Since some of us seem to have at least a mild case of cabin fever, this's as good a time as any. Years ago ,dredging, I got into
a "hotspot of Hg" which overlayed a false bedrock of dense clay. After collecting some 5 lbs of it , I realized it was entering from
a gulch nearby and thought "Oh, it must be overflow from the small hydraulic pit up on the ridge". The next day I spent 3 or 4
hrs sampling this gulch. Everywhere the water slacked in coming down the steep gulch, there was deposits of slickens-type fine clay
and a handful of this took forever to break up and pan down. But every handful contained tiny BBs of mercury with fine gold, maybe
50 mesh, along with the last of the black sand.
Ok, question is, assuming 100-200 5-gal buckets of this is there, how would a person efficiently process this stuff? Its a mile and a half hike, so big heavy equipment would be too much. Also, the muddy water will draw attention (turbidity) once it reaches
the river. A guestimate on gold/hg per handful is .50 cents.
a "hotspot of Hg" which overlayed a false bedrock of dense clay. After collecting some 5 lbs of it , I realized it was entering from
a gulch nearby and thought "Oh, it must be overflow from the small hydraulic pit up on the ridge". The next day I spent 3 or 4
hrs sampling this gulch. Everywhere the water slacked in coming down the steep gulch, there was deposits of slickens-type fine clay
and a handful of this took forever to break up and pan down. But every handful contained tiny BBs of mercury with fine gold, maybe
50 mesh, along with the last of the black sand.
Ok, question is, assuming 100-200 5-gal buckets of this is there, how would a person efficiently process this stuff? Its a mile and a half hike, so big heavy equipment would be too much. Also, the muddy water will draw attention (turbidity) once it reaches
the river. A guestimate on gold/hg per handful is .50 cents.
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