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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[delnorter]

Yes, I know what you mean about words unspoken Jim. Too often they come a little late for me.
On a lighter note Jim, I sure like the photos you post of your various finds.

As always Lanny, what a great thread.

Thanks to all,
Mike

 

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[Jim Hemmingway]

Thanks Mike for those comments... most kind.

The specimen depicted above was a fairly nondescript piece that I was curious about. Similar to a few other ores recovered from that location over the years, there was very little showing on the surface prior to treatment. There is sufficient native silver in that rock to produce a broad, strong signal on my PI units, but also plenty of the dark ruby silver pyrargyrite and what I think is a black silver sulfosalt named stephanite. Both these minerals produce a high or metallic luster that makes them a bit more difficult to distinguish from native silver in a photo. But in reality of course, one can easily see the differences and do some simple tests to confirm.

Below... for interest sake... is a photo showing some pyrargyrite with a fairly fresh surface. You can see that it is quite different from native silver in appearance. However... once exposed to weathering and particularly to light... pyrargyrite tends to form a dull oxidized silvery or grayish coating that diminishes it's original luster. In the field one can check for suspected dark ruby silver by lightly scraping with a pick or knife point... it will produce a deep red-colored powdery residue.

Jim.

​

 

[GarretDiggingAz]

Thanks Mike for those comments... most kind. The specimen depicted above was a fairly nondescript piece that I was curious about. Similar to a few other ores recovered from that location over the years, there was very little showing on the surface prior to treatment. There is sufficient native silver in that rock to produce a broad, strong signal on my PI units, but also plenty of the dark ruby silver pyrargyrite and what I think is a black silver sulfosalt named stephanite. Both these minerals produce a high or metallic luster that makes them a bit more difficult to distinguish from native silver in a photo. But in reality of course, one can easily see the differences and do some simple tests to confirm. Below... for interest sake... is a photo showing some pyrargyrite with a fairly fresh surface. You can see that it is quite different from native silver in appearance. However... once exposed to weathering and particularly to light... pyrargyrite tends to form a dull oxidized silvery or grayish coating that diminishes it's original luster. In the field one can check for suspected dark ruby silver by lightly scraping with a pick or knife point... it will produce a deep red-colored powdery residue. Jim. <img src="http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1072366"/>

Jim, sorry to hear your season has come to an end. Come down this way. We're just getting started. Liked your pics of the silver. That's going to be one of my goals this season. Got some spots to hit that I've never detected on. I know of old mining activity in an area I used to hunt. So maybe just maybe I'll find some silver. If not that then copper. I know the are isn't loaded with gold but definitely other minerals.

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Thanks GarretDiggingAz, it’s good to hear from you. I’ve just now had a thought while reading your comments that this particular thread is a genuinely more comfortable place to chat with everyone. I can’t exactly pin it down, but for me it’s a place where I’m definitely more relaxed, and more likely to post. Of course the credit goes to Lanny for establishing that comfort level throughout the entire thread.

Everyone wishes you the very best with your mineral pursuits this season I’m sure. It can be a struggle getting started down the path to meeting our goals and hopes for success, we’ve all experienced it to some extent. But you seem determined and resourceful, and if your research looks promising then surely it’s only a matter of time and a bit of good luck. I mention luck because I see it as a very real factor affecting our prospecting endeavors. Research, equipment and site selection, and operator skill are key factors of course… all these can fall into place… but the coil has physically got to go over a detectable silver or gold piece to produce results. And that’s where a bit of good luck enters into the equation.

Over nearly 30 years I’ve experienced good luck both as individual occurrences and as emerging patterns that become entrenched over the course of an entire season. Then again, sometimes nothing seems to work for an extended timeframe, until fickle Lady Luck decides to smile on you… your fortunes experience a timely reversal where you can do no wrong… the silver seemingly leaps into your orebag! Everything considered though GarretDiggingAz, the important thing about the luck factor is that the more you work towards your dreams of finding valuable material, the more likely your luck will correspondingly improve.

