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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[gold nuggets]

Some very good information Lanny and a great refresher post as well.
Thanks for all the tips and experiences you share on this thread from
time to time.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Some very good information Lanny and a great refresher post as well. Thanks for all the tips and experiences you share on this thread from time to time.

Why, thanks so much for taking the time to drop in to say hello! As a writer, it means a lot to me to hear from people that appreciate the ideas that I try to put down in words.

Many thanks, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[EagleDown]

Halito Brother Lanny,

This is getting strange. I just stopped in to say hi and check your thread for new posts since I haven't been getting notices of posts in threads that I'm subscribed to and I noticed your doubled post. I have a couple in my thread that are doubled also. I wonder what's going on. Admin better jump on this quickly, or we'll all be running out of room. (lol)

Anyway, I see that you're still doing a great job of helping others in getting their prospecting and metal detecting on a firm footing. I hope that all of your readers pay attention to all the unselfish advice you offer, It will make all the difference between sucess or failure for them. The ones who do pay attention will be light years ahead of how you and I were when we were getting started.

Keep up the good work Brother! Who knows, some day, perhaps we'll find that we've turned out a few top rate miners.

Love and Respect,

eagle

 

[H-2 CHARLIE]

Hello lanny : I want to know about desert bedrock ? there is a cyn with huge bolders pushed up high almost to the top of the cyn stuck up against a hard packed cliche wall big cobbels and boulders that never ran down hill yet , as they were washed up this cyn to the high point hit the hard packed wall and stopped . most likey the bed rock would be decomposed or very deep . cant say I have seen smooth bedrock in the desert washs much . can you elaborate on desert bedrock ?

 

[Lanny in AB]

Halito Brother Lanny, This is getting strange. I just stopped in to say hi and check your thread for new posts since I haven't been getting notices of posts in threads that I'm subscribed to and I noticed your doubled post. I have a couple in my thread that are doubled also. I wonder what's going on. Admin better jump on this quickly, or we'll all be running out of room. (lol) Anyway, I see that you're still doing a great job of helping others in getting their prospecting and metal detecting on a firm footing. I hope that all of your readers pay attention to all the unselfish advice you offer, It will make all the difference between sucess or failure for them. The ones who do pay attention will be light years ahead of how you and I were when we were getting started. Keep up the good work Brother! Who knows, some day, perhaps we'll find that we've turned out a few top rate miners. Love and Respect, eagle

There are strange things going on my brother. When you try to edit a post, the formatting all changes as well, and you lose any paragraphing, etc. in the post.

Thanks for dropping in, and thanks for your kindness in recommending my advice to others, I deeply appreciate it.

You are a true master, and perhaps, one day, I'll be in your league. I'll always be indebted to you for your kind, sound advice over the years we've known each other.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hello lanny : I want to know about desert bedrock ? there is a cyn with huge bolders pushed up high almost to the top of the cyn stuck up against a hard packed cliche wall big cobbels and boulders that never ran down hill yet , as they were washed up this cyn to the high point hit the hard packed wall and stopped . most likey the bed rock would be decomposed or very deep . cant say I have seen smooth bedrock in the desert washs much . can you elaborate on desert bedrock ?

Thanks for dropping in.

I've only played in the desert a few times so far, and I in no way consider myself to be a desert expert on anything.

There are others here on this forum that indeed are desert experts, and I'd like to invite them to jump in to respond to your questions.

If they don't see my request, you'd have a better chance at finding answers by starting a thread on this forum with a your specific questions.

I hope you find that answers you're looking for.

On a general bedrock footing, what you've described would take a massive amount of force to move the material you've described. The size of the rocks in your event clearly implies sufficient force to move big gold as well.

If you can get to bedrock, there may indeed be good gold, and as your pile of material came to rest against a solid wall, there's a good chance the gold will be there in the run was carrying gold. If it's in a well known gold producing area, you've got a better chance it was, but sometimes huge runs were barren as well.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

"I'd really like to find a picker."

I was out prospecting, and I had a Cheechako along with me. He'd experimented with panning over the years, but all he'd ever found was tiny specks of gold.

We were in an area where the Oldtimers really worked a large section of bedrock. There were handstacks (stacked piles of rock, moved by hand) everywhere. In some places there were bare sections of bedrock that were terraced upward toward the shoulders of the mountains.

He'd been gathering dirt and panning it, and once again, all he had were specks.

He said to me, "I'd really like to find a picker." In other words, he was tired of all the panning he'd done over the years only to have a collection of sad looking little specks. So, I asked him if he had any sniping tools with him.

He had a screwdriver, a little brush, and a small plastic shovel.

So, I lent him a small sledgehammer, a rock chisel, and a couple of crevicing tools for cleaning out narrow spaces.

He asked me where he should go. I told him to try the terraced, bare bedrock that had been cleaned off by the Oldtimers. He looked at me like I'd been smoking or snorting the gold I'd found earlier, or some other mind-altering substance, like it had done something to mess up my prospecting brain. However, I assured him that if the Oldtimers had gone to all the hard work of completely clearing the bedrock in the area that there had been good gold there.

He was still very skeptical, as he wanted dirt to dig in and dirt to pan, but I took him over to the bedrock and taught him to work the cracks to get pieces to move, and I showed him the tiny amounts of material that were trapped in the uncovered spaces. Well, he decided to give it a try. Not long afterwards, he toddled off to the river to pan his material.

