Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

[Lanny in AB]

Do you love to chase the gold? Please join me--lots of gold hunting tips, stories of finds (successful and not), and prospecting poetry.

Nugget in the bedrock tip:

I had a visit with a mining buddy this past weekend, and he told me of an epic battle to get a nugget out of the bedrock, and of what he learned from the experience. I thought some of you might like to learn from his mistake.

While out detecting one day, he came across a large sheet of bare bedrock. The bedrock was exposed because the area had been blasted off with a water cannon (a monitor), by the old-timers! It was not fractured bedrock, in fact it was totally smooth.

He was not optimistic at all of the prospects of a nugget. But, for some reason (we've all been there) he decided to swing his detector over that bedrock. After a long time, just as he was about to give up on his crazy hunch, he got a signal, right out of that smooth bedrock.

There was no crevice, no sign of a crevice, nada! So, he had to go all the way back to camp to get a small sledge and a chisel. The signal in the rock intrigued him, but he still wasn't overly optimistic. For those of you that have chased signals in a similar situation, sometimes there's a patch of hot mineralization in the bedrock that sounds off, but this spot, according to him, was sharp and clear right in the middle of the signal, not just a general increase of the threshold like you get when you pass over a hot spot in the bedrock.

Anyway, he made it back to the spot and started to chisel his way into the bedrock. If any of you have tried this, it's an awful job, and you usually wind up with cut knuckles--at the least! Regardless, he kept fighting his way down, busting out chunks of bedrock. He kept checking the hole, and the signal remained very strong.

This only puzzled him all the more as he could clearly see that it was solid bedrock with no sign of any crevice. He finally quit at the end of the day, at a depth of about a foot, but still, nothing in the hole.

An experienced nugget shooting friend dropped by the next morning to see him, and asked him how the hunt was going. My buddy related his tale of the mysterious hole in the bedrock, and told the friend to go over and check it out, and see if he could solve the riddle.

Later in the day, the other nugget hunter returned. In his hand was a fine, fat, sassy nugget. It weighed in at about an ounce and a quarter! After my friend returned his eyeballs to their sockets and zapped his heart to start it again, he asked where the nugget had come from.

Imagine his surprise when he heard it came from the mystery hole!! He asked how deep the other guy had gone into the bedrock to get it. "Well, no deeper" was his reply.

So, here's the rest of the story as to what happened. When the successful nugget hunter got to the bedrock, he scanned the surface got the same strong signal as my buddy. He widened out the hole and scanned again. Still a solid tone. He widened the hole some more so he could get his coil in, and here's the key and the lesson in this story, he got a strong signal off the side of the hole, about six inches down, but set back another inch into the side of the bedrock!!

My unlucky friend, the true discoverer of the gorgeous nugget's resting place had gone deep past the signal while digging his hole!!

Now, of course, a good pinpointer would easily solve this problem. The problem was, my buddy didn't have one, so why would he widen the hole, right? Well, the other guy was the one with more experience, and that's why he did. It was a lot more work, but what a payoff!

So, my buddy's butt is still black and blue from where he kicked himself for the next week or so for having lost such an incredible prize.

Some nugget hunting lessons are harder than others to learn. . . .

All the best,

Lanny


P.S. When in gold country--check the bedrock, regardless of whether it looks likely or not! Mother Nature likes to play games sometimes.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Squirrel Follow-up Gold

As I was setting up to detect the next week, one of the mine partners came down to the excavation to see me. He told me the best gold ran along the main drift-mine’s bedrock cut, found inside an area resembling a roughly shaped, reversed L. However, he wanted me to check the entire placer pit to see how well his crew had stripped for pay, and if they’d cut deeply enough into the softer bedrock.

I was welcome to keep anything I found. All I had to do was let him know where I found it and how much I found.

I quickly assembled the GPX 5000. The wind slashed terribly through the pit. It even rolled the detector bag across the bedrock toward a small bedrock pond, but the bag suddenly lodged in a low cut recently pumped dry. Even my five-gallon bucket of sniping tools took a header. That wind was trouble. Another trouble-maker was the heavy equipment operating upstream, throwing off EMI, and I didn’t know how well the 5000 would handle it.

After starting the detector, and keeping the coil elevated while held perpendicular to the ground, I slowly moved around in a half circle, locating the area of greatest EMI. It was coming from the equipment upstream.

I found a pile of rubble to rest the coil on, with the bottom directly facing the EMI. I did an automatic tune out for sixty seconds, and the detector settled to a quiet hum. The tuning of the GPX was impressive.

Knowing interference isn’t a worry is great while trying to hear the soft sound of gold. That’s one thing a lot of rookies mess up on. They think gold should be a loud, sharp signal. However, since gold ground is often heavily mineralized, the struggle to separate a gold signal from background mineralization may only leave a small whisper, a “bump” in the threshold.

That “bump” communicates a target possibility—a brief change in the mineralization balance.

