Highbanker Full of Mercury???

[khb19992000]

Hello,

I have couple of questions for anyone that can help. I have been prospecting on Sutter Creek in California for the last year or so. Everything I have found so far has been lots of fine gold and a few flakes. I've never hit bedrock until a couple weeks ago I finally found it. When I started digging the first two outings I started to find bigger flakes and more than I ever have. The gold that I have found has always had some mercury and the coated pieces I would separate to keep it from the clean gold. So, I went out yesterday hoping to find more and bigger (hopefully). I ran four buckets of 1/2" classified material through my gold hog mini high banker and when I turned it off the riffles were just filled with mercury, a crapload of balls of mercury. So I was hoping somebody could help explain what happened. Is this normal? I never really thought about it before but if I ever did find a concentration of gold should I expect it to be covered in mercury like this? The first pic is from the start of the bedrock diggings. The second two pics are the balls of mercury. I will get better pics when I get a chance to put it in a pan. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

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[DDancer]

Not sure about normal but it can be expected. A lot of mercury has been released into the environment due to its use by miners to capture fine gold. Mercury being heavy like gold will concentrate in area's like any placer material. You may have stumbled across a spot with an exceptional amount of it. Unlike gold mercury can settle down thru soils very quickly and if its encounters gold on the way it will amalgamate with it. This usually stops the mercury from moving further. That your finding it on bedrock with larger gold is predictable.
I suggest you collect it all as will most likely have gold in it.
You may want to invest a little and make or buy a retort to clean your finds. You can also clean them with acid and neutralize the mercury chemically if you don't wish to collect it. My thoughts. Nice chunky stuff there

 

[arizau]

First. Your hog mats are working!

Second. This is not unusual in areas where the oldtimers worked. Not only did the placer miners use/lose mercury but the old stamp and other mills used mercury coated copper amalgamation plates and/or just added it to finely milled ore and concentrated by sluicing and lost mercury to the tails. See next point for some explanation.

Third. Here is an old publication that discusses what you are encountering. https://books.google.com/books?id=d...Q6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=floured mercury&f=false

Fourth. It is likely there is a small amount of amalgamated gold associated with those particles. Small particles of gold can be totally absorbed by mercury while larger particles of gold may be coated or only have patches of mercury on them.

Save it, treat it right (read: safely) and get the gold!

Good luck.

 

[Hitndahed]

I would say this,,,

"part of your "fines" collection has already been done for you"
Good point for sure,,,now to safely vaporize the mercury to release the gold it is holding.
Another good thing is you ARE helping to "clean" up those streams that were very heavily polluted by those miners back in the days when the real dangers of this element weren't well known.

Good luck cleaning it up and happy hunting
Hit

 

[khb19992000]

Thanks guys. I knew the old timers dumped a lot but it was surprising to see the riffles filled. I checked out your info and would like to research more on using a retort safely. Do you guys have any recommendations for a safe commercially available retort?

Also, do you think it is still worthwhile to dig in the same spot? Hopefully the mercury has a lot of gold in it, but it sure is a lot more fulfilling looking into a pan and seeing gold instead of balls of mercury. Do you think the whole creek could be like this? I'm heading back up this weekend and might try to dig in another direction to see if it changes. Thanks again for your help. Hopefully one day I find a nugget!!!

 

[KevinInColorado]

Contact a local prospecting shop or club for help properly separating the gold from the mercury and recycling the mercury. Removing Mercury with acid and then neutralizing the acid still ends with you dumping mercury down the drain which is both a waste of useful mercury and bad environmentally. Local prospectors will be able to easily help you.

 

[arizau]

Other parts of the drainage may not have any or as much but the specific gravity of Mercury is almost as high as Gold so they will pretty much settle in the same spots. Many of us would like to have your problem. Not as pretty but it is still gold. Tell us all your exact spot if you decide to move on.

Good luck.

 

[johnedoe]

Thanks guys. I knew the old timers dumped a lot but it was surprising to see the riffles filled. I checked out your info and would like to research more on using a retort safely. Do you guys have any recommendations for a safe commercially available retort?

Also, do you think it is still worthwhile to dig in the same spot? Hopefully the mercury has a lot of gold in it, but it sure is a lot more fulfilling looking into a pan and seeing gold instead of balls of mercury. Do you think the whole creek could be like this? I'm heading back up this weekend and might try to dig in another direction to see if it changes. Thanks again for your help. Hopefully one day I find a nugget!!!

I would definitely finish that spot.... Clean that baby out......

 

[Hoser John]

The coastal range of california were the largest producers of mercury on the planet. The hills are full of cinnabar mines and they constantly release mercury into the enviroment AND NOT MINERS. California State Mineral Report 191 has the exacting facts about the amazing amount of mercury deposits as the worlds #1 producer for many years -John

 

[2cmorau]

as John stated, and also there are a couple of mercury mines in the Seirra Nevada, just don't remember what county, natural and abundant leaching into the water ways, dredging best environmental practice
so where is the picture of a highbanker full of merc?

 

[Clay Diggins]

It's entirely possible the Mercury deposit is natural. Miners don't like to waste Mercury. Mercury loss raises expenses a lot.

Check out the Land Matters Mercury Mines Map.

It could be you are working right next to a Mercury source. California was the leading Mercury producing State in the Country and still has the largest natural deposits.

