Prospecting Midwest gravel pits

[JHuck]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum.

I live in Indiana but I have traveled to the San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado many times on vacation and have always had a desire to do some prospecting while out there (but haven't). I recently got bit by the prospecting bug even more and now I'm doing more research on the topic. I have to be careful with what I mention to my wife about potential hobbies because I have a 6 month old WoodMizer sawmill in my front yard and 60 Ash logs that still need to be sawed (shhhhh). Regardless, I'd like to learn more about prospecting, especially in Indiana.

I've read a number of forums about Midwest placer gold deposits. It's great to know I don't have to travel to find some color in local streams. I've also read posts about guys cleaning out gravel pit equipment (sand screws etc) with good results. Of course these individuals had prior permission from pit owners before climbing on and in their equipment. This lead me to wonder if prospectors have had luck hand dredging the bottom of old gravel pits, especially if the pits went down to bedrock. Would gold likely be concentrated on the bottom? I'm not sure how the gold would be behave when a bucket is pulled through the material but it makes me wonder if a good deal wouldn't have been captured by the bucket and thus settled to the bottom of the pit. I have no clue about the technicalities of using a small dredge at pond or lake depths, just curious if anyone has tried it and if so, how did it go?

 

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[Gold Maven]

Don't let that ash lay too long...i just had a couple nice ones get punky.

Sand screws are your best bet, the glaciated gravels here in Ohio filled in the valleys hundreds of feet, if there is any bedrock down there, you would be under a lot of water.

It's a good thought, and there may be a pit some where with dive-able bed rock, but not in my experience in North Central Ohio.

Here's a pic of some sand screw Gold, Welcome to the forum, and Good Luck.

 

[JHuck]

GM, thanks for the information. I would love to get access to a local screw. I need to work on connections.

There are 3-4 old pits 15 mins from me that I should investigate the depth. If they are too deep, I wonder if a weighted head attached to a suction hose could be dropped to the bottom, if anything, for sampling purposes?

 

[Gold Maven]

I would look for where they had their machinery set up in those old pits.

In cold weather the screws are drained often,normally right on the ground. Even if this material is picked up and moved, gold will accumulate.

Look for black sand.....gl.

 

[russau]

I used to have permission to clean out their sand screws and I told them what I was getting and invited them down and showed them. They said it was tooo much time to get that amount of fine gold for them. We could only be there on weekends when they weren't running. It was fun for 3 years before the bank closed them down! They never did open back up ! The sand screws were the best spot to look because it was already down to the BS and gold and some blond sand.