Removing a few inches of overburden and swinging over the same spot again might produce a soft, target signal. And frankly, that’s how many nuggets are found. It’s not the loud scream or snappy zippy tone of online video finds. So, go slow, and listen very carefully. Then, if the threshold gets interrupted for any reason, remove some soil, and scan the spot again.

Getting back to my story, I walked along a shelf that skirted a deep, excavated pool in the softer bedrock where they’d chased a richer concentration of gold. The shelf beside it was composed of harder bedrock. I got a nice solid signal, used the pick and magnet as I dug and sorted, and retrieved an inch square chunk of oxidized, cast iron. That was the largest chunk of metal found so far that day.

I next detected over to where the main drift tunnel first entered the side of the pit. I noticed numerous contact zones where differing sheets of bedrock met, which included areas of obvious faulting. I detected along them, but all was silent.

The wind was nasty and would fling the coil and stem assembly off to either one side or the other from time to time.

Making it to the inverted L area at last, I quickly had a loud, growling, in-your-face signal. Disappointingly, it sounded just like the cast iron junk I’d found earlier. But I scraped off several inches of material, and the signal became a boomer. It had to be trash, as that whole, long day I’d dug countless slivers of steel and trash. Regardless, I dug down deeper suddenly noticing the blackened nature of the trapped river run in the bedrock. This was ancient material, super oxidized with lots of deep purple, red, and dark orange staining. The surrounding clay had completely lost its natural color.

I drug the material from the hole with the pick and smoothed it so that I could pass the magnet through it, checking for ferrous. Nothing on the magnet. So, I ran it back through the muck again. No ferrous. I scanned the hole—the signal was still there, a loud growler. (As the signal came from ancient material, tight on the bedrock, I started to doubt my trash theory.) Digging down about an inch more, I spread the material out on some quiet bedrock beside the hole.

The signal was in the flattened-out material, growling so loudly I was convinced it was iron or steel. I passed the magnet through the spread-out material, but no steel or iron jumped to the magnet. And I couldn’t believe it would be copper or aluminum trash at that depth, in such oxidized material, but I was stumped by the loud sound.

Using the edge of the coil to pinpoint the signal, I grabbed a lump of that stained mess. Plucking out stones one at a time, I passed them under the coil to check for hot rocks. Not a sound. Looking back where I’d pressed the coil edge while pinpointing, I saw a narrow mark in the clay where a small lump of goo clung to the bedrock. I picked it up, passed it under the coil, and bam! A rumbling blast of sound.

The target was in the material, with the clay-goo far too heavy in my hand. Squeezing with my fingers, I hit something solid in the clay. I rolled the object between my thumb and index finger. Then the sun began to shine—right there between my fingers, the unmistakable shine of a solid gold sassy nugget.

At last, I’d found my first gold with the GPX 5000, a golden moment I’ll never forget.

Scanning a bit more, I checked the hole carefully, nothing. I switched the speed to very slow and checked the surrounding ground. A bit to the left, facing upslope, I got a bump in the threshold. Removing several inches of muck produced a definite whisper. Scraping some more, I had a tone. Digging down and flattening the material, I now had a solid signal. Finding no ferrous on the magnet from the material, I scanned again. Scraping the bedrock with my scoop, I captured the signal. Sectioning the material and scanning, I had the target on the coil. It too was covered in that deep, dark stain. While rolling the material in my fingers, out popped a half-gram nugget, very coarse and sassy.

Its big brother weighed in at just under five grams.

All the best,

Lanny

P.S. I found two more in the same area the next week: one that was a gram and a half, and one that was a quarter of a gram.

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Little Beauty

I was out detecting with my GPX 5000, the air scented by pine, cedar, and fir. The sun was bright and hot, and there was no wind. It was a glorious day to be in the Rocky Mountains. Luckily, most of the mosquitoes had died off from the earlier cold, and there was no sign of the bear that had paraded through camp earlier in the week.

My machine was set to fine gold as I detected a patch of bedrock that had been heavily hammered by others over the years.

I used the elliptical Joey coil, a nice, sensitive little coil. I worked friable bedrock (bedrock in closely arranged plates or sheets) that rose at about a forty-five-degree angle close to a huge pile of old hand-stacked boulders. Cresting the top of the outcrop with the coil produced a subtle change in the threshold. So, I slowed down and scanned the uppermost edge again. The signal was still there. Something had changed that threshold.

Quite a few things can change the detector threshold: ground mineralization, tree roots, forest fire charcoal, hot rocks, and tiny bits of iron or steel. As well, passing the coil over a bedrock crest in either direction generates a very brief signal change while “cresting that curve”.

Nevertheless, this particular signal had a small center tone, making it unlikely to be a cresting tone. So, I grabbed my pick and removed some dirt from a pocket near the top.

The signal was stronger, and being a hot day, I used my amplified external speaker, rigging it up right below my left ear, making it much easier to hear quiet tones.

I chipped off more pieces of bedrock and scanned again. The signal was almost gone, so whatever it was had been moved. Scanning while heading down-slope proved the target had dropped lower.

