Gold Ore

southfork · Apr 22, 2022

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 · Sep 5, 2023

My son has been clearing brush and forest litter off some old gold rush diggings on our land. Then metal detecting layer by layer and finding some specimens and ore samples for me to play with.

southfork · Sep 10, 2023

I milled and sluiced then blue bowled about three sandwich baggies of rock my son dug out of a seam. That was sounding off on the Knox. Nice little pinch looks like a couple of grams? I'll pick it up with a snuffer then mercury gets what's hiding in the fines. I can ride a quad right up to the diggings a little excitement for the old guy. Even with a loupe it was hard to see any values in this material, but it came out of hiding.

Red_desert · Sep 10, 2023

Nice! Good to see people are still out there in spite of the weather.

southfork · Sep 10, 2023

Red_desert said:
Nice! Good to see people are still out there in spite of the weather.

Great weather here 85 degrees and a breeze.

Red_desert · Sep 10, 2023

74 here and will go back to 80s again.

southfork · Sep 16, 2023

Today was a little poor half bucket of milled material two flyspecks and some ultra fine dust. But I haven't cleaned the chain mill yet could still be a pinch.

southfork · Oct 2, 2023

My son was cleaning forest litter out of an old prospect hole yesterday and found a couple bits. Metal detector finds.

desertgolddigger · Oct 2, 2023

southfork said:
My son was cleaning forest litter out of an old prospect hole yesterday and found a couple bits. Metal detector finds.

That's beautiful. Please don't melt that. You probably can get twice what the gold is worth from a collector.

southfork · Oct 5, 2023

A little crush from new detector finds and a melt nugget 5.8 grams. Nice clean looking gold wish we had a bucket full.

desertgolddigger · Oct 9, 2023

southfork said:
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 ?

Sure looks promising. I think I see lots of little gold trapped in the material. Will be interested in your results.

southfork · Oct 9, 2023

desertgolddigger said:
Sure looks promising. I think I see lots of little gold trapped in the material. Will be interested in your results.

Old post but I think it turned out good. :laughing7:

Apr 22, 2022

desertgolddigger · Oct 9, 2023

southfork said:
Old post but I think it turned out good.

Apr 22, 2022

Darn, It flashed up on my notifications as a new post. Glad it turned out good.

southfork · Oct 17, 2023

This mornings crush about 50 grams of rock no gold showing. But it made the detector sing maybe a couple grams of gold. A pinch a day keeps us on the hunt Happy mining.

desertgolddigger · Oct 17, 2023

southfork said:
This mornings crush about 50 grams of rock no gold showing. But it made the detector sing maybe a couple grams of gold. A pinch a day keeps us on the hunt Happy mining.

If there's a high enough concentration of the super fine gold, then maybe when you get it all turned to powder, you'll get that gold the detector said is there. I wonder if where the detector found that rock, that deeper might be something more.

southfork · Oct 17, 2023

desertgolddigger said:
If there's a high enough concentration of the super fine gold, then maybe when you get it all turned to powder, you'll get that gold the detector said is there. I wonder if where the detector found that rock, that deeper might be something more.

We crushed the host rock then melted the powder and recovered 3.8 grams of gold. My son has been digging this spot and keeps finding specimen pieces and ore. We think that a lot of what been coming out is waste rock or unsorted ore that fell back into the pit. Hoping to uncover the actual vein or stringers carrying the gold. We need to rig up a hoisting system to clean out some of the waste rock / low grade ore. At least low grade to the old timers if we work at it we can recover a couple grams a day so far. Once in awhile a nice specimen shows up. This prospect was dry no water close by but we have quads and can haul a few buckets at a time back home. We have trailers for the quads but need to work on the trails a little so we can turn around some place flat.

ConceptualizedNetherlandr · Oct 18, 2023

southfork said:
We crushed the host rock then melted the powder and recovered 3.8 grams of gold. My son has been digging this spot and keeps finding specimen pieces and ore. We think that a lot of what been coming out is waste rock or unsorted ore that fell back into the pit. Hoping to uncover the actual vein or stringers carrying the gold. We need to rig up a hoisting system to clean out some of the waste rock / low grade ore. At least low grade to the old timers if we work at it we can recover a couple grams a day so far. Once in awhile a nice specimen shows up. This prospect was dry no water close by but we have quads and can haul a few buckets at a time back home. We have trailers for the quads but need to work on the trails a little so we can turn around some place flat.

and

southfork said:
This mornings crush about 50 grams of rock no gold showing. But it made the detector sing maybe a couple grams of gold. A pinch a day keeps us on the hunt Happy mining.

what do you need with actual veins or stringers? 3.8/50 = 7.6 % gold. It don't get much better than that. grab a couple tons and retire !!

southfork · Oct 18, 2023

ConceptualizedNetherlandr said:
and

what do you need with actual veins or stringers? 3.8/50 = 7.6 % gold. It don't get much better than that. grab a couple tons and retire !!

I'm already retired. Not looking for a full time job this is still fun.

southfork · Oct 19, 2023

Cleaning some dirty mercury that we use for micro gold loaded with contaminants. 45 minute run through the retort and one hour in the furnace with just a pinch of borax and washing soda. Needs a remelt but not bad 4 grams to add to the next melt. A few freckles but will cleanup nice in the next melt.