For instance, a few years back I’d been searching for several days with a newly purchased Garrett Infinium without much success. In theory that unit should have been ideal for this application depending on site conditions, but I was starting to have serious doubts about it and my techniques. The usual factors noted above really played little or no role in finding the piece depicted below. I persisted in the same area that was littered with diggings by other detectorists. Next morning I returned to that site determined to find something worthwhile and I stayed the course throughout a day filled with digging all manner of iron junk, worthless arsenides, and conductive pyrrhotite hotrocks.

Late in the day, finally acknowledging defeat to aimless wandering about with a detector, as a last resort I decided to clear a small area adjacent to an entry trail into an abandoned mining camp. It was free of any previous digging for the obvious reason that it was just littered with surface trash. It took considerable effort to remove that junk, but finally I got a broad signal not terribly deep, maybe a foot down before I could piinpoint the rock with my Propointer. It could have been any number of possibilities with a much higher probability than the likelihood of good silver.

It seems to me that I’ve always had to work for anything worthwhile and this proved again to be the case. It was one of those special times where you stop, have some coffee and enjoy the moment. I had the piece depicted below in my hands just as darkness was stealing across that abandoned trail in silver country…

Jim.

​

 

[Lanny in AB]

Jim,

Good to see you posting again! I'm sorry the weather didn't cooperate for you this season, but that's the unfortunate part of being in the wilds--we have no control over the weather. And when the weather doesn't cooperate, we're out of luck out there, period.

Those are some beautiful pieces that you've posted shots of. You did a fine job on your photo presentation.

Thanks for the kind words about the thread and the writing, and it was nice of you to drop in and say a few choice words about Eagle, nicely done!

I'm still not back to where I can settle in and write up some of my stories from this summer yet, but I imagine the weather will turn in a few more weeks, and then Mother Nature will wrap her treasures in a blanket of snow and shut me down until the spring thaw.

This season was good, with some gold finds, and as always, more learning.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Yes, I know what you mean about words unspoken Jim. Too often they come a little late for me.
On a lighter note Jim, I sure like the photos you post of your various finds.

As always Lanny, what a great thread.

Thanks to all,
Mike

Mike, thanks for dropping in and leaving some comments.

You are always most welcome.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[meMiner]

Jim. You sure know how to display and make your silver look pretty. I was looking for some of my rocks from metal detecting Cobalt many years ago to see if I could do the same. Now, I think I might have my own little treasure story. I was pretty casual with many of the rocks, unless they were obviously oozing silver. Over the years, I also brought home countless rocks that simply looked interesting to me, on my travels or gold prospecting. These stones all got mixed up and I suspect when I built a rock wall that most of them ended up in there. If the snow melts, I think I might fire up the GPX and test the suspicion.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Here's some solid-gold tips for when you're out there nugget hunting.

Get that coil right on the ground (if the scrubbing action doesn't cause falsing; it depends on the detector/coil setup of course) and scrub that ground.

Why? Every mm of depth helps, especially when it comes to faint signals. This tactic really does make a difference, and when it comes to tiny pieces of gold, it can make all the difference.

Always remember to keep that coil parallel to the ground. I come across Rookies all the time that swing the coil up (in an arc) on the end of each section of the pendulum swing of their coils. This makes them miss a lot of coverage with each swing, and it very obviously makes them lose depth.

Any book you read on detecting will tell you this next tip, but it's something too many people just don't do. So, here's the tip: Overlap your swing paths. Overlap! The hot spot on your coil needs that advantage, always, especially when you're working a new patch, a proven patch, or a patch in exposed bedrock.

When you get a signal, immediately scrape off some surface material and scan the spot again at the same height as when you first detected the signal. A positive change in the signal is good. If you have to drop the coil deeper in the scraped area to get the same signal as when you first found the signal, it's likely ground mineralization or some other material imitating a positive response. If it's a nugget (or metal), the signal should be louder the same height above the scraped ground as your initial signal find was.

Once you've got a louder signal response, check the scraped area by moving your coil perpendicular to the original sweep path. Why? It helps pinpoint where the signal is really originating, and, in some cases, it may expose the counterfeit attempts of a hotrock that's trying to fool you.

In an earlier post I reminded you of this, but it bears bringing this up yet again: if the constant hum or buzz of your threshold is broken/interrupted in the least, go back, slow way down, and use the above mentioned tips to investigate, always, always. This is probably the most critical tip that gets ignored over and over again and why so many Rookies walk right over the gold.