Having chased signals in plates of bedrock before, when a nugget drops, it drops right quick into those plates. So, I used the pick and gently pried the bedrock pieces apart. However, I couldn’t find the target anywhere. This let me know it had indeed dropped into the bedrock.

Using a strategy I’ve used before, I tore the bedrock apart until I hit a perpendicular ledge at the base of the plates. These ledges stop anything that works its way down. Furthermore, a small pile of sandy clay, little river stones and some heavily oxidized pyrite had gathered there. This was a good sign. No one had cleaned this bedrock—ever.

I took a stainless-steel tablespoon I use for sniping, and along with some thin, flat scraping tools, I collected every bit of material, then placed it in a plastic gold pan. Taking the pan to a little seep of water located in a mossy gulch adjacent to an old Chinese wall, I panned the material.

Due to the small amount of material, I quickly had it cut down to concentrates. As I fanned the material, I noticed red, oxidized bits of pyrite, black sand, bits of ironstone, and tiny river stones. Fanning the cons some more, a sassy little nugget emerged from the super-heavies! A sub-gram nugget, it was the source of that small signal.

Never wanting to leave gold behind, I went back and scanned the bedrock, but it was now quiet.

Try this method the next time you’re out if you’re unsure of a faint signal on bedrock.

(If you’re near water, it works great. If not, drop the material in a zip-lock bag to pan it later.)

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

BOOK! Put it together and tell me where to send the cash!

 

[bcfromfl]

Hi Lanny --

I'd like to thank you again for your generosity in sharing what you know with the rest of us, and helpful tips for those of us with questions. I have a couple questions, if you've got a minute.

Above, you mentioned using a Sadie coil, but I'm guessing that's only for special situations. Is your go-to coil a round 11" mono, or something else? I realize there are a jillion different factors in target depth, but if you might share some baseline information, that would be really helpful for me when evaluating my own settings, etc., and what I'm digging. With your most commonly-used coil, what would you describe as the deepest depth you've retrieved, say, a half-grammer, a one-gram piece, and, I dunno, maybe a 3-4 grammer? Just ballpark is fine.

In your story above where you mentioned the EMI interference from the nearby equipment, would you have considered switching to a DD, or would the compromises to such a switch be too much, sacrificing sensitivity?

Thanks loads!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Lanny --

I'd like to thank you again for your generosity in sharing what you know with the rest of us, and helpful tips for those of us with questions. I have a couple questions, if you've got a minute.

Above, you mentioned using a Sadie coil, but I'm guessing that's only for special situations. Is your go-to coil a round 11" mono, or something else? I realize there are a jillion different factors in target depth, but if you might share some baseline information, that would be really helpful for me when evaluating my own settings, etc., and what I'm digging. With your most commonly-used coil, what would you describe as the deepest depth you've retrieved, say, a half-grammer, a one-gram piece, and, I dunno, maybe a 3-4 grammer? Just ballpark is fine.

In your story above where you mentioned the EMI interference from the nearby equipment, would you have considered switching to a DD, or would the compromises to such a switch be too much, sacrificing sensitivity?

Thanks loads!

Good to hear from you, and I'll answer as many questions as I can.

When it comes to really bad interference, a DD is better of course, but sometimes it pays to put up with some noise from a mono to get the better depth/sensitivity (the newer monos are better than the old ones). I have used DD coils a lot, especially in hotter ground as they'll tolerate a lot more mineralization, especially when I don't need the depth.

I haven't used a Sadie coil, just a Joey coil (if I said Sadie, not sure why?), and the Joey is a great little sniper coil (older tech though) set up for shallower gold. I've found nice sub-gram gold to gram-plus with it, and it's a sensitive little coil, easy to get into tight spots due to its elliptical shape. But I have a very small round (Coiltek, 6 inch mono Goldstalker) coil that has newer tech than the Joey that's a great sniper too.

The newer monos are better at ignoring EMI than the older mono's, but when the ground is hotter and the gold is shallow to bedrock, I still use a DD because most of the ground I have hunted is a shallower dirt to bedrock ratio.

As for depth to targets, I'm probably not the best person to ask as I concentrate mainly on getting gold from shallow to bedrock dirt. So, sub-gram nuggets with my small coils in hot ground, maybe 4 inches, in milder ground 6-8 inches. Larger nuggets (3-4 gram range) in milder ground 10-12 inches (but it's rare that I get to work dirt that deep).

I worked some ancient channel material (with my partner at that time [he's since retired for gold chasing due to his age]) in a bedrock trough where the mineralization was a problem due to lots of iron inclusions in the bedrock and hot rocks, and using a smaller coil, we'd dig down a couple of inches then scan the fresh ground, and we kept pulling sub-gram nuggets (with some a bit larger) every time we removed another layer of material. So the hotter ground/mineralized rocks wouldn't let us see the nuggets until we removed successive layers of material.

