Alaskan Pay dirt

[SteveDigsGems]

Earlier this evening I decided to pan some Alaskan pay dirt that I bought from an eBay seller. I bought 1 pound for $15, and it is guaranteed to have gold, because the lady sprinkles a pinch in. I didn't get rich, but I am really happy with the experience I got out of it. I have a lot of friends that want to travel out to my local gold bearing rivers with me to sluice, but before we go, I'm probably going to have them pan some of the dirt in my backyard. It is a good opportunity for them to see how the gold behaves, and it will motivate them for the upcoming trip.





Sorry about the quality, my camera ran out of batteries, this is an iPad picture. I'll get some batteries next time I'm at the store and upload what I found.







-Steve

 

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[elkie13]

Here’s hoping all of you had a great Independence Day or Canada Day!

Big stuff happening at the mine. I may have mentioned that we were looking into getting a magnetometer survey done. We just finished it up and are looking forward to the results.

Just in case you don’t know, basically a magnetometer survey will show us where there are concentrations of black sand, and where there’s black sand, there is usually…..GOLD.

We have 160 acres of claims, we realized that we could spend the next 30 years digging test holes and never find the best stuff. Also because of the terrain and the Forest Service regulations we can’t have a drilling program. The magnetometer was our best bet. Now, to find someone to do it!

Turned out that most companies were not really interested in a small job like ours, they would either not answer me at all or set the price so high that it was unrealistic. Then, I ran across an article about Pioneer Exploration out of Canada being the first outfit to do a Magnetometer Survey with a Drone system that they designed themselves. I figured a place like that wouldn’t give me the time of day; but their founder, Micheal Burns, wrote me right back, and on a Sunday no-less. They gave us a reasonable quote, and we set a date.

It was decided that the best way to do the survey was on foot with a backpack magnetometer.


These guys walked a 20 meter spaced grid over the entire 160 acres through some of the of the most unforgiving terrain imaginable. They got stung by hornets, had to repel across the creek, walked straight up and down in some places, and had no bear protection whatsoever. They were supposed to take seven days to do it. They did it in four.

As you can tell, we are thrilled to have found these guys! I can’t wait to see the data they come up with.

 

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[IMAUDIGGER]

Please keep us updated on the mapping results. I am curious how deep the survey penetrated the ground, or if you will have any indication as to how deep the source of the magnetic anomaly is.

 

[cyberdan]

A quarter mine would be fine BUT a dollar mine would be great!

Here are a few pic of my HALF DOLLAR silver mines and an example of what I used to find. (coin shot is from a WE Treasures photo)
I used to do coin roll hunting (but CRH is a different forum here on t-net)

It was fun and rewarding till people started talking about it and then everyone started claim jumping on me. I quit about 4-5 years ago. But old habits are hard to break. I was in my regular bank last week and the girl asked me if she could do any thing else for me. I blurted out (force of habit) "do you have any halves or big dollars?" she had $90.00 in rolls and I bought them. I found two 40% silver JFK halves.

Found over 200 90% halves, even standing liberties and a couple Barbers, over 1200 40% halves and even 5 Morgan/Peace silver dollars & 3 silver rounds.

 

[elkie13]

What a week this has been! We couldn’t have asked for better weather, 80+ degrees in Alaska means we have to watch each other for signs of heat exhaustion.

First off, a little trommel maintenance, we had to replace a few casters and the motor that turns the barrel.

For sometime, we’ve been aware that we are not getting enough water in the trommel. It’s frustrating to be in good dirt and have to load it a tiny bit at a time in order to not overload the sluice. We did look into getting a bigger trommel, but this time in Alaska there are none for sale (at least that we can afford); so we had to look at a cheap way of working with what we had.

One thing we do have a lot of is pumps. We decided it was worth the extra gasoline to drop another pump in the settling pond to add more water to the trommel. It may look a little silly to just bungee an extra hose into the hopper, but it worked like an absolute champ. We’re now moving dirt like crazy! The loader operator can barely keep up.

The digsite is looking good, we’re running into a lot of large boulders. Those of you who do any prospecting know that the large rocks in a river are a great place to look for gold, it works the same in ancient stream beds.

Though with the amount of dirt we’re moving now, its going to take a while to figure out the new “normal” so we know if we’re in the best ground or not.


Hoping to have magnetometer survey results next week sometime, I'll keep you posted.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Elkie, how far down your box is that picture taken (the one with the gold)?

I see your gold stacks up in the front of your riffle rather than below/behind it.
Our box does the same thing.

What are you using as a nugget trap?

 

[elkie13]

That's actually the good buddy we use for doing the cons out of the sluice. The gold is right at the top. It's got gold hog mat under expanded metal and riffles.

We have a boiler box on the actual sluice at the top. Not sure how effective it is as most of our gold is really flat flakes. We use miners moss under expanded metal with carpet underneath.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

That's actually the good buddy we use for doing the cons out of the sluice. The gold is right at the top. It's got gold hog mat under expanded metal and riffles.

We have a boiler box on the actual sluice at the top. Not sure how effective it is as most of our gold is really flat flakes. We use miners moss under expanded metal with carpet underneath.

We have two boxes - minus 3/4" and minus 1/4"


We had expanded steel over miner's moss, then switched over to expanded steel over Yukon mat (hog mat) followed up with a few various styles of hog mat...wasn't finding the fine gold we were finding before, so we ditched the Hog mat and went back to expanded steel over miners moss. It is working good since we don't have the black sands to plug up the mats..

Our sluice (1/4" minus) goes something like this.....slick box ---> Piece of heavy square screen mounted on stand offs about 3/8" off the bottom ---> several riffles over miners moss ---> expanded steel over miners moss.
This has worked well. The square screen has been our best modification. Most of the coarse gold gets trapped under the square screen and stacks up against the face of the first riffle/edge of miners moss. Occasionally there will be a nugget sitting on top of the square screen.


