Gold Ore

southfork

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Jun 15, 2014
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Upvote 23
Apr 17, 2014
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Here's a couple photos of yesterday's small rock samples we crushed and panned. Well worth the effort to haul up to the house to crush lots of gold wrapped around quartz and other rock. Needs to be smelted to clean up and get a nice bright button. The blue pan is one small ore sample the black pan is dirty gold from a pound of random rocks from a dump. The ore sample in the blue pan was a strong signal with the detectors. The rock samples we crushed in the black pan were silent before the crush but make plenty of noise now.
No one else sees all the faces imagery in 21256? Do you start with faces and then shop in minerals or the other way around?
 

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southfork

southfork

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nope never bothered. But, mines around us had gold in the pounds per ton of sulphides. On my claims north of you guys the placer cons are full of them huge oxidized pyrite cubes and lumps of hematite.
Not sure where your property is exactly but, if you have a large amount of Digger pines and lack of Ponderosa chances are there is serpentine underlying the area. Or weathered into the lateritic soil ( red dirt with broken quartz) you are right in the area where it can be there either exposed or a little deeper.
The blue clay on our property has the pyrite cubes and lots of red/Hematite and sometimes gold. Hard to work but once in a while I'll run a bucket in the mixer with soap / detergent to help liquefy the clay a lot of work for small returns. A picker might show in a lucky bucket. It's a gasoline mixer so not always cost effective and noisy.
 

Tesorodeoro

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Jan 21, 2018
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The blue clay on our property has the pyrite cubes and lots of red/Hematite and sometimes gold. Hard to work but once in a while I'll run a bucket in the mixer with soap / detergent to help liquefy the clay a lot of work for small returns. A picker might show in a lucky bucket. It's a gasoline mixer so not always cost effective and noisy.
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.
 

Goldwasher

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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.
 

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Tesorodeoro

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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.
 

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southfork

southfork

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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

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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

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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

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May 31, 2015
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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

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May 26, 2009
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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.
 

desertgolddigger

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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.
 

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southfork

southfork

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Jun 15, 2014
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California
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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

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Jan 21, 2018
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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.
 

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southfork

southfork

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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?
 

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