OKAY!! Youve found some gold...Now what!

Klondikeike

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Aug 13, 2010
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OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Klondike here...

As most of you know.. I am a professional miner.... and usually only mine on properties that have commercial quantity values...

Some of you older and seasoned prospectors, probably do something similar.. I am really talking to the ones who are new to prospecting.. or just don't know what to do next once they have panned a few flakes...

********************************************************************************

How do you know if to stay and keep coming back... or give up.... while you are out there and find a few flakes of gold...?

Is, a few flashy specs of gold in the pan, while certainly encouraging... the reason you stay and keep digging....for most of us YES !

I want to share with you fellow prospectors... something I recommend everyone to do once you have found some gold in your pan..before yo decide to really set up camp.....or buy... or stake a claim..

If prospecting is just a recreational adventure for and you want the exercise and don't care about how much gold you'll ever recover.... ignore what I am about to tell you...

But if you are out for some recreational exercise and you want to take your "find" to the next level... then read closely and adopt these simple "rules" and actions...and it take discipline to do this each time before just "jumping in"...as it were...

Ask yourself these questions and answer them honestly...

** How material does your gold pan hold..?.... most will guess or just don't know....
** How much does each shovel full of dirt you place into the hopper of a high banker or sluice ...have in it..?.. most will guess

You see, most of us do the same thing..especially in the early days of your prospecting ventures....we pan or sluice and see some gold and say....and get excited..."wow this is a great spot..." without ever knowing how much material you ran for sure...to get those few flakes of gold... so we resort to ..."well we shoveled for 3 hours..then cleaned up.. Pretty good isn't it..? Am I right? YES!!!

So make your mind up to do the following... yes it is mediocrity.. and boring.. but in the end... you'll know just where you stand and if the "great property" is really all that great...

First you have to measure...(2) then run the material..and clean up and then (3) dry and weight the gold recovered and (4) finally calculate how much valuable yield you have per yard...

This is important...!

There about 40 full, screened and reasonably packed 5 gal buckets to 1 yard of material....

Instead of just setting up here and start shoveling... use buckets as described above and you can keep track of the REAL amount of material you have moved...and once .. you do this, you'll be surprised of the ALL those yards you shoveled last year... really weren't close to being that many yards at all...

I usually usually take 10 to 12 buckets with me... but only use 4 to 8....

It is hard to carry a full, screen and compacted bucket of dirt any lengthy distance...and in some cases you may have to...

If I fill up, 8 buckets..and since I have more buckets than I need for this sample.... I can now separate the material into the empty buckets and each bucket will be lighter to carry..but we still have the same 1/5 of a yard material...

Remember to initially screen the material as you place it into the buckets...say to about 1/4 in or 1/2 in or so....

With 8 buckets, I have about 1/5 of a yard of clean material to process across my dry washer.. or sluice or high banker...or whatever....

Now... run that material.... clean up and weigh it...and calculate.....

Lets say, for example.... from or 8 buckets.. you get 1 gram of gold....there are 31.1 grams in 1 troy ounce of gold.....

You'd have to run 248 buckets to recover 1 ounce of gold...

Lets say...you only got 1/10 of a gram...from those 8 buckets... very poor material indeed......but probably more realistic... you'd have to run 496 buckets to get an ounce...

And you know for sure if a property is worth buying or staking... you should do many of this sampling process before you buy or stake...

And folks... on public lands, you don't need a permit to do this.. it is considered "Casual Use"...

Below are some pics. I took of a recent outing looking to buy a property...I did not find the nugget... I was seeking the fine ..small gold... I already know gold like this comes off this property...this nugget was found by someone else... on a neighboring property...

Hope this helps...

Happy and prosperous mining to all...

Klondike...
 

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Upvote 0

GrayCloud

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Jan 24, 2008
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Ike that is some good info and most do not realize just how good the ground is below their feet. In some cases, just the opposite. One must also consider that even with small commercial trummel, they are going to be moving more material than a screened test reveals. As you very well already know, you still have to move the material being screened off before going in the trummel. :icon_scratch:
 

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Klondikeike

Klondikeike

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Aug 13, 2010
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Thanks....and Great point GC...

When you remove all the screened off material... the 1/4 in PLUS or 1/2 in PLUS.. or 2 in PLUS....or whatever... sized material... just how much material TOTAL material one has to move to get to that 1 gram of gold for 8 buckets...

And that needs to be factored in to whatever ground you are trying to work......... if you really want to put that much effort into that recovery rate...whatever it may be...

But that is the secret to being a successful prospector and miner..."knowing where to mine"...and prospecting with a real plan will get you there...


Klondike...
 

prospectordamon

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Mar 31, 2011
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

excellent..... GREAT info!
 

nuggy

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Aug 22, 2010
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Yes - as the others said great info - it's relatively easy to expand these figures to value a commercial proposition. Yield per cubic yard - work needed to process one or fifty cubic yards. If competently tested and honestly figured out - you'll know if you will be eating oatmeal or steak :icon_sunny: Nuggy
 

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Klondikeike

Klondikeike

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Aug 13, 2010
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Thanks to all for you kind comments...