None of these tips are new or earth-shaking, but they are far too often forgotten; therefore, gold is left behind. By using these tips, that's how I've found gold not recovered where others have very obviously spent time digging and working.

All the best to all of you out there chasing those nuggets,

Lanny

 

[Jim Hemmingway]

Thanks Lanny, it was your information about Eagle that prompted my initial post in what I’d hoped was a timely manner. I’ve been wondering about how far along his book had progressed for publication at the time of his passing. It would be a shame if that project were lost too.

Glad that your season has been productive, all the very best with the remainder, will be looking forward to reading about your experiences later in the season. Great gold hunting tips above BTW. Good luck and good hunting… so long for now.

Thanks placergold… photographing rocks is an aspect of the hobby that I enjoy and hope such adds interest value to my posts. I think specimen grade silver is beautiful in its own right… and certainly hope others enjoy seeing material not normally encountered in their prospecting areas. I don’t sell silver, but am frankly astonished at the prices asked on some sites, particularly one large dealer located in the Southwest. I see little or no relationship between those prices and bullion value whatsoever, especially where native silver specimens include related silver minerals such as acanthite, the silver sulfosalts, or even associated minerals such as niccolite, cobalt and or their respective oxidation products annabergite and erythrite. A couple of examples below…

Jim.

​

 

[Cariboo5]

Excellent specimens Jim, looks like you had a good season........looking forward to seeing more pictures of your finds...

 

[Lanny in AB]

Nugget Hump

It was a location I'd passed many times. It was a place where others found nuggets, yet it was an area that continued to get the best of me. I don't mind getting skunked, but this was ridiculous.

I'd seen photos of some of the nuggets recovered from the surface of that old channel. The site was capped with concreted material that varied in stubbornness; for instance, some of it would break down each and every changing season to give up a bit more gold, while other portions required sledge and chisel work just to break off a tiny portion.

As for mining history, the Oldtimers had worked all around the area in the 1800's until they'd hit the concreted material, but the size of the cemented deposit had stopped them cold, well, at least on the surface.Yet, being the canny miners they were, they drifted below the cemented materials, finally hitting the gut of the old channel, and they'd done very well until they cut into a barren glacial run.

In the twentieth century, the modern miners with their bigger equipment, had chipped away and reduced the concreted deposit bit by bit, but a stubborn portion was left behind, standing defiant. Moreover, this remaining section was where nugget shooters and panners converged each spring thaw to carefully check the material that Old Man Winter had loosened for them.

To keep my interest in this area warmed up, I kept hearing the story over and over again of a beautiful seven gram nugget that had come from the place, and one day I actually got to heft that beauty and snap a picture of it. The nugget was quite flat and teardrop shaped, but it was a gorgeous buttery yellow, and so I determined that one day, I'd get myself a nugget from that spot. I mean, who likes to get shutout, right?

Well, for years I detected that deposit, I panned buckets of material, but all I ever got was a small picker. No nuggets for me, and no good concentrations of flake gold either.

To make me feel even worse, I met a guy one day that had run twenty buckets of sluff (from the action of the winter's frost) in the spring, and he had a quarter of an ounce of sassy butter and copper-colored gold (two very different varieties), but I never had anything close to such luck. The hunt for the gold was proving to be a serious challenge. And, stories like the one just mentioned only ramped up my desire to find some of that elusive gold.

And then one day, the world turned, and I had a rare opportunity to detect where someone with even bigger, more modern equipment had recently broken through some of that cemented material to expose ground that no one had ever passed a coil over.


More to follow as I find the time.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[familyhunter]

Lanny lots of good stories I just started reading your thread since Eagle passed I wish you were closer we could get some of Eagles sassy gold lol

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lanny lots of good stories I just started reading your thread since Eagle passed I wish you were closer we could get some of Eagles sassy gold lol

Many, many thanks familyhunter, and I hope you enjoy the above story as it unfolds.