What's important to remember about coil sizes and depth to gold detection capabilities of coils is that depending on the ground mineralization/bedrock mineralization/EMI/accompanying hot rocks (and concentration of hot rocks) is that is what most affects how deep your coil can see the gold. So it's really hard to give a pat answer to that question. (I've worked a lot of ground over the past few years that was milder and allowed me to use my VLF's, only requiring me to use my PI when the bedrock/accompanying mineralization or the accompanying hot rocks caused a problem.)

Sometimes a smaller coil will allow better detecting in certain conditions if the EMI is bad vs. a larger coil. Also, if the ground conditions are bad, there's an option on my 5000 (likely on your 4500 as well?) to do a different ground balance procedure (it will be in your manual) where you work the ground with your coil held higher above the ground than normal (only after using the special ground balance procedure), but that's for extreme ground, and the ground I've been working for the last ten years or so has not required that setting, so you'd have to ask someone else about that one. (There's a place where I used to chase the gold with ground that extreme, but I haven't been back since, and I didn't have the 5000 then either.)

Someone else might jump in here with a better response/more clarification, someone that hunts in deeper ground on the specifics of coil size/types to depth of gold/gold size, or maybe you could spend some time hanging out on some of the Aussie's, or the dedicated Minelab forum to lurk or quiz 4500 hunters that work extreme ground, as they'd have the better front-line experience with your machine for working deeper ground than I would, especially with the mods you've had done on your machine.

Good luck, and find all of the posts/videos you can on how to run your machine, and one day you'll get your coil over some nice gold. In the meantime (and this is critical) get tons of hours of experience out there swinging your coil while balancing your machine in as many EMI/ground conditions as you can, and it should pay off handsomely when you get to the goldfields.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[bcfromfl]

Thanks so much, Lanny, for your detailed response! I really appreciate it!

Unfortunately, I just can't come up with a good "practice spot" nearby...there are powerlines absolutely everywhere for miles, and I live in a rural location! That's part of the problem -- few roads, and even low-density areas with homes get power delivered, of course. I've resigned myself to watching videos and studying the manual until I can get to Arizona. Not ideal, and definitely not the way I wanted to learn the machine!

...and yes, you said Joey...I had Sadie on the brain!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thanks so much, Lanny, for your detailed response! I really appreciate it!

Unfortunately, I just can't come up with a good "practice spot" nearby...there are powerlines absolutely everywhere for miles, and I live in a rural location! That's part of the problem -- few roads, and even low-density areas with homes get power delivered, of course. I've resigned myself to watching videos and studying the manual until I can get to Arizona. Not ideal, and definitely not the way I wanted to learn the machine!

...and yes, you said Joey...I had Sadie on the brain!

If you have a small coil, you should be able to get rid of the EMI in spite of the power lines? (There are anti-interference coils made as well though I've never tried one.)

Then you might get some hours in before you hit the goldfields.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

(A field note from Sept. 6, 2011)

Found some more gold: detected some more nuggets; panned some nuggets and flake gold; dredged some chunky, sassy gold; met a couple of legends in this region of the prospecting world; saw a bear, a moose, and a huge bull elk, all this weekend; came across a mystery wreck deep in the mountains; got to see stars I've never seen before because the night sky was perfectly clear and unpolluted by light or any man-made substance; had to throw rocks at a bear and shout and yell to keep him from coming into camp; found an outcropping with beautiful peacock pyrite; detected a small-caliber pistol ball from the mid-1800's; saw mountain valleys and peaks I've never seen before; breathed untold gallons of pure, undefiled mountain air--it was quite the time.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[delnorter]

Very nice field note Lanny. Those are the times I like the most, often by myself in the mountains.
Have a fine Easter,
Mike

 

[Lanny in AB]

Very nice field note Lanny. Those are the times I like the most, often by myself in the mountains.
Have a fine Easter,
Mike

Thanks Mike, happy Easter to you as well.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Really, How Heavy is Gold?

One fact that stumps more beginning gold prospectors than any other is super heavy character of gold.

Gold’s weight and density (as compared to other items in the stream), makes it behave in predictable ways. For instance, it continually works downward through the pull of gravity, until it reaches "absolute bottom."

Of course, most have read in prospecting or panning books or have watched videos or read online about how gold will "collect" downstream from boulders, and lodge behind trees that transverse the stream, or hide itself behind bedrock outcrops that thrust out into the current, and then collect on inside stream bends, and head to the bottom where there’s bedrock or a stout clay layer—all good prospecting information.

But, what is missing is the understanding of how gold behaves, how it moves on the bedrock and into the bedrock while under hydraulic pressure in a stream.

How does a rookie chasing the gold have the opportunity to watch gold interact with stream material and deposit itself on or in bedrock in real time? It’s likely impossible (unless someone gets a gold dredger or underwater sniper to show them gold’s behaviour at the moment it's uncovered and impacted by the stream's current). However, this is unlikely for most people.