Heavy Pans

 

[Gold Cube]

First I would continue working your spot, if the mercury is there, you will find the nuggets too.

Second, use two snuffer bottles, one for clean gold and one for mercury and amalgam. If the mercury is under water, it's safe.

Third, If the mercury is out of the water, make sure it is not in contact with aluminum! It will methylate or out gas and release toxins. If you see it in the sluice, get it out as soon as possible. Pan all the little beads into a larger ball for easy removal. Hold your pan down in front of you like you are ready to pour out extra water. Now sway all the material in the pan side to side without splashing but with enough motion to get everything moving. Do that for a good minute. All the mercury will collect on itself, no mater how small, and form into a single blob. it will be easier to see as well as easy to suck out of the pan.

Fourth Learn!!!!!!!!! don't experiment!!!!!!!!!
Process your gold out of the mercury, I am not going to tech that in this thread. Learn and do it SAFE!!!!

You are on to something big, Good for you.

Mike Pung

 

[khb19992000]

Thanks again guys. Sorry I didn't take a picture of the mats before I cleaned them out. I will next time. So I worked out most of the mercury from my bucket which was pretty easy. The mercury has gold sticking to it which is a good thing. Its weird that it doesn't absorb it though. So, I will keep digging the same spot this weekend. Thanks for your advice again. I did notice a couple of things about the spot I was digging. Some of the bedrock chunks that I pulled up were stained red, not that rusty color but more red. Maybe thats cinnabar, I dunno? But I'll take a picture this weekend. I checked out the maps for a mercury mine and the closest one was in Plymouth so maybe it is natural. Sorry to have so many questions but I have one more. When I get to the bedrock a lot of it has a blue clay like material for maybe a couple of inches. It's not a fat clay as it will easily break up through my classifying screen. Is this decomposing bedrock or something else? I'm sucking that stuff up with my hand dredge until I hit hard rock to make sure there's nothing under it.

Hopefully I'll find something big this weekend. Thanks again guys!!!!

Here's the pics. Sorry I couldn't get a good pics in the pan.

 

[Clay Diggins]

From the looks of that Mercury you may have already found "something big".

Cinnabar (the ore of Mercury) is often a deep rich red.

Heavy Pans

 

[Reed Lukens]

Well from the pic of the little ball I would have to say that your riffles were no where near full of mercury. I've had over 5lbs that I sucked up into a sluice and it still had room. Plus I believe that the mercury that you have is not from the miners because there doesn't look like there is much gold in it. You should weigh the amount of gold and then take a small tipped sucker tweezer and put it on the edge of the glob and suck up the liquid mercury. Then weigh the glob of amalgam gold and then decide if it is worth staying there. Cleaning mercury out of the river is a great thing and if dredging were legal I would say clean up the area just for the sake of getting rid of the merc. But because that merc looks barren, I would weigh it and then if you are not getting your minimum amount of gold that you have set for a day, I would move. Mercury is sold by the pound and not worth gathering unless it has over half of its weight with gold. If that is the first merc that you have gotten then I would leave it in the small vial and make sure that it is covered with water. In other words just fill the vial with water.



All of the vials in this case show different stages of cleaning mercury from gold. And the one vial of silvery looking nuggets is gold that was cleaned once and then a couple years later, more mercury had kept seeping out of the gold and I had to clean it 4 times over a number of years before the majority of the mercury had been burned out of the pores in the gold.

 

[khb19992000]

Wow. That's nice gold Reed. I didn't mean to mislead anyone. My high banker isn't that big and the mats are usually pretty clean when I shut down, just a little black sand and heavy particles. When I shut it off and the top portion had a whole crapload of balls of mercury I kind of freaked out. At first I thought it was just air bubbles trapped in the matting. I will take a picture next time for sure. I'm just trying to learn as I've never encountered this before. But five pounds, I don't know what I would do with that. That's kind of scary. And while I was researching the retort I did notice that the amalgam seems a lot coarser and rougher, not balled up like mine. I don't know what to do, but I think your right that it may not have much gold in it. I'll keep on digging, might try a couple of test pans in a different spot. Thanks again, and sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

 

[Bonaro]

I take issue with a lot of the comments in this thread. Automatically blaming the pioneer miners for all the mercury found in the streams is inaccurate and misleading. It is true that there were occasional releases of HG by the old timers but most of this was due to inefficient recovery methods and by accident. Pouring HG into a stream is about the least effective way to recover gold that I can imagine. HG has always been expensive and hard to obtain and using it in this way would not have been even close to being cost effective. Mining success is all about keeping your costs lower than the value in gold you recover. This practice would put every mining op using it out of business in short order.

The mountains of California are rich with cinnabar ore which has been weathering for millions of years. Free liquid mercury exudes from this ore, is concentrated in the streams by gravity because it's heavy and is present in the environment naturally. This is proven by high liquid HG deposits being found in waterways that contain no gold. The natural contribution of HG in the streams far outweighs the fraction that was spilled by miners.

 

[huntsman53]

If you are already getting some nice chunky Gold and Mercury which more than likely contains some Gold in it, then I would work that spot and any areas nearby over really well until you have taken all you can take of both out of the stream. Besides getting Gold, you are removing as much of the Mercury as possible and making the waters safer for everyone.


Frank