Haven't really figured out the 3/4" box yet. This material is difficult to process.

 

[elkie13]

What kind of material you running?

Actually it's not really miners moss in the sluice but pipe wrap they use for buried gas pipe. Works like a charm, only problem is it's yellow so it's hard to get a good picture of the gold in it.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

What kind of material you running?

Actually it's not really miners moss in the sluice but pipe wrap they use for buried gas pipe. Works like a charm, only problem is it's yellow so it's hard to get a good picture of the gold in it.

I don't have any recent pictures, but this one gives you an idea of the type of material.



It's either high channel gold that got deposited via a large landslide or glacier deposit. Perhaps a combination of both.
The rocks are a combination of semi rounded angular rocks to rounded. Most are soft rocks and break easily.

I think the matting we use is the typical blue 3M product. The gold that makes it to the matting works it's way down out of view.

EDIT: I meant that the 3/4 minus rock (without the 1/4 minus material) is difficult to process. It takes more water or steeper grades to keep that rock size moving, which increases the chance of nuggets or quartz laden gold rolling out. Haven't really figured out a nugget trap that would work for these marbles.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

This was our first trommel. We believe it was made in the teens, with some upgrades made through out the years.

It would processes as much material as one man could shovel and each rock came out shiny clean.

It would blow a lot of people's mind how much gold we found with this trommel. It's a lot cooler than the pictures convey. Everything is brazed together...you will see some ore cart track...ore cart wheels...wooden bearings.........oil drum...I'm not sure we could have improved on it much other than perhaps increasing the speed at which it would process material. Although our current trommel will process much more material, I think our recovery rate was higher with this setup.

The drum had an outer spiral that carried the 1/4" minus and an inner spiral that tumbled the 1/4" plus clean and carried it to the wheel barrow.

 

[elkie13]

Id say more water is the ticket. Was for us anyway. I'm not sure the nuggets will really wash out. More likely to lose gold if your sluice is packed with rocks.
But hey, it's an experiment wherever you are right?
Do you see layers in the material? Looks similar to our bench deposit.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Ya more water would be nice. We buried hard line, which helped increase the water flow.

The material is layered showing significant geological events. There are really no clean gravel or sand deposits...more like a sustained mud flow.

 

[DaleinFL]

Elkie13 - you should watch the Discover show - Gold Rush, they are in your neck of wood or state anyway, they always find a lot of gold. I still do not see how they make any money after paying everyone, equipment, fuel, break downs, food, ect......

anyway I like the show.
I will stay here in FL, you can keep the snow and ice

 

[johnedoe]

Elkie13 - you should watch the Discover show - Gold Rush, they are in your neck of wood or state anyway, they always find a lot of gold. I still do not see how they make any money after paying everyone, equipment, fuel, break downs, food, ect......

anyway I like the show.
I will stay here in FL, you can keep the snow and ice

Seriously?.... You actually think those clowns are getting lots of gold?... If it wasn't for discovery channel footing the bill they would never have made it out of Oregon........

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Seriously?.... You actually think those clowns are getting lots of gold?... If it wasn't for discovery channel footing the bill they would never have made it out of Oregon........

Regardless of how much money they are making or how much of an absolute joke reality TV is.....I cannot wait to see the chunky gold they are going to be finding on the Oregon property as well as the wake up call that "this ain't Alaska".

 

[elkie13]

I've seen it. I can't watch because it makes me too sad to see folks doing what I wish I was doing mid-winter.

Biggest mistake people make getting into this business is racking up the debt. We may not be the biggest operation, but all MY equipment is paid for.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Any update on the survey data?

 

[elkie13]

Actually yes, we are waiting on the full report but the raw data shows multiple fabulous hot spots. Seems where we are currently digging is only an Ok spot according to what we're seeing. Got to pull the excavator away to do some test pits next week. I'll have a better update for you guys soon.

 

[elkie13]

As July comes to a close, I'm not super happy about the yellow leaves falling from the trees and the fireweed nearing the top. I keep reminding myself that its only August, there is still time...

Been a busy week at the mine, still getting better results than we ever have thanks to our addition of more water to the trommel.



We are also excited to see more and more gold in quartz, for those of you that don't know, this usually is a sign that it didn't travel very far from the source vein.



But of course, its mining, so we have to break something. First we shredded one of the belts turning the trommel, spent a few hours replacing them, only to shred them again. Looks like we'll need to do a little more investigation as to why.



AND just for good measure, we went ahead and locked up the breaks on the backhoe, back to the shop. Again.



Its not all doom and gloom though, results of our mag survey have started coming in. This basically this shows hot and cold (high and low) magnetism. The pink areas indicate that there's a lot of black sand (and thus hopefully gold). This particular map is supposedly shallower gravel sources, we got others that show deeper bedrock sources. We are still waiting on the interpretation of the data. We are currently doing better than we ever have and we are only in a red zone, so I guess that's good?

Though I hate to pull the excavator away from the washplant when we are making good gold, we really need to focus on following up this survey data with test pits, that way I can work on the permits for next year.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Pictures are not working for me.

Our trommel is all electric and is direct drive to the drive axles (via. reduction gear box). It is very reliable. The grizzly shaker is also driven with an electric motor, but that one has a pulley and belt..guess what? We have had belt issues there.

Electric is nice because you can expand without having to feed additional engines (not to mention dealing with ethanol issues).

I don't know what model of hoe you have but our Case 580B does that when the brake shoes get wet, they swell up and bind. They don't get better until they dry out.

If your not breaking something, you better start working harder.