Gold In sands and dirt

elijahhenry10 · Jan 28, 2012

I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried to pan through bags of sand or dirt that you would buy at Home Depot/Lowe's.

Also, does anyone know if there is generally gold mixed with clay in a creek.

Thanks

placertogo · Jan 29, 2012

I have personally found fine gold values in Quikrete brand bags of sand. Not enough in my case to turn a profit, but fun nevertheless. Even if the sand originates in a gold bearing area, we don't know what processing techniques were used to screen the sand and handle the sand in the bagging process. If there is a good deal of movement of the sand in processing, the gold values are going to migrate to the bottom of the pile. If a air movement process is used, the gold values may behave much as they do in the desert, where the light sand is blown away leaving gold on the surface. I have seen some sand and gravel operations here in Maine and they are fairly simple, although none of the operators here in Maine bag their sand. They sell in bulk to concrete operators, cities and towns to sand icy roads, and individuals for landscaping. Now if I happened to buy a yard or two for my yard work, and if I panned it out and found something like a gram per yard, I would buy several wheeler loads from the operation, have them dumped behind my house, and spend the next few years running them through my highbanker. Just a thought.

russau · Jan 29, 2012

i also have panned bags of sand from these places and ive also went to the sand and gravel plant where they get some of it and obviously also found fine gold. the best spot to get it from these sand and gravel plants are left in the hoppers of their equipment. they are loaded with black sand and fine gold. i had permission and we were ther only when the equipment wasnt running. it was good!

mikeg10 · Jan 29, 2012

I've never tried doing that but maybe should. I've heard of people finding gold in their driveways here in California after they've gotten a load of gravel put down and can see how. On the Yuba River below Smartsville there's a place called Park's Bar where they took millions of dollars of gold out back in the 1840s-50s, a few years ago a gravel company went in and scooped out about 5-10 feet of gravel over a huge area. Though most of it was overburden from the hydraulic mines in Smartsville I'm sure that there was at least a small bit of gold in most of that gravel.

I also know an owner of a gravel company on another of the major local rivers within about 20 miles of Park's Bar and he told me a few years ago that he bought the plant for the gold and not the gravel, the gravel just pays the expenses of running but the gold is all profit and quite alot at that. This was an area river that had been doodlebugged but this portion was farmland and wasn't mined. The guys up on the rivers on that show Gold Rush have nothing comparable to what he gets! This is a river that most would overlook as far as gold but it's still quite rich if you have the equipment to get through the overburden from the hydraulic mines.

Teichert construction and Western Aggregates own most of the Yuba goldfields old tailing pits around the extinct town of Hammonton. I've never heard of either company ever bothering with processing the gravel they sell for gold and they sell thousands of tons of gravel every year but since what they're processing is old tailing piles I'm sure there's gold in it. In fact a friend who retired from the Sheriffs Department with my uncle used to work out in the goldfields on one of the dredges in his younger days. We got to talking about gold mining and I told him about the detector I'd bought. This oldtimer proceded to tell of the times when they'd hit a pocket of clay and the clay balls would roll around the sluices and start clumping together and would completely rob the sluice of any gold. Since the cleanouts weren't done very often think about the pounds of gold in each of these clayballs! He particularly remembered when this happened the day of a scheduled cleanout in an area that had been running very rich. They stopped to cleanout and there was absolutely no gold so they knew it had just happened and the workers looked for the clayball at the time and never found it. Most of the time the clayball would be buried under 50 feet of gravel when they figured it out but this one time the guys knew it couldn't have been but a few minutes since it'd happened and they were near the top of a pile so it would be close to the surface. This oldtimer said if I'd split it with him 50-50 he could take me to the spot they lost it to try and metal detect and we tried to get Teichert to let us in but it was when they were fighting about Hammonton-Smartsville Rd being private land and wouldn't let anyone on the property. That oldtimer died in 2005 taking the location of the area with the clayball with him.

Teichert also uses the tailings on the American river too, that area was very rich in gold so I'm sure it's the same thing. Gravel companies use tailing piles all over the country for gravel so you can see that there is a good chance that some cement and driveways have at least a small amount of gold in them!

placertogo · Jan 29, 2012

The original poster asked about gold in the clay. The conventional wisdom is that a clay layer acts like false bedrock. In other words, the clay is so tightly packed that gold values will settle on top of it as they do on bedrock. Here in Maine, I have found gold on top of clay. Rarely, I find gold under a clay layer, but not in the clay layer itself. The mechanism for the deposition of clay is such that gold is not usually deposited with it. And if it is, chances are it is microfine and very difficult to see and would have to be found in a formal assay.

