Found a big deposit! Finally.

[Ohiogoldfever]

For several years I’ve prospected my area. I’ve hit nearly every creek and river in 30 miles. Mostly gravel bars as Ohio gold tends to be pretty small. I traveled up a little creek a bit further than I had in the past. Tested a gravel bar just around a sharp corner and BANG! 40-50 specks. Pan after pan it’s holding strong. The largest chunky black sand, garnets and mixed iron stone and verity’s mjnerals I’ve found to date.

After about 20 pans in and I’ve found this deposit is about 200’ long and as wide as 20’. The real kicker, there’s bedrock about 3-4’ below this bar, I can see it exposed on the fast side of the river.

Freaking tickled fellers!

I’ll try and post some decent pictures once I get to doing some real work.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

A Handbook of Civil War Bullets and Cartridges - Grab it through Amazon!

[Chilli]

For several years I’ve prospected my area. I’ve hit nearly every creek and river in 30 miles. Mostly gravel bars as Ohio gold tends to be pretty small. I traveled up a little creek a bit further than I had in the past. Tested a gravel bar just around a sharp corner and BANG! 40-50 specks. Pan after pan it’s holding strong. The largest chunky black sand, garnets and mixed iron stone and verity’s mjnerals I’ve found to date.

After about 20 pans in and I’ve found this deposit is about 200’ long and as wide as 20’. The real kicker, there’s bedrock about 3-4’ below this bar, I can see it exposed on the fast side of the river.

Freaking tickled fellers!

I’ll try and post some decent pictures once I get to doing some real work.

Awesome, good luck to you there 👍👍

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[Mountaineer2020]

I had about an hour to steal away today. Speed panned down two buckets trying to reach bedrock. I only made it about about 24-30” down. Seems the speck count is keeping pretty consistent. As I mentioned earlier I suck up all the flakes as they appear in the back corners of my pan. It helps me move a bit faster not being worried about washing them out.

I need to do a streak test as I’m curious what the graphite gray/metallic blue mineral is? Very heavy.

Just throwing a wild guess out there. It's not cubic form or I would guess galena. Could be arsenopyrite should streak black, Fairly heavy 6.1 spec. grav. gray color typically a gold indicator sulfide. Could be something platinum sulfide related. I don't have any experience in that area though. Keep collecting it and send it in for assay. It's worth the bucks to know what you got.

 

[arizau]

I need to do a streak test as I’m curious what the graphite gray/metallic blue mineral is? Very heavy.

I suspect an iron mineral. Check to see if it is attracted to a magnet.

 

[Assembler]

I suspect an iron mineral. Check to see if it is attracted to a magnet.

Could just move the small amount of material to one side of the plastic pan with a magnet on the underside. There could be some minerals of interest in the heavies that don't stick to the magnet?

 

[Ohiogoldfever]

Could just move the small amount of material to one side of the plastic pan with a magnet on the underside. There could be some minerals of interest in the heavies that don't stick to the magnet?

I should have mentioned that it is not magnetic. We do have a fair bit of magnetic material around here but that one isn’t.

 

[Ohiogoldfever]

I suspect an iron mineral. Check to see if it is attracted to a magnet.

I should have mentioned that it is not magnetic. I need to do a streak test. To much work time, not enough playing with prospecting stuff time.

 

[arizau]

I should have mentioned that it is not magnetic. I need to do a streak test. To much work time, not enough playing with prospecting stuff time.

Look up galena, a lead mineral. Description seems to match yours.

 

[Assembler]

Look up galena, a lead mineral. Description seems to match yours.

Galena is a type of ore of lead or lead mineral with the chemical name lead sulfide. Galena is also called lead glance and is chemically referred to as lead (II) sulfide.

 

[Tpmetal]

Just throwing a wild guess out there. It's not cubic form or I would guess galena. Could be arsenopyrite should streak black, Fairly heavy 6.1 spec. grav. gray color typically a gold indicator sulfide. Could be something platinum sulfide related. I don't have any experience in that area though. Keep collecting it and send it in for assay. It's worth the bucks to know what you got.

Not all galena is cubic

 

[Assembler]

Not all galena is cubic

The sulfides can be a very good carrier agent for the colors / specks. The colors can drop fairly easy with event changes along the way. The lead is a reasonable fluxing agent to help the soup mix to flow along.
Others can explain this way better however I like to keep it simple.

 

[BoulderTroll]

Congrats on that find! I'm always searching for that glacial flour as well. To find a deposit like that would be too good to believe! Hope you find more time to go play in the dirt.

 

[Assembler]

Congrats on that find! I'm always searching for that glacial flour as well. To find a deposit like that would be too good to believe! Hope you find more time to go play in the dirt.

Try following that glacial flour down to bedrock level as you never know what could be there.

 

[Assembler]

I had about an hour to steal away today. Speed panned down two buckets trying to reach bedrock. I only made it about about 24-30” down. Seems the speck count is keeping pretty consistent. As I mentioned earlier I suck up all the flakes as they appear in the back corners of my pan. It helps me move a bit faster not being worried about washing them out.