It doesn't matter if you are seeking a commercial ..or a good recreational property... the principal and practice and application is the same...

Do this each time when you are prospecting some new ground... or even ground you've been on before and want to verify it's values... you will be lead to the best property to work for your situation...

Klondike.....
 

Goodyguy

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Mar 10, 2007
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Just thought I would add that there are about 50 full 5 gallon buckets to the ton on average of classified dry material. (In case someone wants to calculate AU value to the ton of material instead of the yard)

Lets say you average 1oz of AU to 50 buckets of material. Your yield would then be 1 oz. to the ton. Which is a fantastic yield!
A commercial operation with the capability of running many tons of material daily would be in profit with much less AU per ton.
Some of the best Gold mines in the world are only averaging around 7 grams AU per ton.


Some assays use ppm
Here is the formula for figuring ppm or parts per million
1 ppm = one gram in one metric tonne of sample
A metric tonne = 2200 pounds = 1000 kilos
so a fast one on the calculator is:

ppm divided by 2200 x 2000 = grams per ton
grams divided by 31.1 = troy ounces

So lets say you are getting 10 ppm which is equal to 10 grams per ton. A great yield, but only if you have the capability of moving a lot of material.

GG~

Ike, feel free to correct my math if it is in error.
 

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Klondikeike

Klondikeike

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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Hey GC...

Good stuff...

The only thing I might want to say concerning your post is:.....

Placer is always referred to and measured in yards.....

Lode or underground mining is always referred to or measured in Tons..(tonnes)...

Explanation:.....

Since "PLACER" gold has already been removed from the source and is now scattered about in the "dirt" or sands and gravels of a creek or river..... when processed, one often uses equipment that when it "scoops" up the gravel, there are very little air holes material and therefore you measure the "SIZE" of the material as an amount stated in YARDS...

Plus in Placer mining.. two scoops from the same material can each weigh differently depending on the actual size of the material in that particular scoop...so you're left with measuring in yards..


Lode mining is usually driving a tunnel on a vein of some sort... and when one removes the material from the tunnel is in rather large chunky chucks.... therefore, not very well compacted...and you cannot measure the amount..way to many air holes... so the mater is weighed and stated in Tons...

Not really a big deal... but a lot of folks easily interchange the tons and yards when speaking of placer mining..and just isn't so...

Placer is YARDS

Lode is Tons...


Klondike...
 

GrayCloud

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Jan 24, 2008
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Louisiana
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Ike, That was GG, not GC. I know, cause I'm just not that smart. :laughing7:
 

Goodyguy

Gold Member
Mar 10, 2007
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Whites TM 808, Whites GMT, Tesoro Lobo Super Traq, Fisher Gold Bug 2, Suction Dredges, Trommels, Gold Vacs, High Bankers, Fluid bed Gold Traps, Rock Crushers, Sluices, Dry Washers, Miller Tables, Rp4
Primary Interest:
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Thanks for clearing that up Klondike :icon_thumleft:

I was unsure of why some calculated their AU yield in yards and some used ton's.
Now we know.

GG~
 

GrayCloud

Bronze Member
Jan 24, 2008
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Louisiana
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

Old Ike is kinda like an Airdale Dog. Smarter than he looks. :laughing7:
 

wwace

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Jan 4, 2006
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Anchorage AK
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

keep in mind that normally you are highgrading as you collect your material for classifying etc, if you want to know the correct method dig your hole 3 feet square x 3 feet deep 27 cubic feet= 1 yard and see how much au is in the sample. This method will be more or less accurate for the spot you are prospecting
 

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Klondikeike

Klondikeike

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Aug 13, 2010
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Re: OKAY!! You've found some gold...Now what!

That certainly is just ONE way to do it....but actually, that isn't nec... wwace .........as an assayer only needs 3 oz of black sand to determine the value of the location where they came from....... Yes it takes several of them over a wide spread area to really know what you have and where to start digging for production...

Once you understand the hidden values in your black sands, you will become more focused on the black sand than the free milling gold of the 3 x 3...... most prospectors, week end warriors as it were... do not realize what is in ....and is usually invisible... within the black sands... Once you figure this out.. the 3 x 3 won't mean much....

A professional drilling program usually only drills a hole 4 to 6 inches..and occasionally an 8 inch... in diameter holes over a wide spread area and certainly not on a 3 x 3.. maybe every corner of a 100' x 100'... or usually even larger....and from those few core spoils, an assayer can tell what the value is.... just like they can from the 3 ounces of black sand from the dig and screen method...If you are mining properly, you will not be mixing different materials.. you will process the different layers individually as the occur naturally in a placer...so I wouldn't call it high grading...

As one digs, they should do it in layer by layer of the same material.....as alluvial fans and creeks will have stratified materials... until you hit bed rock...having each layer assayed... then you will have a great picture of the value of a property....

There are 2 reasons or ways to use an assay to your benefit ...(1) tells you the value of tat specific location... (2) after several of them..spread over a wide area... the assays tells where and how to mine the property...

Most assayers will assay black sands for gold and silver for about $50... for each sample...


Klondike...
 

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