Jason in Enid · Jan 29, 2012

Yes, you can find gold in the bags of sand. Not a lot, and probably nothing bigger than a flake, but you can find a few spots.

No, you won't find gold IN clay. Clay is deposited during times of standing water or barely moving water. Clay is dense enough that it can act as a false bedrock. So you can find gold ON clay or UNDER clay, but not IN clay.

elijahhenry10 · Jan 29, 2012

I will have to try to buy a bag of sand next time at a store that sells it. Does anyone have any idea of what it sells for?

Also, thanks for the information on the clay. I was just wondering because I hit clay in a river I was digging a hole in about 1 foot down. I was wondering if I should try to look through the clay, stop digging, or just go right through the clay. I guess this means I should just go right through it to the next layer of dirt.

placertogo · Jan 29, 2012

ElijahHenry, I would take off the first inch or so of gravel and other material directly on top of the clay. If a sample pan shows color, expose more of the clay and save the material on top of it.

Gravelwasher · Jan 30, 2012

http://www.concentrators.net/pdf/teichert.pdf teichert has been one of californias largest gold producers

mikeg10 · Jan 30, 2012

Thanks for the info Gravelwasher. A quick google search also brought up this interesting article on dredge #17. http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread.asp?fid=3&threadid=90110 It says it's still operating. We used to hear the dredges 24 hours a day from my house about 10 miles away as the crow flies but I haven't heard them in years. Here's another one on the aggregate companies gold production. http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2007/09/24/focus2.html

Jason in Enid · Jan 30, 2012

Very interesting article mike. I guess most of them do have secret gold operations!

ohiochris · Jan 30, 2012

elijahhenry10 said:
I will have to try to buy a bag of sand next time at a store that sells it. Does anyone have any idea of what it sells for?

Also, thanks for the information on the clay. I was just wondering because I hit clay in a river I was digging a hole in about 1 foot down. I was wondering if I should try to look through the clay, stop digging, or just go right through the clay. I guess this means I should just go right through it to the next layer of dirt.

The general purpose sand is usually around $3 a bag , and the sand tubes around $4.

I have read that when gold hits clay it can stick to it or sink or work its way down into it. Thats why people break it up and try to dissolve it to get any gold that may have been stuck in there out.

elijahhenry10 · Feb 6, 2012

Well, yesterday I was at Home Depot looking at different things to finish my sluice and I decided I might as well pick up a bag while I was there. The sand I got was Quickrete all purpose sand, and it looks almost identical to different concentrates I have gotten from Arizona. I have yet to pan it yet, but hopefully I will have good results when I do.

russau · Feb 7, 2012

unless you need some bags of sand, i wouldnt go out and buy any unless you buy 1 to see what all the fuss is about. there is fine gold in them but not enough to pay for that bag of sand! but every bag of sand that i did "need" got run across my Miller table first before i used it!

i prefer going directly to the sand and gravel plant and asking for permission to go into the yard when they arent running and cleanout their hoppers before the frezze comes at the end of their season! MUCH BETTER!

elijahhenry10 · Feb 7, 2012

russau said:
unless you need some bags of sand, i wouldnt go out and buy any unless you buy 1 to see what all the fuss is about. there is fine gold in them but not enough to pay for that bag of sand! but every bag of sand that i did "need" got run across my Miller table first before i used it! i prefer going directly to the sand and gravel plant and asking for permission to go into the yard when they arent running and cleanout their hoppers before the frezze comes at the end of their season! MUCH BETTER!

I payed $2.95 for it, so I figured it was a better idea than a lottery ticket, haha

mts · Feb 7, 2012

I have a few tubes of sand left over from when I had a small pickup truck (used to weigh down the back in snow). I'll have to see if I can find any gold in them. I'm assuming that bags of sand in Ohio are less likely to have gold than bags of sand from someplace like California.

elijahhenry10 · Feb 7, 2012

mts said:
I have a few tubes of sand left over from when I had a small pickup truck (used to weigh down the back in snow). I'll have to see if I can find any gold in them. I'm assuming that bags of sand in Ohio are less likely to have gold than bags of sand from someplace like California.

I've read several places that people are having a decent amount of luck on bags of sand from northern Ohio. Good luck!!

mts · Feb 7, 2012

elijahhenry10 said:
mts said:

I have a few tubes of sand left over from when I had a small pickup truck (used to weigh down the back in snow). I'll have to see if I can find any gold in them. I'm assuming that bags of sand in Ohio are less likely to have gold than bags of sand from someplace like California.

Click to expand...

I've read several places that people are having a decent amount of luck on bags of sand from northern Ohio. Good luck!!

Thanks. I'll try to find time to pan them this weekend and report back.