There are Internet videos with gold sprinkled into artificial, model streams that include obstructions and bends, and it’s amazing how quickly gold collects in the "likely" spots, but it still doesn’t show what happens to gold when it hits fractures in the bedrock.

To backtrack a bit, If it's possible to run some water through a piece of eaves trough/rain gutter, just drop some gold or lead, of various sizes, into the current and watch what the water does to the different sizes of gold. And, this is important, carefully watch how slowly the gold moves, how the water struggles to move it, even when it’s deliberately disturbed. Now, magnify that lazy effect by imagining the gold in a stream, resting on the bedrock, but protected by a heavy layer of overburden. It's going to take a massive amount of force to move that gold on the bedrock.

That's why gold is often called "lazy". It really doesn’t want to move, unless it absolutely has to, because it takes the laziest, shortest route between two points. Furthermore, when gold is uncovered underwater in a stream, it sits on the bedrock and shimmies in the current and won’t move at all (if it's a big enough piece), or it slowly moves along the bedrock until it finds a crack to drop into, or it finds an obstacle it can’t get under or over.

Why is this understanding of gold’s movement important? When looking for gold, it’s critical to work down to the stream’s underlying bedrock to uncover openings and crevices in the bedrock (smooth bedrock will likely be a bust, unless it’s been altered, and then a metal detector will be necessary). Exposing the bedrock creates the chance to find gold trapped in fractured, rough bedrock. Never overlook a good crack/crevice. Always clean them out completely, taking every bit of material. Simply scraping the surface of exposed bedrock is no good. Use smaller crevicing tools to get to the very bottom. (As a shovel is too big for the job, gold will definitely be left behind.)

This is an important fact to remember: gold is heavy! It’s 19X as heavy as the water and about 10X heavier than the regular stream materials. So, remove all of the overlying materials, and then very carefully clean out any bedrock nooks and crannies. If not, all that hard work done to uncover the bedrock will leave the good stuff for someone else with better gold savvy to find later.

Some different advice, for those detecting for gold on bedrock, when gold is found in a crevice, always chisel down as far as possible to open the crevice all the way. In fact, go a bit deeper and wash every bit of recovered material in a gold pan. Opening a crevice and heading deep allows gold targets to be heard that were silent on the surface.

Lastly, cracking bedrock may open an ancient crevice sealed when the dinosaurs last tiptoed across it. I’ve found them enough times that I always excavate as deeply as possible. (I carefully check what appears to be the absolute bottom to see if there's any lines running with red, orange, or purple iron stain, as those clues may indicate cracks below, ones that once snapped shut hiding an ancient opening deeper down, as that's where the really fun stuff is hiding!)

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

The Three Prospecting Rules

Everyone knows the three rules of prospecting, right?

1. Test

2. Test

3. Test

Years ago, when an old prospector told me this, I thought he was joking around. I mean, with the three rules exactly the same, what's the big deal?

Well, over the years I think I've figured out what he was trying to tell me. (The following information will sometimes show exceptions as to how gold is usually deposited in streams as it works its way to bedrock.)

Gold is rarely all deposited at the same time, or in the same location in a particular gold-bearing area. So, what does that mean to the prospector?

Well, while testing an area and getting zero gold, the gold may be off to one side of the main dig in a different colored soil deposit. So, with rule one producing no results, rules two and three must be activated.

Even if that colored soil you've noticed is the exact same depth to bedrock as the uncolored portion, or if it's merely a thin deposit tight-on uncovered bedrock, that different colored dirt should be tested, as it may be where the gold is running, some thin, little pay layer hugging the bedrock. Furthermore, that thin layer of dirt might be covering a hidden clay layer that's caching a pocket of pay in a hole or crevice beneath, or maybe it hides sheets of bedrock with clay sandwiched between them that hold nuggets (I've run into this before as well).

Or, if the rocks in the regular-colored soil all at once change size, or color, or composition, test again. Moreover, these three rules apply to the soil itself that you cut down through to get to the bedrock in the first place.

More than once I've started off digging a hole to bedrock, and I've gone right through the best pay layer (or the only pay layer!), which was feet above bedrock. That's right—pay above bedrock! I've even found gold runs inches below the surface, and nowhere near the underlying bedrock. This phenomenon can be very true, especially if you're in an area that was heavily glaciated. Most of the standard techniques of heading to bedrock to get the best gold, or any gold for that matter, can often go out the window in areas where the glaciers, or other forces, have had their way.

On a different note, if the bedrock that underlies the deposit changes color (from the average), or composition, or texture, it should be tested as well to see if it's trapped gold that was not caught in the majority of the other bedrock of the average color.

In addition, if there's a fault line in the bedrock, this can also be an area that needs testing. I've detected in bedrock areas where the large-scale placer miners assured me there was no gold running in the bedrock whatsoever, or they swore that the conglomerate tight on the bedrock was always barren, only to have them watch me find nice, sassy nuggets trapped in both locations. (You should have seen the miners crushing every bit of conglomerate they could round up after that! They couldn't do anything about the gold cemented in the bedrock itself though--the detector is King in those situations.)

