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 ?

 

[Goldwasher]

Those clay balls would run through the sluice and pick up gold. My dad found one with a bunch of pickers in it!! I don’t want to say because I’m not sure how many, but it was unbelievable.

Myth. Clay in sluices doesnt pick up clay as it runs through. . it does pack recovery areas and prevent settling and exchange and the gold makes it through the system. A piece of exposed gold in clay would shed off of the ball. Not get deeper.The other issue with clay is if it happens to be a bootom layer or false layer. gold got into it naturally. and it does take different effort to liberate it differently.

When it is from flood deposition or like commonly in areas with mass tailing from upstream placering. Clay is from the last lightest deposit..then a later deposit happens. the gold is not "in" the clay.

It's on top of it.

When its good is when it is the decomposing bedrock layer. Thats when you actually find good gold in "clay"

That matters a lot. Most often digging down into clay is pointless. Unless it is literally right on the bedrock.

If it is a layer in gravels. sample the top. and most likely get it the hell out of the way and do not run it in through your set up.

 

[southfork]

OK fine. What do you all see in the red circles?

Zoom SF's original and pan around, hard to find a place without a face?

 

[russau]

That was the expression I had on my face when I first found a picker of gold in my pan !

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Myth. Clay in sluices doesnt pick up clay as it runs through. . it does pack recovery areas and prevent settling and exchange and the gold makes it through the system. A piece of exposed gold in clay would shed off of the ball. Not get deeper.The other issue with clay is if it happens to be a bootom layer or false layer. gold got into it naturally. and it does take different effort to liberate it differently.

When it is from flood deposition or like commonly in areas with mass tailing from upstream placering. Clay is from the last lightest deposit..then a later deposit happens. the gold is not "in" the clay.

It's on top of it.

When its good is when it is the decomposing bedrock layer. Thats when you actually find good gold in "clay"

That matters a lot. Most often digging down into clay is pointless. Unless it is literally right on the bedrock.

If it is a layer in gravels. sample the top. and most likely get it the hell out of the way and do not run it in through your set up.

I respect your experience and I know your information is based on that.
Come back to me when your running an overloaded sluice with an hour worth of muddy tail water to use. When your box has multiple pounds of gold in it and there are golf ball to baseball sized clay balls exiting a 150’ sluice run. Not all “pay material” has been segregated by gravity or washing action. It can be suitable for making bricks right out of the ground

I don’t want to further distract from this great thread SF has going.

 

[southfork]

I respect your experience and I know your information is based on that.
Come back to me when your running an overloaded sluice with an hour worth of muddy tail water to use. When your box has multiple pounds of gold in it and there are golf ball to baseball sized clay balls exiting a 150’ sluice run. Not all “pay material” has been segregated by gravity or washing action. It can be suitable for making bricks right out of the ground

I don’t want to further distract from this great thread SF has going.

I know for a fact that the clay balls roll right out of the header box on through the sluice and back on the ground. I don't know if there were faces on any lol.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

I know for a fact that the clay balls roll right out of the header box on through the sluice and back on the ground. I don't know if there were faces on any lol.

Well I’m going to have to try harder to get a softball size clay ball to bounce down a sluice one of these days to test it out. Just need a very long sluice to be loaded with gold all the way to the end to have a fair test.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Don't be harshin' my mellow! They be your photos. Fess up. You photo shopped faces.....

I don't smoke anything but if you send me some of the stuff your artist uses I might try it

You have a bad case of facial pareidolia (look it up). I see where you posted on a different thread about seeing a face on a nugget. Might as well accept it rather than give SF a hard time.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Guys, I know all of you have varied experiences with prospecting, nd mining, and live at various locations where conditions are vastly different. Those differences provide many challenges, that affect your experiences.

But sometimes, some of you seen fixed on what you know, and discount what others put forth. I just wish that even if someone is talking about something that sounds ridiculous, you just say your say, and then let it pass, instead of going back and forth on something.

Yeah, I too, saw the little faces, but not everyone has the same perception. Everyone is different, and I accept that, and hopefully All will do the same.

Maybe it's time to move on with the next batch of material, and discover possibly something new. Sorry if I raised any hairs.

 

[Goldwasher]

SF is my neighbor basically..he does have a good thread. Sometimes a back and forth can add to knowledge.

Now people know that clay balls don't rob gold out of sluices. And it doesnt make sense to overload your sluice and use bad feed water. Because that actually does negatively affect recovery.

Also if you have gold all the way to the end of your sluice. you are doing it wrong.

Pays to pay attention.

 

[southfork]

I like the back and forth we learn by experience of others just keep it friendly. If there's faces on our gold nature, did it.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Sorry, my mistake, thinking there was conflict building.

Even though I own a sluice, but just really don't know a lot about using them, I do know that gold in the lower riffles means something isn't right. Also know clay is sticky, and tends to clog things up, based on life experience.

Good luck on the search for the yellow stuff.

 

[southfork]

Sorry, my mistake, thinking there was conflict building.

Even though I own a sluice, but just really don't know a lot about using them, I do know that gold in the lower riffles means something isn't right. Also know clay is sticky, and tends to clog things up, based on life experience.

Good luck on the search for the yellow stuff.