It wasn't long until I heard a whoop and a holler from the river. Soon after that, he showed up with his little bottle, and in the bottle was a nice, chunky picker.

Man, you should have seen the bedrock fly after that!

If the Oldtimers worked the buhjeepers out of a section of bedrock, there's still some gold there to be found. I've tested that theory numerous times and found some wonderful gold that way and have taught many others to do the same.

You have to realize that those early Argonauts were regular people after all. They got hot, tired, discouraged, etc., etc. Many of them had arrived too late at the diggin's, and they were forced to work for someone else. Their dream of holding their own rich claim was dead. So, they weren't as meticulous as they should have been, or they were just plain depressed, and they were only working long enough to have the money to outfit for a trip back to the real world.

Always check carefully where the Oldtimers worked, always.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

All the best,

Lanny

 

[twogunz]

I am moving to Cheticamp From some of the old documents from Archives in Ottawa I found mention of some interesting rivers that bear gold

 

[Cariboo5]

"Always check carefully where the Oldtimers worked, always."...........So true Lanny...they knew what they were doing..

I have a saying which means the same and I keep reminding myself of it:....."Some times one has to look backwards to understand what's ahead going forward"

 

[Lanny in AB]

"Always check carefully where the Oldtimers worked, always."...........So true Lanny...they knew what they were doing.. I have a saying which means the same and I keep reminding myself of it:....."Some times one has to look backwards to understand what's ahead going forward"

Nicely stated!

Thanks for dropping in.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Memories of warmer days:







Interesting mining monument:




All the best,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Lanny... is that you standing by the monument and also looking out the cabin window? Me and the wife were just moseying through this page, and I said " hey I think that's Lanny".

And it's a convenient excuse to post here and say hello... trust all is well with you and the family.

Jim.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny... is that you standing by the monument and also looking out the cabin window? Me and the wife were just moseying through this page, and I said " hey I think that's Lanny". And it's a convenient excuse to post here and say hello... trust all is well with you and the family. Jim.

Hi Jim. So great to hear from you again!

Yes, that's me in the cabin window and by the monument. The more I poke around in the mountains, the more cabins I find, very old ones that are being recycled by nature, and ones that have been reconditioned.

I hope that you and your wife are doing well during this long, cold winter.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[kazcoro]

That cabin looks like a nice warm cozy place to spend the winter.

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

That cabin looks like a nice warm cozy place to spend the winter.

kazcoro... I had the same thought about that cabin... sure is inviting.

Lanny... we've had the longest, hardest solid winter I can ever remember. But on a positive note, I hope you enjoyed the Olympic hockey, figure skating, and so forth.

Jim.

 

[Lanny in AB]

I still remember the first time I saw a drift mine. This is the story of that trip.

I found myself to heck and gone up north, deep in forests and mountains completely foreign to me. It was an area I’d researched carefully, but the lonely wildness of the place stunned me. It was like I’d emerged from some kind of wilderness time machine. Moreover, I expected an old Sourdough with his mule to step out of the bush at any second.



In my earlier research, I’d discovered a gold rush set after the mid 1800’s in this place, and the reason I’d made the trip was I was getting serious about metal detecting for gold nuggets. The goldfield I’d picked was famous for coarse gold running from .86 to .92 in fineness. Furthermore, the former gold strike’s location was so isolated I felt there was a great chance to find nuggets and coarse gold.

I was travelling light. I had a Keene river sluice and my metal detector. My buddy had his metal detector and a river sluice he’d fabricated. (He can make just about anything out of metal.)

Our method of transportation was the Green Dragon, a fire-breathing Dodge diesel. In the back we had our grub, our bedrolls, a wall tent with wood-burning stove, a Honda 400 quad, and our picks, shovels and bars. Behind the seat, our detectors rested atop the Winchester 30-30, safely tucked away in its scabbard. Between us were two cans of bug dope, ones heavily laced with DEET, an essential item in the deep north woods.



On the trip in, I’d seen a few lazy bears foraging for berries. Osprey stalked the various pristine streams that intersected the logging roads. On a related note, one of the bridges crossed a river lined by a chasm of bedrock that haunts me to this day; it had all the elements of a dredger’s dream come true, and I can only imagine how much gold lies trapped there.





(More later as I find the time.)

All the best,

Lanny

Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

 

[Lanny in AB]

That cabin looks like a nice warm cozy place to spend the winter.

You know, that cabin is one of those that was built solid a long time ago, and it's been re-built and reconditioned many, many times.

It's way up the mountain, not far below the peak, and behind it there are lots of tumbled old buildings and workings, old drill cores, relics, etc.

Up the trail just a bit from the cabin there's a great old hard-rock mine, with two big dumps. It's quite the place.

The sad thing is that with every year that passes, those high mountain snows flatten more and more of the old cabins, and soon all that will be left are logs rotting into the ground.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

kazcoro... I had the same thought about that cabin... sure is inviting. Lanny... we've had the longest, hardest solid winter I can ever remember. But on a positive note, I hope you enjoyed the Olympic hockey, figure skating, and so forth. Jim.

Jim, I did enjoy the Olympics, greatly. We had a lot of coverage.

As for the winter, it can leave anytime, and the sooner, the better!







I need to get back out in the mountains to chase the gold.

It's been too long.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Some of the scenery I experience when I'm off chasing the gold:







All the best,

Lanny