Ca. gold from the San Andreas fault ?

jcCALIF

Jr. Member
Jun 13, 2012
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Yorba Linda
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Actually in the area South East of Wrightwood Calif. runs a road by the name of Lone Pine Cyn Rd.. This road runs parallel to the San Andreas fault west of the 15 FWY. Now if you look at the old topographical maps of the areas, several claims are directly north the Lone Pine Cyn Rd.. That area is not for the faint of heart. Yes, you can see from the road areas where white quartz has crumbled down the hill top. But you need to hike about 150 yards to the base of the hill top. You then need to climb the side of the hill tops to get where the claims are located. This is about about a 400-500 ft climb. Bring your favorite hiking boots, snake guards and hiking sticks, ect.
 

BLEDSAW

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Feb 13, 2013
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Yes, I prospect along the fault. The gold seems to be around fault lines that fork off from the main.
 

Fullpan

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May 6, 2012
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Ok, - I have too much time on my hands so... Look at a map of cal. with 22,000 gold claims overlayed. Both Hard Rock and placer, maybe 20-50 claims
total are near the SE portion of S.A. fault. Virtually no commercial gold deposits are found "bubbling up" from san a. fault. It is a side-slip fault located
miles from the Mother Lode Gold Belt. Yes, the Pacific Plate has been subducting under and forcing up the continental plate for a long time. The heat
produced from the pressure caused a gigantic batholith of magma, mostly granite, to rise up forming the top of the sierra, - the sqeezing, tilting of
previous sedimentary rocks caused fissures wherin most gold deposits formed, but this has nothing to do with San Andreas Fault.
The San Andreas fault merely tells us that the Pacific Plate is adjusting slowly northward.
 

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Wyoming Prospector

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Feb 14, 2013
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Wyoming
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Some thousands of years ago the San Andreas was a subduction fault. Within the last 12,000 or so years it has slowly turned into a strike slip fault. back when it was a subduction zone it was The very fault that created the Sierra Nevada range to the east of it. This is hard to explain without illustration but I will try. When it was a subduction zone the Pacific plate was diving into the North American plate, this would force ocean water down deep into the earths crust next to the earths magma were the water would get heated and salitify gold and quartz particles as the hot water was forced to the surface (bringing the gold and quartz with it) much like the geysers of Yellowstone. The water was so hot gold and quartz would fuze together in some cases. Although the San Andreas is now a strike slip fault the Juan DeFuca fault zone just north of the San Andreas is a subduction fault and working in the exact same way the San Andreas used to thousands of years ago. The Juan DeFuca subduction zone is responsible for volcanic mountains like MT Hood, MT Saint Hellen's and many others in the area. Any places in the area were there used to be hot spring geysers would be a great place to prospect. Many gold mines in Nevada are directly on dried up geysers. In most cases this is the way gold originally made it's way to the surface or close to the surface. Most placers were carried around by glaciers, and water to its final resting place on or near streams. Most load mines on veins are on veins that cooled down in the salitifying processes as the gold and quartz was rising to the surface, trapping the gold and quartz underground In veins. So to answer the question I believe the San Andreas played a big role in California's gold placement, but I believe there was other faults and mechanisms that contributed to bring both load veins and placers close to and to the surface.
 

Wyoming Prospector

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Feb 14, 2013
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Wyoming
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Found a vid on you tube that describes this process. It is focused on California. Pay close attention from 3:07 till the end.
 

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