What I was getting at is not all clay is the same the blue clay on our place is down on bedrock. But I don't know if it's from decomposing material or wash from ground sluicing. But I have found a lot of pickers and small nuggets scrubbing the clay with a stiff brush on a rainy day. The pink mud / clay down on the river was always loaded with gold down on bedrock. What I do know is that there was a lot of placer mining and hard rock all over this place and they didn't get it all. Happy mining

 

[Tesorodeoro]

SF is my neighbor basically..he does have a good thread. Sometimes a back and forth can add to knowledge.

Now people know that clay balls don't rob gold out of sluices. And it doesnt make sense to overload your sluice and use bad feed water. Because that actually does negatively affect recovery.

Also if you have gold all the way to the end of your sluice. you are doing it wrong.

Pays to pay attention.

Tell it to the cemetery headstones of those pioneers that did it wrong for many years. For them, it paid to just get it done regardless of the losses.

I agree that discussion is a great way to learn. One way to keep the discussion light hearted is to approach things in a way so as to avoid giving the impression of “schooling” someone. That always comes off poorly in the end.

 

[southfork]

This is a pay pile that was unworked piled waiting for water? My son dug under it along the bedrock it a few spots and used the metal detectors to test they find the bigger pieces but need to sluice for better recovery. There are tons of material along this drainage on our property waiting on rain. I've shown these pictures before were still working on the old road to make our hobby easier. The last photo is a worked pile but what's under it? very narrow ravine had to pile the waste somewhere. The pay pile is on the left side looking north we have a lot of dirt to play with this is an undeveloped parcel we own. Maybe enough gold to pay for a well?

 

[desertgolddigger]

What I was getting at is not all clay is the same the blue clay on our place is down on bedrock. But I don't know if it's from decomposing material or wash from ground sluicing. But I have found a lot of pickers and small nuggets scrubbing the clay with a stiff brush on a rainy day. The pink mud / clay down on the river was always loaded with gold down on bedrock. What I do know is that there was a lot of placer mining and hard rock all over this place and they didn't get it all. Happy mining

Yes, you got it about clay on bedrock. Even the wash on or claim has brownish clay, or is it just another form of caliche. I try very hard to get this covering off the bedrock, then break it up/crush it. What success at removing and pulverizing this material has given me some gold. Not sure why the previous miners failed to do what I'm doing, unless they figured it was too much effort, or that they felt nothing was there. But in one of the washes on our claim, which I call dead, is completely devoid of any kind of clay/mineralization. Looking around that wash I see what looks like what might have covered the bedrock. Seems someone really scoured that wash.

 

[southfork]

Today I decided to smelt the latest crush and I had a slight failure no gold was hurt lol. I had all the gold in a large cupel with a little borax after about an hour I shut the furnace off so I could take a peek. The cupel had cracked and some of the gold leaked down through the crack and the furnace plate was cracked the gold kept going down onto the fireproof fiber in the bottom. 12.5 grams in the bottom and a lot still in the slag after it all cools, I'll break the slag and remelt it all together again. Another 5 grams out of the loose slag I'll break and grind the cupel it still has a little gold stuck to the bottom.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Today I decided to smelt the latest crush and I had a slight failure no gold was hurt lol. I had all the gold in a large cupel with a little borax after about an hour I shut the furnace off so I could take a peek. The cupel had cracked and some of the gold leaked down through the crack and the furnace plate was cracked the gold kept going down onto the fireproof fiber in the bottom. 12.5 grams in the bottom and a lot still in the slag after it all cools, I'll break the slag and remelt it all together again. Another 5 grams out of the loose slag I'll break and grind the cupel it still has a little gold stuck to the bottom.

There must be a certain number of burns you can do before it’s just cheaper to toss the cupule? Too bad you can’t use manzanita for fuel to smelt with in the winter! I’ve seen some impressive fires using a turbo and an air compressor tank..kind of a dangerous chain reaction reaction that generates A LOT of heat. if you dig a pit in the ground and make charcoal out of it, a blacksmiths forge would do the trick for sure.

 

[southfork]

There must be a certain number of burns you can do before it’s just cheaper to toss the cupule? Too bad you can’t use manzanita for fuel to smelt with in the winter! I’ve seen some impressive fires using a turbo and an air compressor tank..kind of a dangerous chain reaction reaction that generates A LOT of heat. if you dig a pit in the ground and make charcoal out of it, a blacksmiths forge would do the trick for sure.

That was the first burn and propane is cheap and clean. The trick would be to just find big clean nuggets.

 

[pepperj]

Today I decided to smelt the latest crush and I had a slight failure no gold was hurt lol. I had all the gold in a large cupel with a little borax after about an hour I shut the furnace off so I could take a peek. The cupel had cracked and some of the gold leaked down through the crack and the furnace plate was cracked the gold kept going down onto the fireproof fiber in the bottom. 12.5 grams in the bottom and a lot still in the slag after it all cools, I'll break the slag and remelt it all together again. Another 5 grams out of the loose slag I'll break and grind the cupel it still has a little gold stuck to the bottom.

What was the reason for the cupel to crack?

 

[southfork]

What was the reason for the cupel to crack?

Cheap offshore products? I tried two different supplier's same problems. Maybe too much moisture in the cupel.