Gold Ore

[southfork]

A little sample that was found with a metal detector. Crushed by hand then panned to wash away some of the dirt and clay? The photo is macro so real small particles, but the quartz shows and what looks like iron and free gold. I think we need a small smelter to retrieve the values trying to speed up the recovery what's your thoughts ?

 

[southfork]

A two-gram piece out of the last batch sitting on a dime makes a nice specimen. I wonder what that would sell for on the net?

 

[Reed Lukens]

I always sold mine on ebay and got at least what I was asking. Just set a minimum that your comfortable with and let it go.

 

[southfork]

A week's soak in whink the difference in color is sure apparent. 38 grams of dirty gold started at about 41 grams. I wish it would cool off so my son could dig on this waste pile lol.

 

[Goldwasher]

Our claim is registered as a Placer, so we can't use explosives. Probably can get away with an electric hammer drill/chisel, or whatever they're called.

doesn't matter what your claim is "registered" as. It's a claim the legalities of blasting have nothing to do with it being placer or lode.

 

[desertgolddigger]

doesn't matter what your claim is "registered" as. It's a claim the legalities of blasting have nothing to do with it being placer or lode.

Don't plan on getting into hard rock mining, I'm perfectly happy to dig, sift, dry wash, and pan.

 

[southfork]

Scorching hot so a few cool photos from inside the old mine. Happy mining

 

[desertgolddigger]

southfork, just amazing. Hope you hit a good pay streak.

I still look at where the old timer hard rock miners dug. Still can't figure out just what they looked for, other than white quartz, that told them there was gold there. I've picked up their discards, and it is all white with occasional dark or dirty looking streaks. I would love to dig up just one rock that has a smidgen of gold stuck on it. I'll keep looking. Maybe someday I'll get lucky finding one.

 

[southfork]

Weather cooled and smoke cleared from a nearby wildfire, so Seth was swinging the Nox. The detector has been going off on some dark brown to black mineral on the waste pile. He crushed a little with mortar and pestle no visible gold to start but hidden inside some free gold. Just a pinch but finding enough to keep the dream alive.

 

[southfork]

Crushed a little more of Wednesdays samples needs smelting will be added to the melt jar. My son and a friend went out to another old mine for a few hours today and found a few pieces with gold using metal detectors. Smoke was really bad today wind and rain on the way this week

 

[desertgolddigger]

Truly amazing what you find, I hope the rain clears up the smoke, and cools things for you.

A question to you, the expert. The placer gold at our claim seems to be petering out, until I can get lucky to find another sweet spot. I consider a sweet spot that produces 1/10th gram per outing. So I need to try something else. There are at least a dozen hard rock digs on our claim, a couple being vertical shafts. So those are out, but there's piles of discards lying next to these hard rock mines.

The question, is, is it worthwhile to dig into these discards. My problem is recognizing a rock that would have fine gold in it. My Bounty Hunter Time Ranger can detect gold, but has difficulty with a piece .15 grams within less than an inch from the 4 inch coil. So scanning big rocks is going to be a problem. Is it worthwhile to dig and classify the smaller stuff, in the hope my dry washer could ferret out some gold. Or did these old time prospectors get all the gold?

It's just discouraging to work for four hours, and get 1/100th of a gram, or of I'm lucky, maybe 3/100ths. Anyway, the piles I mentioned, seem not to have been disturbed for quite a long time, except when a detectorists gets a beep. But they are only scanning the surface of a 6-10 foot deep pile, next to a couple of these mines.

 

[southfork]

Truly amazing what you find, I hope the rain clears up the smoke, and cools things for you.

A question to you, the expert. The placer gold at our claim seems to be petering out, until I can get lucky to find another sweet spot. I consider a sweet spot that produces 1/10th gram per outing. So I need to try something else. There are at least a dozen hard rock digs on our claim, a couple being vertical shafts. So those are out, but there's piles of discards lying next to these hard rock mines.

The question, is, is it worthwhile to dig into these discards. My problem is recognizing a rock that would have fine gold in it. My Bounty Hunter Time Ranger can detect gold, but has difficulty with a piece .15 grams within less than an inch from the 4 inch coil. So scanning big rocks is going to be a problem. Is it worthwhile to dig and classify the smaller stuff, in the hope my dry washer could ferret out some gold. Or did these old time prospectors get all the gold?

It's just discouraging to work for four hours, and get 1/100th of a gram, or of I'm lucky, maybe 3/100ths. Anyway, the piles I mentioned, seem not to have been disturbed for quite a long time, except when a detectorists gets a beep. But they are only scanning the surface of a 6-10 foot deep pile, next to a couple of these mines.

I'm not an expert but lucky to have family and friends with the gold fever. They have been hauling samples in backpacks so I can crush the samples some make the detectors sing but most contain micro gold that the detectors won't pick up. What's needed is a way to crush the samples to powder so they can be panned. A lot of these old mine dumps contain enough gold for small scale miners to have fun. Like the old-timers said gold rides an iron horse rusty crusty quartz is one of our favorites but there's a lot of other rocks that carry gold I have learned. My son has been digging down through these waste piles a few inches at a time. Working the detectors real slow checking the larger pieces all around practice makes perfect and a good gold machine is a good investment. Did they get all the gold I like to say they got the easy gold if there's such a thing. My son and his friends detect all the ground from the bottom of the ravines to the ridge tops and find a lot of gold.

 

[southfork]

My son Seth has been moving rocks on our property and swinging the detectors. The gold has a higher purity in these seasonal drainages but was hit hard by the Oldtimers. But they didn't get it all a little after work evening prospecting.

 

[southfork]

My son and me worked on clearing a quad path to an old mine yesterday looks promising. Seth's out there now with the detectors getting me some samples. It's a lot easier carrying rocks on the quads than on your back a little more clearing and I can ride to the river It's been years since I've been able to reach this rich area.

 

[southfork]

First Gold from the new old mine made the SDC2300 tone out we need to crush this ore sample to get a weight, but it's loaded. 2 LB rock

 

[southfork]

I wish I could focus my camera on macro up close so you can see all the gold in this rusty stringer. The larger pieces show but not the color showing all the way across and specks all over the rock I hope there all gold.

 

[southfork]

Clean up after the mill first screen 30 mesh lots of fines in the bucket. I will run the rest through the sluice and blue bowl. Gold rolls up into little balls pyrites turns to dust.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Breaking rocks is hard work the dust seems to hang longer in the hot weather. But the hidden rewards start to add up after a while. This sure has been a learning curve on the smelting end of prospecting. Not anything I would want to do full time but gets me out of the house. I carry a bucket on the quad for float samples when checking the livestock.

That's a beautiful set of gold buttons! Could you give me a run down of the smelting learning curve in case I do actually find gold? All I have now is an electric assay furnace. Holds about 3 crucibles and takes a good 2 hours to get up to temperature. Got my hopes up found an old stope high up on a vein and am hoping the gold that was up in the vein went down as well. Going to sample the floor of the stope when I get a break.

 

[southfork]

That's a beautiful set of gold buttons! Could you give me a run down of the smelting learning curve in case I do actually find gold? All I have now is an electric assay furnace. Holds about 3 crucibles and takes a good 2 hours to get up to temperature. Got my hopes up found an old stope high up on a vein and am hoping the gold that was up in the vein went down as well. Going to sample the floor of the stope when I get a break.

I watched a lot of videos on processing gold ore you need a good flux recipe.

 

[Red_desert]

Trying to see if I can clear up the photos any for you.

 

[southfork]

Trying to see if I can clear up the photos any for you.

You turned the gold green.