Sampling logic

[blackchipjim]

Good evening to all, as my mind drifts to the goldfields of Arizona I ponder my next outing and the most efficient way of sampling. I have noted the exploration and points noted in the videos of miners on the Internet. Some are very well done and informative,some not so much. I plan on using a drone for preliminary scouting in an area that I have researched by other means. Is there rule of thumb amounts to sample. Just looking for opinions, thanks

 

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[blackchipjim]

Well I'm not getting any input about this here the situations I need info on. When I was prospecting in a wash in Arizona I took samples from the inside drift of wash low pressure area. I dug behind and under large and mid sized rocks. I filled 4 / 5gallon buckets thru the screens to the top. I had a helper dry panning those cons and was able to get a few flakes. I think for the time and effort it was acceptable. Now if I'm hammering or chipping away at a vein on an outcrop is the 4 or 5 buckets of rock samples too little to make a judgement on it.

 

[gold tramp]

If i dont find gold in the first piece i crush i move on.

Also if the values are extremley fine or very low i leave for the next genaration. So i have a cut off point on what i dig n carry.
Gt...

 

[gold tramp]

One also needs good lookin mineralizations just to dig.
Plain quartz or just dirty stained qaurzt dont always mean dig .
Save alot of labor learn to crush n pan no gold no dig.
Gt...

 

[Assembler]

This one is band from posting any more on your other threads for "Misinformation" so why post any more here.

 

[arthos]

Its a hard question because its not quite specific enough. If you are trying to calculate if an area is profitable enough for you or not it there are a lot of factors to consider. As for How many buckets for a sample, I have heard multiple guys running 25 gallons samples through their drywashers Before evaluating. Other guys run 1 pan of material and count specs of color to determine. If you are asking how to know if the material you are running is rich enough for you to make money I would recommend this video series. by Hard Rock University.

 

[gold tramp]

This one is band from posting any more on your other threads for "Misinformation" so why post any more here.

What

 

[Goldwasher]

uh oh. SYNTAX ERROR .. corrupt file.... danger danger danger

 

[Clay Diggins]

The prospectors from the golden age of American mining sampled with a miner's spoon. These "spoons" were most commonly made from a section of cow horn that was boiled and split to make a small trough. Any material can be used but horn provides a good surface and color as well as being light, cheap and almost indestructible. This sort of sampling spoon goes way back in mining history and is still in use in many areas today.

From the Oakland Tribune February 1886:

A. T. Britton brought suit in the Superior Court to recover $10,000 from W. C. Childs. According to the allegations of the complaint, Childs purchased a half interest in the Valentine mine, Amador county, for $60,000, and paid thereon $20,000 in two payments of $10,000 each, agreeing to cay the remaining $40,000 out of the two thirds yield in the mine. After working the mine for a while, Childs shut down on the work, on the ground that the ore extracted from the mine was not paying.

The trial of the action was resumed before Judge Hunt yesterday; the evidence before adduced was in reference to the contract. Today, an old miner, Andrew J. Field, was called as an expert to test the value of crushed ore taken from a drift in the mine. In the presence of the Court, counsel and spectators the miner placed a handful of the pulverized rock in a "horn spoon" and proceeded to wash it out in a basin of water in a corner of the Court-room. The "horn spoon" is an almost indispensable article of use for mine prospectors, and predates the old pan process of washing out gold.

After a process of filling the spoon with water, shaking and turning off the water for a time in the orthodox style of placer pan mining, the residue was submitted to Judge Hunt for examination. It was found to contain a "color" of gold, which the expert said would yield $15 of gold to a ton. The process of testing with a horn spoon is common among prospectors, but was somewhat of a novelty in a Court. The spoon is made from the horn of a beef, about nine inches long and four inches wide and shaped not unlike a wide Indian canoe. The horn is split and when heated is molded into the desired form.

A single prospector during the gold rush commonly used a spoon to prospect and a pan to make his grubstake once he found a likely spot. Sluices and rockerboxes were not used for prospecting but instead were the production equipment for mining a proven deposit.

I have a few horn spoons along with a lot of other old mining equipment in my collection. I use a spoon myself when I'm desert prospecting or traveling light. A very small amount of water goes a long way with a spoon. Interestingly of the horn spoons made during California gold rush the black spoons and a certain familiar color of green were the most popular colors.

I guess the point of this post is that processing buckets of material with factory built sluices, gold cubes, highbankers, drywasher and panning machines isn't really necessary when prospecting. KISS does apply here. You need to find a concentration of gold before you start moving dirt if you want to be successful.

Take a clue from the professional prospectors of today - junior mining and exploration companies. They have discovered the largest gold deposits being mined today by doing the research before they go into the field. Testing of small placer samples and crushed ore is done in the field with a spoon or a tiny sample pan on the back tailgate of the field vehicle. The real sample processing work happens back at the office, Not a sluice or drywasher in sight.

I have a retired geologist friend who was a chief geologist with Barrick on some of their largest gold projects. He doesn't own a mining pan but he cherishes his worn old horn spoon.

If you can separate your process into brain work and careful extensive sampling, sampling and sampling before you make a claim or mine you will be way ahead of most people who jump in with processing buckets of material and calling it prospecting.

Once you discover and define a deposit you can disconnect your brain and start moving as much material as possible. Bring in the best equipment for the deposit and process as much and as well as you can. Now that's mining!

Heavy Pans

 

[blackchipjim]

Well I've seen the sampling videos and the math involved and have that in the memory bank. When you prospect with pan I understand and applied it to areas I have walked. The hard rock is my sticking point. I have watched the videos and wonder how many times a guy gets skunked. You see fishing videos are not all reality as us fishermen know

 

[blackchipjim]

Yes I do understand the KiSS methodology of a lot things in life and plan on using it prospecting.

 

[Bejay]

Good evening to all, as my mind drifts to the goldfields of Arizona I ponder my next outing and the most efficient way of sampling. I have noted the exploration and points noted in the videos of miners on the Internet. Some are very well done and informative,some not so much. I plan on using a drone for preliminary scouting in an area that I have researched by other means. Is there rule of thumb amounts to sample. Just looking for opinions, thanks

I have never used a drone for mining purposes. But I would venture to say I may....most likely to identify visual geologic anomalies that I feel would capture or indicate a likelihood of possible concentrations. Identifying mineralization and or concentrations of black sands warrants sampling. Sampling is pretty simple to do and a gold pan offers up reasonable results. Making a determination as to how much sampling is required is dependent on the observations one sees. Those observations are based on determinations of visual observations of source and deposition. It gets pretty complicated to speak in generalizations and one must identify the depositional characteristics or potential source materials/mineralization.

Bejay

 

[blackchipjim]

I have to get use to flying the drone before I can use it for prospecting. They say a lot of people crash and burn or lose them the first couple times using them.

 

[WaProspecting]

I had a drone......... Broke it in a week of owning it lol

Construction crews are starting to use them more often to determine bids on land development.

 

[blackchipjim]

I had a guy at work that has a mavic pro and flys that thing around like a nut case. He was flying it one day at the end of the day while we were taking a break and flew that thing right into a group of trees. Needless to say it was a bit expensive to repair.

 

[Goldwasher]

Do drones know how to pan?

 

[63bkpkr]

They "can get close" to panning!