Finding bottom

[timberjack]

Yesterday i went to a river in maine where i was able to pan a surprising ammount of small gold from a cobbel bound, sand bar. This bar was mostly coarse gravel in between packed cobels and boulders. I worked my way down as far as i could with hand tools (about 3 feet, took a long time and yes i filled the hole back in) but found no clay layer or bedrock. I walked upstream and downstream from this spot and found no bedrock or clay outcroppings that might act as gold traps. My question is how did the gold get in the top of this bar and not work its way down deeper and whats the best way to work this type of area? I have to think if there were so many fines on the top of the bar there would be a more concentrated ammount if i could find some sort of a trap.

 

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[russau]

maybe a flash flood??

 

[timberjack]

The river drains a huge area and has 3 brooks that run together just upstream so when snow melts i can see how there could be a tremendous ammount of water blasting thru here.....i think an excavator and large trommel would be the ticket but thats not a possibility...hand tools only...minimum disturbance only

 

[Timberdoodle]

After Hurricane Irene in 2011 there are spots we keep finding flood gold in the upper layers and less as you dig deeper. You probably found a spot like this where the spring runoff is strong but hasn't been strong enough to resettle the gold deeper. Pay attention to the level your finding gold at and you may find that it's not worth digging deeper than a foot or 2.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Gold is only deposited when the river material moves. Most spring and rain floods are tiny in size and don't move a lot of material. If only the top few inches is moved, then thats where the gold will stay. Gold can't work it's way down through packed material.

It takes a 100 year, or 1000 year level of flood to REALLY break up river pack and move gold deeper. Even then, you will still have fines mixed in with the top material. Not all gold is deep! I have a river I worked in layers. I found gold and silver in the loose pack, but when I busted through the hard-pack all the way to bedrock, there was nothing found. Only possibility is that there was no exposed gold veins in the past and only "modern" river layer has anything washing into it.

 

[timberjack]

Great responses ,thank you.

 

[Canuck]

When you say small gold are we talking flower gold? I work a river where all we have is flower gold and all the gold is in the first 12" of gravel. I have dug deeper but the gold fades. I'm no expert but I think that the small particles of gold just aren't heavy enough to work there way down.

 

[enamel7]

"Flour" gold.

 

[timberjack]

Yes i would say flour gold in size but im not an expert....definatly not the smallest stuff i have ever found like the fine dust that i get like in halls brook, n.h. that stays with the black sand in the bottom of the pan under the black sand,,,,,indavidual peices in maine,,but smallish,,,,,,,i just have to think its accumulated somewhere,,,or the bigger stuff setteled out somewhere else,,im going to go to my land matters and download the topo maps for the area (thank you clay d for the site) and see if the river gets steeper anywhere downstream on the same property,,if i get time agine this fall (5 hours away) i will do more searching.
I would love to take an excavator in there and dig around........but.....