Well, always follow the three rules of prospecting, and stick to it--you'll find some sassy gold sooner or later. Just be aware and alert to conditions when soil, rock size, and composition change, or when bedrock color and composition change, as they can all be tips that will lead you to the gold. (This works with garden variety prospecting, nugget shooting, or dredging.) Test—test—test.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Upside Down Gold Deposition

When working bedrock consider that the way the bedrock is right now may have absolutely nothing to do with the way it was oriented in the past.

In the dim past, a sheet of bedrock underlying a stream's current may have been oriented flat with cracks and crevices actively trapping gold. But many years later, the entire formation may have been up-faulted 90 degrees, or tilted at a shallower angle.

So, when checking bedrock, (whether it's part of a modern stream system, or it's now far away from an existing stream bed) and finding signs of stream action from the past (little rounded stones, sand, black sand, ironstone, and clay filling cracks and crevices), don't assume that the only gold present will found in the current bedrock cracks and crevices.

Gold may also be found (I stress "may", because it's uncommon, yet does happen) trapped in between sheets of flat bedrock. Most people check bedrock cracks that run perpendicular down into the bedrock, but it also pays to think about what may have happened untold years in the past. Those sheets that are now flat in the stream may once have been perpendicular to a stream's flow eons ago, making them excellent gold traps.

I've found gold this way before, ruling it out being a coincidence. (The Earth is exceptionally old, and factoring in earthquakes, up faulting and down faulting, tectonic plate action, meteor impacts, glaciation, etc., I've come to realize that almost anything is possible when it comes to gold deposition by Mother Nature.)

The strangest cache of hers I ever found was in an area where the entire stream deposit had been turned completely upside down! That's right--the heavies, including the nuggets, were on the top of the stream deposit layers--the ironstone was next, located below the nuggets, then the black sand below the ironstone, and the blond sands (sometimes two to three feet of it) under everything else!!). Yup--the nuggets were on the top, with the lighter heavies underneath.

The whole thing had somehow been flipped completely over, and this was a substantial deposit, about thirty feet in depth. All those layers flipped over long ago. Just imagine the titanic forces of that event.

It's true that one of life’s greatest puzzles it trying to figure out what Mother Nature did ages ago.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Rookie Bedrock Tips

When working bedrock, if the bedrock is stacked vertical (in side-by-side sheets) and they're loose (easy to move back and forth), that's the sign of an excellent gold trap, especially if you find bedrock that's exposed at very low stream level (or bedrock that was part of an ancient channel).

The rest of the year when the water in active channels is high, everything is pounding over that loose bedrock, and because those plates are moving back and forth, it allows the super-heavies to drop in, making a great gold trap. (I've detected nuggets in these formations and panned out nuggets as well.)

Often there will be chunks of pyrite, magnetite, galena, black sand concentrations, old bits of nail, other steel or iron, etc. lodged in between those sheets, and often nice flake gold. Enough times to make it interesting, there's nuggets trapped in there as well. Sometimes those sheets will go down several inches, maybe a foot, or even up to several feet. So, detect the top portion, work down several inches (much more when possible) and check any material dug out to see if little river rocks and heavies are still being trapped (pan some of the material to find out if the heavies were still collecting or not).

If the heavies are still there, work deeper, sample again, then detect again. Work down until the heavies and small river stones quit. Below that you'll often hit thick, putty-like clay. Sample some of it (most often it's barren, especially if there's no little stones and grit running in it), and if it's gold bearing, work it. If it’s barren (tons of work to mess with thick, sticky clay), move on.

Remember, standing vertical sheets around a quarter of an inch, to a half inch thick are the target zone. If luck or hard work reveals an old channel (high and dry somewhere) with the geological features I’ve described, always, always (with detector and pan) test the material trapped between those sheets.

Working these kinds of formations (at low or extremely low water) can produce some of the best results a rookie can ever achieve. In a good gold area, flake gold is almost guaranteed, as are nuggets (often enough) to try it out.

Furthermore, I once watched a guy with a big bar pulling down vertical sheets (from an inch to three inches thick) of slate bedrock that were over four feet high. He'd then scan vertically up and down those sheet sides until he got a signal, then bar down the sheets (this was in a dry ancient channel, part of a hydraulic pit) and then detect the material that fell from those sheets, and he was getting nice nuggets! It blew me away--I'd have never thought of that.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Gold Monster Nuggets

My son and I got out for five days in the mountains (April, 2022) to chase some gold, and we had fun. We got to detect for some nuggets where the current placer miners had cleared a spot in a large boulder field.

The Old-Timers had worked the area by hand many years ago, and evidence of their workings were everywhere among the pines and fir, spots where they'd moved the big boulders around to get the gold trapped behind and underneath them.

The pay layer was a huge outwash left when a large glacial dam burst, creating a massive debris field of boulders that carried placer gold with it in a surface deposit about six feet deep. The gold is flattened from the boulders acting like a huge ball mill, but it's gold that runs about 91% fine, so it's worth recovering.