I need to do a streak test as I’m curious what the graphite gray/metallic blue mineral is? Very heavy.

After taking a look at you pan if you look at the top bottom of the pan you can see black chuckies that are shiny and have cubic edges indicating lead sulfide content. You refer to as gray/metallic blue mineral.
Look for this in the larger rocks / boulders near by and break off some pieces around any lead sulfides you see. Crush and pan to see if you can release some panning colors.

I forgot to point out that you may be able to follow the lead sulfides with a small coil or pin-pointer metal detector.

 

[Gold Maven]

If you want to find gold in any quantity in Ohio, Gravel pits are your best bet.
More specifically you can find it in the sand screws.
A sand screw, is a large round screw, in a square trough, where water and sand go in, and the screw augers the sand up an incline, to a conveyor belt, where it is stacked.
Round screw, square box, means alot of sand returns to the bottom, and the heavies collect there. Black sand like you wouldn't believe, and good amounts of gold.
I made a sluice to hook onto the drain, and then hose the material out of the box.
The trouble is the box booms too much, because it is hard to control the feed rate, but still i catch a good amount.
this pic is from my last cleanup.

 

[Assembler]

View attachment 2148159

If you want to find gold in any quantity in Ohio, Gravel pits are your best bet.
More specifically you can find it in the sand screws.
A sand screw, is a large round screw, in a square trough, where water and sand go in, and the screw augers the sand up an incline, to a conveyor belt, where it is stacked.
Round screw, square box, means alot of sand returns to the bottom, and the heavies collect there. Black sand like you wouldn't believe, and good amounts of gold.
I made a sluice to hook onto the drain, and then hose the material out of the box.
The trouble is the box booms too much, because it is hard to control the feed rate, but still i catch a good amount.
this pic is from my last cleanup.

Still there could be some at the bedrock level.
Very nice cleanup there.

 

[Ohiogoldfever]

Galena is a type of ore of lead or lead mineral with the chemical name lead sulfide. Galena is also called lead glance and is chemically referred to as lead (II) sulfide.

View attachment 2148159

If you want to find gold in any quantity in Ohio, Gravel pits are your best bet.
More specifically you can find it in the sand screws.
A sand screw, is a large round screw, in a square trough, where water and sand go in, and the screw augers the sand up an incline, to a conveyor belt, where it is stacked.
Round screw, square box, means alot of sand returns to the bottom, and the heavies collect there. Black sand like you wouldn't believe, and good amounts of gold.
I made a sluice to hook onto the drain, and then hose the material out of the box.
The trouble is the box booms too much, because it is hard to control the feed rate, but still i catch a good amount.
this pic is from my last cleanup.

Looks great. I’ve heard this from someone else also. I don’t have access to any operating gravel pits unfortunately.

 

[Assembler]

Looks great. I’ve heard this from someone else also. I don’t have access to any operating gravel pits unfortunately.

Very large gravel say the size of 4 -10 ft. in size could also have a large amount of colors or even smaller pickers in them. After all the colors are coming from somewhere.

I should point out that a number of large rocks could have as much or more colors and pickers then the bar.

 

[Mine Shaft]

Sounds like your on to something. Is there enough water flow to run a Sluice ? Also it would be cool to see some pic's of the Gold you have found. Good luck.

 

[Ohiogoldfever]

Y

Sounds like your on to something. Is there enough water flow to run a Sluice ? Also it would be cool to see some pic's of the Gold you have found. Good luck.

Sounds like your on to something. Is there enough water flow to run a Sluice ? Also it would be cool to see some pic's of the Gold you have found. Good luck.

Yes sir. Plenty of water flow. I’ll use a power sluice to save my dragging buckets around.

I’ll post some photos once I get some cons cleaned up. I’ve mostly just been panning around verifying the ground. Once I get some time to clean some up I’ll post pictures.

 

[russau]

I agree 100% with Gold Maven on looking into these sand screws for fine gold ! We had a lady that owned several dump trucks and hauled material from a Sand & Gravel plant in Western Illinois and I was invited over (with permission ) to look around to see if I could find any gold. I took samples from all piles of sand and when done I asked if I could get a sample from their 36 inch sand screw hopper. They run this screw all Summer and only dump the water and "contents " when a freeze is eminent ! The owners and employes where there to watch the results and boy where they surprised to see what they were dumping back into the ditch. They separate their sand into several grades of fineness . Plus their larder gravels were also separated into different sizes. They used a bucket line dredge to dig sand from 150 foot deep hole that is part of the ancient old Mississippi River Channel . We were offered all of the Black sand in their hopper for free so we started scooping it up ,as much as we could. There was over 2 foot or more of this B.S. and I don't think a person with a dump truck could haul it all. For safety and liability we could only be there and work when the Plant was closed . At our club meeting we offered anyone that signed up to our club a 1 gallon sip lock bag full of this material for free ............It didn't last long ! Lots of fine gold in those bags and we didn't get it all ! What a day that was !! Those were the days !