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]

WoW! Amazing the prior prospectors missed so much. I think our claim had eagled eye prospectors, as not much got left behind.

The Oldtimers didn't have metal detectors and this stuff just looks like dirty rusty rocks. You would need a loupe or small microscope to see the free gold. When you pan the concentrate's, its red mud starting to think the whole pile has micro gold. We have it in the furnace and a nice button starting to form.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

The Oldtimers didn't have metal detectors and this stuff just looks like dirty rusty rocks. You would need a loupe or small microscope to see the free gold. When you pan the concentrate's, its red mud starting to think the whole pile has micro gold. We have it in the furnace and a nice button starting to form.

The consistency of your finds kind of makes me think that the entire dump is commercially economical to haul off and process despite how much material doesn’t sound off with the detector.

 

[Assembler]

The consistency of your finds kind of makes me think that the entire dump is commercially economical to haul off and process despite how much material doesn’t sound off with the detector.

The gold is not in oll of the rock most likely. A lot was dumped for the easy to see ore in the past.

 

[southfork]

The consistency of your finds kind of makes me think that the entire dump is commercially economical to haul off and process despite how much material doesn’t sound off with the detector.

It's not commercially viable or possible to mine it's a hard hike maybe with a donkey. Sometimes it takes a bucket of rocks for a few grams of gold the next trip a baggie full will produce multiple grams of gold. Yesterday's ore samples were really dirty I smelted twice for 6 plus grams and still needs a cleanup, but it was just a pill bottles worth of ore. The rains are back we have a big pile of pay to sluice as soon as the creek starts flowing placer mining is so much easier. No dust no toxic fumes and cleaner gold and I can ride the quads right down to the piles lol.

 

[southfork]

Turned out to be a great day I added the fines and remelted the button most of the impurities are gone. Nice 7 1/2-gram button. I still have a small button with lead as a collector metal to smelt another gram of gold possibly. My son is back out there today with a new plan of attack on the pile good rain yesterday maybe better conductivity.

 

[mikep691]

With all these buttons you're showing us, it might be time for a couple bar molds

 

[southfork]

With all these buttons you're showing us, it might be time for a couple bar molds

We have bar molds I just like making buttons.

 

[southfork]

Yesterday's finds real rich ore and a photo after the crush tonight. I'll take a better picture in natural light in the morning this was hand crushed mortar and pestle. If we run this rich stuff through the mill, it balls the gold up and wraps it around the waste rock and takes longer to smelt. All these bits and pieces sure add up Happy Mining

 

[desertgolddigger]

Unbelievable!! I'd probably faint if some of the rock I found looked like that after the crush. Can't wait to see the button, and hear the weight.

 

[russau]

Probably a good -n- heavy safe would be recommended about now !

 

[southfork]

Probably a good -n- heavy safe would be recommended about now !

The banks safe is plenty heavy and insured maybe lol.

 

[southfork]

A little piece of free gold from yesterday's crush maybe a little platinum or silver mixed in. The rest needs a better crushing this morning to free up the gold.

 

[Clay Diggins]

A little piece of free gold from yesterday's crush maybe a little platinum or silver mixed in. The rest needs a better crushing this morning to free up the gold.

I suspect your "platinum or silver" is more likely to be arsenopyrite. Arsenopyrite actually provides the chemistry to concentrate the gold into veins. Arsenopyrite, in large part, created the motherlode.

I don't know the location of the deposit you are working but here is a paper that will help explain why this silvery metallic compound is so commonly associated with gold in the motherlode and elsewhere.

Researchers discover why gold is concentrated alongside arsenic

Why are gold deposits found at all? Gold is famously unreactive, and there seems to be little reason why gold should be concentrated, rather than uniformly scattered throughout the Earth's crust. Now, an international group of geochemists have discovered why gold is concentrated alongside...

phys.org

Arsenic in your region:

https://escholarship.org/content/qt9m27j495/qt9m27j495_noSplash_ebc27469239943eb1d63482b34028038.pdf

​

Heavy Pans

 

[southfork]

I suspect your "platinum or silver" is more likely to be arsenopyrite. Arsenopyrite actually provides the chemistry to concentrate the gold into veins. Arsenopyrite, in large part, created the motherlode.

I don't know the location of the deposit you are working but here is a paper that will help explain why this silvery metallic compound is so commonly associated with gold in the motherlode and elsewhere.

Researchers discover why gold is concentrated alongside arsenic

Why are gold deposits found at all? Gold is famously unreactive, and there seems to be little reason why gold should be concentrated, rather than uniformly scattered throughout the Earth's crust. Now, an international group of geochemists have discovered why gold is concentrated alongside...

phys.org

Arsenic in your region:

https://escholarship.org/content/qt9m27j495/qt9m27j495_noSplash_ebc27469239943eb1d63482b34028038.pdf

​

Heavy Pans

Thanks for the information there's a lot of pyrites in most of what's being found. Also, after smelting sometimes we find a little spot of bright silver metal on the buttons. The whole area is highly mineralized so no telling I'll leave the assaying to the experts. My son just called he found a fist sized chuck of ore that's making the detector scream another great day in the making. Platinum was found all over California most was recovered as a byproduct of placer mining some large nuggets of platinum were found in Trinity County.

 

[southfork]

So, this mine dump is really clean little to no iron trash so if the machine beeps more than likely you have Gold. Did not regrind just panned a little dirt out heavy gold on side of the pan the small quartz sand on the other side has a lot of gold in and on it. Love to have a five-gallon pail of this. Starting to rain let's see how long Seth lasts out there today lol. I have the furnace set up indoors in the barn so I can play through the series of storms this week.

 

[arizau]

So, this mine dump is really clean little to no iron trash so if the machine beeps more than likely you have Gold. Did not regrind just panned a little dirt out heavy gold on side of the pan the small quartz sand on the other side has a lot of gold in and on it. Love to have a five-gallon pail of this. Starting to rain let's see how long Seth lasts out there today lol. I have the furnace set up indoors in the barn so I can play through the series of storms this week.

Wow. You guys are living my dream.
You say dump. Is it mine waste or mill tailings?

 

[southfork]

Wow. You guys are living my dream.
You say dump. Is it mine waste or mill tailings?

Mine waste

 

[southfork]

Excellent couple of trips out to the old mine dumps small ore samples but real rich. It will take some smelting to clean it up my son used the torch on some of the samples it broke up really well. The heat softened the rock and made it a lot easier to crush with the mortar and pestle. My son found what looked like coal in the waste pile maybe the old timers were heating rocks also. 18 grams of nice gold should make a nice button. I'm out digging with a screwdriver to get the slag out of the bottom of used cupels and smelting it again. And ended up with a pea sized button and one the size of a BB. Still a little dirty outside acid bath time. Seth left here with a backpack and two detectors to be young again his older brother was the same way every chance out prospecting.

 

[southfork]

I placed the 18 grams of crushed ore/dirty gold on a cupel without any flux and melted it. Ended up with a black layer of impurities on one side and bright gold on the other weighs 16 grams now. Lost two grams on the melt time to smelt with flux to drive off that thin layer of black or drop in muriatic and see if that will do it. Just experimenting / fooling around with precious metal.

 

[southfork]

Seth and friends are out prospecting I'm cleaning gold I have the button in Whink now the muriatic left these black freckles. And crushing by hand a rock I hauled up from the back of our place the last photo I think I see gold in the shadows right side bottom. This is also a test my computer updated but my mind hasn't it's a long journey from the camera to here.