, etc.) I'd test a bit more before I moved on. Lots of quartz? That might also be another reason to dig and test a bit more.

It's true that neither of these indicators by themselves means a thing, but they just might.

If you test, test, test, and get nothing, you're right where you were before you started.

If you get something though, that's a whole new story.



I panned some blue clay last summer that had quartz in it, but it had nice gold pickers stuck in the top of it.

I hope things work out for you, and all the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html

 

[JaDogg]

Blue clay normally means kimberlite or lamproite. Volcanic stuff. I don't know much about it but it could also mean diamonds in the area. Are you near an area with volcanic history? I would definitely try the area out with a sarucca.

 

[JaDogg]

I have spent a lot of time at the Arkansas diamond mine and I can tell you that that amount of quartz is consistent with what I have found there. Although all of it may not have been quartz, some of that may have been diamonds. If you want to PM me I can help you with what little I know.

 

[Huelten]

It was a tad bit darker than that is, but it was dryer than what your working with appears to be. I think next time im down there im definitely going to test it more. I had some other ground i wanted to run through the highbanker which i why i moved on so quickly from that. Plus i figured id post it on here to get some feed back

 

[Huelten]

JaDogg: ive looked up pictures of raw diamonds before but honestly i feel like id have no clue trying to identify them in a pan, i could find 100 and toss them out without even knowing probably. If you had any advice identifying them that would be great, then again im not even sure diamonds are found in this area

 

[JaDogg]

The crazy thing is Diamonds from different volcanoes can look different in the raw. The ones in Arkansas are smooth, somewhat rounded and almost metallic looking. From other places they can be very chunky and frosty. Once you get used to looking at some it is much easier to tell. The are Hydrophobic also, meaning the shun water, where quartz will absorb it and the water will stick. A gold pan will really not help you with diamonds You need to get or build a sarucca. Classify the material down to atleast 1/4 inch. You can hand pick through the larger stuff. Here is a link to a video on how to use a saruca. http://www.youtube.comwatch?v=zI0UEfnGRXU The diamonds will be near the center with the quartz.