My son and I recovered three sub-gram nuggets. He got one with the Gold Bug Pro, and I found two with the Goldmonster.

The interesting thing about the Goldmonster is that at first the nuggets did not read in the gold range, the LED display swung mostly to the left, but as I dug and got closer the display started to flip more to the right, until I got right close to the targets, and then the display pinned to the right.

What I learned? When in a good location in gold country with the Goldmonster, I'll dig every target to visually ID it as I couldn't believe how much the reading on the nuggets went from ferrous to non-ferrous by the time I’d dug until I was right next to them. And in the area we were working, there just weren't that many targets. Moreover, any trash targets were quickly taken care of with my wand magnet, and anything non-ferrous? Well, there were only a few targets (a couple of 22 caliber casings, some 22 caliber leads, as well as a piece of birdshot and some lead sealing from an old tin can) in the ground.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Digging A Hole to Bedrock

After my son and I had found, deep in the forest, a few sub-gram nuggets with the detectors (April, 2022), we switched things up and headed off to a storied gold stream to find some flake gold. As it was April, there was no spring runoff yet, and the river was very low, which made it a great time to find some exposed or shallow-to-gold bedrock.

My son waded the river and started to work a pocket in some exposed bedrock. He was getting flake gold every other pan or so, but not many flakes.

I walked upstream a bit and found a large boulder. The boulder was sitting high amid the cobble, and as I looked across the stream, there was a patch of exposed bedrock. Digging around the boulder a bit, I hit the bedrock. So, I started trenching toward the river bank, away from the gut of the stream. The bedrock I started to uncover was rough and irregular, which should have made it a great gold trap. (I was removing around two and a half feet of overburden to get to the bedrock.)

However, when I panned the material tight on bedrock, all I was getting were bits of ironstone, no gold. I decided to sample the layers all the way from the top of the overburden down to the bedrock. Looking carefully at a seam about six inches above the bedrock, I noticed a lot of red iron stain in that damp layer. Sampling the layer proved the gold was riding six inches above the bedrock! Sometimes there were up to twenty small flakes in the pan. However, knowing how much gold loves bedrock, I kept sampling the bedrock, but still no gold.

So, I called my son back from over the river, and we both made the cobbles fly as we kept trenching toward the bank, gathering material from that seam. But there was a problem. The boulder on the bedrock I mentioned earlier was creating a low-pressure zone behind it and letting water run back into our hole. So, I shovelled material from downstream that had some clay in it to build a sort of dam to block the river from flooding the hole. Even with the dam, a lot of water kept seeping in, so we kept bailing out the hole with a five-gallon plastic bucket.

By the time we were done, we’d found all kinds of sore prospecting muscles our bodies had forgotten about over the winter, but we both had a nice catch of flakes in our gold bottles.

The value of gold in our bottles, not so much. The experience of chasing the gold with my son, priceless!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Bear Troubles

People ask me about bears, if I’ve seen them while out prospecting, if I’ve had encounters with them, if they’ve ever bothered me, etc.

Yes, seen lots of bears, yes, had encounters, yes been bothered.

For the most part however, when a bear sees me, they usually head for the timber, bust it over the mountain, dash from the trail, etc. The bears seem to enjoy being left alone, for the most part. But, every once in a while, one breaks from the ranks to start trouble.

My mining partner (now retired due to his age) and I were way up north prospecting an ancient channel. The side of it was exposed along the edge of a trail. We were minding our own business setting up our detectors, when up a neighboring trail from the river came a huge black bear. Now, most black bears aren’t huge, and maybe that should have been a tip-off that this bad boy would have attitude.

We were close to the green Dodge diesel my friend drove, and he reached into the truck bed and pulled out a long-handled shovel. He rapped the shovel sharply against a boulder. (The crisp sound of metal against rock usually sends bears running.) The big bear kept advancing, coming straight up the trail toward us. I honked the horn, and it echoed loudly up the three branch canyons. The bear, way too close to us now, paid no attention.

My partner quickly opened the truck door, reached behind the seat and pulled out his Winchester lever-action 30-30. He spanked a round into the dirt right in front of that bear. The echoing boom racketed up the three canyons, and that bear instantly sat in the middle of the trail, totally confused as to where that shot had come from. After puzzling it over a bit, he shot up and high-tailed it over a fallen log. Over the next couple of days while we worked in that spot, we never saw him again.

In a different area, more than a thousand miles to the south, I was at our mining camp standing beside a truck camper one day, when working his way through the brush, a black bear came straight at me. I waved my arms and shouted (this often sends them packing), but head down, he muscled straight on. Footing his way along a ridge of old hand-workings that led to our campsite, he was quickly getting too close. At that moment, some dim instinct in my brain kicked in and I grabbed a cobble and hucked it right at him. That got his attention, but he kept coming. After whipping another cobble toward him, he gave up, dropped from the ridge into a gulch, and that was that. (On a side note, the large-scale placer miners on that lease had a similar run-in with a cougar, and they also chucked rocks at him, and the cougar left as well.)