My one great regret is that Eagle and I never had a chance to dredge. He knew of a great spot where he was going to take me if and when dredging is ever reinstated in California.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

"Nugget Hump" continued:

​I'll have to take a minute to update you on the detecting conditions: the area was littered with pieces of ironstone, as well as about eight other varieties of hotrocks. With a VLF, the detector would always sing a sailor's drunken tune as the coil passed from false signal to false signal, and this was with a DD coil to boot.

As fate would have it, one day I found myself underprepared to tackle this newly uncovered ground. All I had with me was my little Minelab 705 X-Terra. I'd zipped out to the goldfields on a quick trip to check on equipment and our accommodations but without any clue of the earlier mentioned mechanical work that uncovered the virgin ground.

You see, if I'd had any clue what I was about to stumble upon, I'd have packed my Minelab 5000 as it runs almost completely quiet in the ground conditions I've already detailed. However, luck is a fickle mistress, and that morning when I'd packed the 4X4 Dodge with my prospecting gear (my wife was with me on that trip, and she loves to chase the gold), all I had in the detector world of toys was the X-Terra.

The moment we crested the hill, I could see that someone had been moving a lot of stuff around. The general area is a beehive of current placer activity with many active claims, and someone had been hard at whatever it was they were about. Furthermore, the spot is nestled in a beautiful canyon where great swaths of deep green sentinel pines and firs keep watch, and have so kept watch for thousands of years. On a side note, the crystalline river runs quite a ways lower in the canyon, as the ground I'm talking about is an old stranded channel that hasn't seen the action of the river since dim eons ago. However, up on the bench claims, there's evidence everywhere of the Argonauts of old that toiled for the gold: remnants of drift mine posts and pillars, numerous piles of hand-stacked stone, rusted wheels and rails sometimes appear, and the ghosts of cabins still haunt the copses of undisturbed timber.

Well, having seen that there'd been recent activity, and that a whack of that cemented nastiness had been moved, I pulled the red mule off the road and then coaxed it to climb the short distance to where they'd been working. The whole area was backed by a massive climb of glacial run, but the gold was found in the old channel a good drop from the till. Massive peaks stared down in stony silence as I climbed out of the truck. The freshness of the mountain air strikes me each and every time when I open the door: the scent of the conifers always a pleasant reminder of how far I am from the rush and fumed chaos of city life.

My wife was in the mood to relax for a bit, so she opened her window and reclined her seat to read from a book for a bit. She likes to play with the gold down at the river, and this lofty perch didn't suit her preferences, so she let me head off on my own.

As is rarely the case when it comes to nugget hunting, the first find happened rather quickly. The little X-Terra (in all honesty) had never really captured my imagination as a true gold-getting machine. I love its discrimination circuitry for finding coins as it does a fantastic job of that. However, I'd never taken the time to learn how to be an active dance partner with its gold circuitry in the mountains. But, as the 705 was all I had, and as it was the one I'd taken to the dance, I was going to stick with it.

I knew enough about ground-balancing the machine, and enough about adjusting the rest of the electronics so that I was soon at it. I looked at where the concreted material had been broken away, calculated where virgin dirt would have underlain the solid mass and started swinging the coil.

Almost instantly, right on the surface, I had a sweet signal. It sounded great in the headphones, and when I ran the magnet through the small pile of dirt I'd pinpointed, nothing jumped to the super-magnet, and the signal remained strong and clear when I trapped the dirt in the plastic scoop. As I shook the pay dirt onto the coil, a solid "whap" let me know the target had landed. Moving the bits around on the coil, I was soon disappointed to see the lead from a bullet. Lead is the great counterfeit of electronic gold prospecting! Someone had very obviously been shooting at the hill recently!

Undeterred, I swept the area yet again, and this time I was rewarded with a softer, yet constant repeating signal, no matter which direction I passed the coil over the target. I removed a couple of inches of soil, kept the coil the same height as before over the target signal, and it was louder this time, much crisper. After removing about eight inches of gravelly overburden, the signal was screaming. Once again, I passed the super-magnet through the small area of pinpointed dirt. No attraction to the magnet. This is always when things get interesting, but as I'd so recently been supremely disappointed, I put my anticipation of sassy gold on hold.

I captured the target area of stones in my scoop, and the signal was still screaming loudly. I shook the material onto the DD coil a bit at a time, discarding all the silent siftings of dirt as I progressed. But, at last, a loud electronic groan let me know the target was on the coil. Because of the heavy clay in that ancient channel, the lump on the coil was indistinct. All I knew for sure was that it was not magnetic, and that it was much larger than the small chunk of mangled lead I'd sorted earlier.

I plucked the target from the coil, hefted it in my palm, and it was heavy. That's always a good sign. I scanned the scoop with the X-Terra again and the remaining dirt was just as silent as a busted CD player, so I chucked the barren dirt away and dropped the target into the scoop.

More to follow as I find the time.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

A little story between stories:

I've been over reading Eagle's thread this morning, and a memory popped in to my head (I think I may have floated this memory once before?).

It was about a time when I was prospecting in Montana. Well, I met a guy named Red. Long story short, I'd been detecting some dredge piles earlier in the day, and I dropped in to see him to show him what I'd found. We got to jawing as all miners do, and he told me a story about a spot he knew of where there was some coarse gold. But, as the story unfolded, the gold was not the kind of gold I'd normally think of when thinking about coarse gold.

Red said that back when lead shot was hard to come by, as it all had to be packed in by mule trains, he knew of some members of a local tribe that passed a story down to him as it was told to them by their forefathers.

Many moons past, the tribe had traded for a shotgun somehow, so they had the gun for which they needed shot, but as mentioned earlier, due to circumstance, they had no lead to cast any shot from. Well, being the 1800's, and being that when you needed something necessity was the mother of invention, and being that they had some mighty old boys kicking around, ones that had been tramping the hills basically forever, they set off to get some shot for that gun. They went to a spot they never did tell any of the white prospectors in their valley about. It was a place where Mother Nature had left a shallow deposit of coarse gold, and the gold was quite uniform in that it was very rounded, and mostly similar in size, close in diameter to buckshot.

Now, since gold is about twice as heavy as lead, it sure had the punch to knock down anything they shot at!

So, that's how they got their buckshot shot for their shotgun.

Red said he figured he'd worked out where that spot was as he'd found some nice round gold in a lonely place, and that he'd take me there one day. Of course, the place is to heck and gone in the mountains, and the entire area is bone dry. Moreover, it's littered with nasty hot rocks, so nasty that his detectors did nothing but drive his ears crazy.

Well, these days I have a detector that's made for that kind of ground, and I think I might enjoy gathering some of that shot, though I'd never have the heart to fire it out of my gun!

I've waited so long that I really don't know if Red's still mining along that little creek, but I certainly hope he is, as I'd love the chance to get back in there to collect some 1800's buckshot.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[BurntBear]

Great stuff Lanny! Love it!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Great stuff Lanny! Love it!

Thanks for dropping in, and thanks for taking the time to leave the compliment. I truly appreciate it.

It's just a bit cold this time of year for prospecting.




How about your neck of the woods?

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Been back visiting Eagle's thread, and I thought I'd share some of his posts with The Rookies. I know he wouldn't mind.

"Prospecting 101​

First, let’s start out with a basic method of prospecting. This method has been used for so long, nobody knows when it first began.

Hokay, you’re in the mountains/hills and you find a stream of flowing water. Naturally, you want to see if there is any gold in the stream bed. So, you move some rocks out of the way so that you can get at the sand and gravel under them. (Remember, rocks do a great job of trapping heavy materials like gold). You fill your pan with sand and gravel and start washing out the lighter materials.

Once the lighter materials are gone, you swirl the remaining heavies, (e.g.: black sand, etc) around until you start seeing flakes of gold and perhaps small “pickers” (if you were fortunate enough to choose a fairly rich area).

While looking at your “pickers”, you notice that they show little or no sign of the smoothness that they would normally acquire while being washed down a creek by flood waters.

Note: Gold is a very soft metal and doesn’t move far before it starts getting the points and edges worn off of it from the sand and rocks that it comes into contact with during its movement down the stream bed.

Now, this is the point where the “serious prospector” is separated from the novice, or hobbyist.