Several years later, my partner and I were running placer material through a trommel. All at once, over a bedrock rise, two rolling-fat and sassy grizzlies sauntered toward us. Looking at the trommel, and cocking their heads from side to side, they kept on coming.

I had the Honda 400 right there, so I fired it up and gunned the engine, thinking they’d scat. No such luck—it only made them more curious, so curious they stood up quick. If you think a Griz is big on all fours, wait until they stand up! I shut that Honda down pronto. The two Grizzlies dropped back to the ground, sniffed the air a bit, gave my partner and I one last look, then off they shuffled over that bedrock rise.

My partner, an old outfitter and hunting guide, pegged them as two young grizzlies that had just been booted out by their mother (around three-years-old). So, the day they visited, they were off exploring the world, a brand-new place of discovery and wonder.

On a different summer day at the gold camp, I was contemplating life in the shade of a lone pine that overlooked a river-side cliff. All at once, I heard a loud roaring sound, the kind that makes the hair on the back of the neck stand up. Next came the screaming of a woman and the terrified yelping of a dog.

I knew our friends were dredging down in a gorge below that cliff, so I jumped on the Honda, fired it up and raced back to the main camp to grab a rifle. That roaring sound could only be a bear. The screaming woman left no doubt there was serious trouble.

My partner hopped behind me on the Honda, and we tore down the trail to the gorge overlook. Hopping off, we saw our friend walking back down the trail to the gorge bottom. We hollered at him, and he stopped.

We ran down the trial with the rifle and followed him back to where his wife and the dog stood shaking beside the dredge. Then we got the story.

A black bear had been stalking them that day and had finally crossed the river. (There was only one exit from the gorge, and it was back up the trail.) The bear went straight for the dog, who was between the woman and the bear, and the bear and the dog went at it (the roaring and yelping I heard). The woman screamed to frighten the bear off, but it wasn’t working. Her husband popped up from dredging, grabbed a large flat rock, held it over his head (to make himself as large as possible) and charged toward the bear. The bear bugged out and hoofed it up the trail. As the bear shot over the lip of the canyon, the man turned around, heading back toward his wife. It was at that exact moment we came roaring down the trail on the Honda. What we didn’t know was, after the husband turned to head back down the trail, his wife saw the bear return, ripping down the trail after her husband, but our noisy arrival made the bear turn around and fly out of there.

They were both grateful we showed up when we did that day. (She even cooked us a Huckleberry pie and made us a fantastic supper too!)

All the best,

Lanny

 

[delnorter]

Real nice write-up of bears Lanny. I have had many encounters with bears throughout a long career of land surveying and hunting in the mountains. Some funny and quite a few more serious.
Really pretty cool animals.

Mike

 

[Lanny in AB]

Real nice write-up of bears Lanny. I have had many encounters with bears throughout a long career of land surveying and hunting in the mountains. Some funny and quite a few more serious.
Really pretty cool animals.

Mike

Mike, I wish I'd have been able to tramp along some trails with you. It sounds like you've had a rich outdoors life, and I'm glad we share a few experiences in common.

One of the strangest bear events was the day I saw a snorkelling black bear. It wasn't a big bear, but it sure was cute.

We stopped beside the logging trail when we saw it entering a small lake. Soon the lake was too deep for the bear to keep its head above water, and all that was sticking out as it swam toward the shore from where we were watching was its little nose, snorkelling for air as it swam along. It soon reached our side of the lake, the water quickly shallowing, and its head popped out. It saw us, turned right back around, and snorkelled its way back across the lake!

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Screwdriver Gold

While prospecting in the goldfields of north-central British Columbia, in the Omineca mining division, one of the large-scale placer miners asked me to go for a walk with him one day so he could show me some chunky gold. But before we left, he grabbed a screwdriver.

So, I thought, this was a strange way to look for gold, but I went with it as I was his guest. He strolled into a gulch, looked closely until he discovered where the bedrock was visible beneath the forest-floor vegetation, and then he bent down and started mining with that screwdriver. Right quick he popped out a nice round picker! Then he walked up the gulch a bit more and popped out another one. He repeated the action again at another spot. I was blown-away.

I know how hard it is to find gold of any size, let alone pickers. And, there he was popping them out of the bedrock as if he was doing an everyday task, like putting on his shoes.

Now that I think back on that experience, I’d love to head back with my Goldmonster to scour the bedrock in that gulch. What a perfect environment for a hot, light-weight little VLF, and with the price of gold way up from then (gold was around 400 dollars an ounce), it sure would be a lot of fun.

On a different day, he took me to a bedrock hump beside their placer cut, and he popped out some pickers there as well. Obviously he knew a lot of places where the gold had been running, experience earned from many years of placer mining.

Quite the operation, mining for gold with a screwdriver, but he sure knew what he was doing.

All the best,

Lanny