A serious prospector will see the rough flakes and pickers and think to him/her self: “ Hmm, as rough as this is, it hasn’t been in the stream for very far”. So, he will take another sample from a few feet further up the stream, pan it down and see that there might be more pickers (or at least as many) as there were in his first pan. He also will cross over to the other side of the stream and pan samples to see which side the gold might be coming from.

and,​

he will continue sampling on up the stream………until……. he notices that his most recent pan shows very little gold, if any at all.

Then, he will pan a few samples in the area where he got his last good sample and the area where he found very little. It is this way that he can determine just where the gold has been eroding out of a vein somewhere up on the side of the hill, or in rare cases, out of the bedrock of the stream bed.

Once he has found the richest area of gold concentrates, (on either side of the stream), he will take samples from the bank of the stream and on up the hill, to determine from where the gold is being washed down into the stream by erosion and/or run-off from seasonal rains.

Now, if he has been getting gold in his samples, as he goes up the hill, and suddenly he gets a sample that has no gold, he knows that somewhere, just above where he got his last good sample, there’s in all probability a gold bearing vein of quartz. (Unless he gets extremely lucky and finds an exposed vein of gold bearing quartz).

At this point, if there is no exposed vein, he will have to dig into the eroded slough of the hill and see how deep the “host rock” is buried. Generally, in this type of find, the slough (eroded dirt and rocks) isn’t more than a few feet deep. Once he uncovers the solid host rock (bedrock), he will enlarge the hole, (always uphill), until he uncovers the gold bearing vein.

I would mention collecting samples of the quartz for assay, but since the gold he has been finding is much more than “microscopic”, by looking at the quartz vein, he should be able to see visible gold.

From this point on, it’s all about researching the records at the county recorders office and finding out if this particular area is free of prior claims.

If I have missed anything in this brief lesson, or if I haven’t been clear on one point or another, feel free to ask me, and I will answer to the best of my ability. You know how it is, you know what you’re talking about, so don’t realize that others might not understand some of the finer points. (lol)

Love and respect,

Eagle"

And, he also posted these tips that are very helpful in other ways for prospecting:

"Some little hints!

Since I'm still working on my next lesson, as I have the time, I thought I would take a few minutes to come in with a few thoughts for those of you who know how to research history.

Back during the big "Gold Rush", there were many rich strikes made in the Western United States. That's a given. But, what most modern prospectors are not aware of is; a lot of these "strikes" are totally forgotten to history.

In a previous post, I mentioned a large operation on the hill above McCabe Flats, on the Merced River.

Back in the 1970s, I could find no one local who even knew that they were there. And, there's such a lack of knowledgable history about mining in Mariposa that personally, I had no idea of where to start looking for information. (Even if I had had the interest in doing so, at the time).

The point being, that while out hiking the hills, if you keep your eyes open, you'll find that there are clues to these "Lost Towns" scattered about almost everywhere. Especially in the state of California. And also, we have some awesome technology at our disposal that wasn't available even 10 years ago.

For instance; We have metal detectors that are vastly superior to the Bounty Hunter I started out with in about 1965. Look at the MineLab 5000 sold by Mike at woodlanddetectors.com. I've read what Lanny has to say about his at;http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.p...c,453.700.html What I'm waiting for is MineLab to announce that their new "6000" detector is out, and not only does it find the gold, but it also digs it for you.

Anyway, if you don't have Google Earth, take the time to check it out. Once you're in it, type in Briceburg, CA. Once it there, just follow the river downstream, (to the left). When you get to McCabe Flats, scroll up the hill just above the Flats. If you pan down for a close look, you can see a large area where it has been disturbed. There's no structures (or records) of this site, but I've walked the site a bit back in the 70s and there was a very large mining operation here at one time.

Also keep in mind, generally speaking, when a rich strike was made and the miners started "pouring" in, it seems that they soon wanted out of their tents, so they would start to build more perment structures.
Ergo: A town is born!!

Usually, the town was built fairly near, but on a presumably poor area that they felt held little likelyhood of holding gold. (Remember, mostof the 49ers knew very little about actual gold mining).

So, remember, if you find one of these "lost" mining towns, study the area carefully!! If a school was built, as a general rule, they didn't tear it down to mine under it. The same with churches. Any of which "could" have been sitting on incredibly rich gold deposits. I remember an artical in the California Mining Journal back in the late 70s I think. A speculator wanted to buy Yuba City(?). He wanted to move the whole town, enmass, a few hundred feet away so that he could mine the gold under the town that the old timers didn't mess with. (Hmmm, perhaps that's the reason for the many tunnels under the town of Mariposa).

Also, remember that once a safe "ford" was found across a river or stream, in those days, it wasn't dug out, regardless of how rich it was on either side of the ford. As a matter of fact, I can show you at least 2 of these crossings around Mariposa area that I've panned decent gold on each side of and the crossings have never to this day been dug out for the gold.

As you're checking around your newly located "ghost town", use your powers of observation. Look for things that nature wouldn't have put there. i.e.: A small mound with a flat top; perhaps a house was there and the mound kept it above any flood waters. Or, a depression in an otherwise flat area might indicate that there was something buried there. Or a covered mine, Or perhaps an outhouse once stood there.

Well, this post is already longer than I entended, so until the next one,

Eagle"

For those of you that chase the gold in dry places, here's some of Eagle's free tips:

"Dry Prospecting 101>The Hills<​

Hokay! I’m back!! (They reply: “Finally”).

This “lesson” will concern a couple of things to watch for while you’re out roaming around the hills. I won’t spend much time on sites that have obviously been disturbed by mining or prospecting, as even a ring-tailed newbie should be able to recognize a tailings pile on the side of a hill.

First of all, I prefer to do my “dry prospecting” in the late Summer, after a couple of months break while the foliage and grass is lush and green. (Though, there are a couple of things you can watch for at any time of the year).

“BRACKEN”​

No, not the sea monster from Pirates of the Caribbean! That was the “Kraken”. Bracken is a tough stemmed fern. The individual stems can grow over 30 inches long under ideal conditions. e.g.: A year-round water source.
And the need for a perpetual source of water is the main reason why the bracken can be invaluable to a prospector.

A brief course in geology: After (and during) the formation of the many mountain ranges, the continuing pressures from deep within the mountains caused an uncountable number of fractures throughout the basic formation of said mountains. Nature does not like voids and cracks are voids. So, Nature, in her infinite wisdom sought to fill these voids. She brought up water from deep underground and caused the water to flow through these voids (cracks).

Water carries many “soluble” minerals and chemicals. As the water passed through the cracks, it deposited some of these soluble minerals. First and foremost was silicate, which is what quartz is composed of. Then, before the quartz totally filled the void, minerals were deposited in the nooks and crannies of the quartz. These minerals consisted of: Gold, Silver, Iron, etc.

So now, we have a gold bearing quartz vein. (Or silver, copper, etc.)

Here’s a link to bracken (in wikipedia). Study it well, it could be your fortune and at the same time, keep you from starving. (lol) Yes Virginia, it’s also edible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracken​

So, when you’re out prospecting and you see a clump of Bracken growing on the side of a hill, separate from any visible water source, you can be reasonably sure that under the Bracken there is a quartz vein.
Will it be carrying gold?
Perhaps. Or, it could be carrying platinum, or silver, or possibly nothing. The only way to know for sure, is to dig down to find the vein, then check it out.

Please understand, when I speak of looking for a “clump” of Bracken, I’m talking about Bracken that’s growing on a hill, or the side of a mountain, somewhere that there is no visible sign of water.
This is the reason I prefer looking in late Summer, as just about everything is dried up. Then Bracken with a water source stands out like the proverbial “sore thumb”. (Also, grape vines).

There you have it!! Pretty easy stuff to remember, but has created a couple of fortunes in the past, for the observant ones.

Eagle"

Eagle has passed on now to that great goldfield in the sky, but I'd like some of his kindness and generosity to live on.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

I posted this on Eagle's thread a long time ago.

I still can't believe what these guys do to big nuggets, but I guess that's how they split it fairly, and it's how they survive:



Here's some more eye candy:



All the best,

Lanny

 

[Hefty1]

I posted this on Eagle's thread a long time ago.

I still can't believe what these guys do to big nuggets, but I guess that's how they split it fairly, and it's how they survive:



Here's some more eye candy:



All the best,

Lanny

That is just insane!