Gold Prospecting Question (Just Gotta Know)

[kdfritton]

I have been watching the shows/TV,reading the books/internet and all that stuff, and understand that the nuggets/flakes etc are usually found in /around stream/river beds and have washed down the mountain to that location. My question is this: If the lil nuggets etc. have washed down then the big heavy nuggets are probably still up high on the mountain, right ? arent they? It just makes sense every time I think about it,,Then again I have never used a pan and I am new to this sport..In any case I gotta know the answer, Any Takers? Dan AKA Alumadude

 

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[Willy]

Possibly, but not nececelery. Often enough, there wasn't any large veins of gold eroded out.. only small ones. Also, depending on where the gold made up, the big stuff might have already washed down. Another factor to consider is glaciation and landslides. ..Willy.

 

[bigfish31]

I'm sure there are big pieces of gold that are close to their source. The way I see it is.. The pieces erode away from the vein, fall down to the low spot , and keep going lower until it gets stopped by some obstruction. It's always good to find the source. Having said that, I have found multiple nuggets by climbing up a column of rock above the waterline and busting It open.

 

[djui5]

Large chunks of gold can travel quite far if the river flows with enough force. People don't understand how much force is behind most rivers/canyons. It just seems calm on the surface in most cases.

You can usually tell how far a nugget has traveled by how rounded it is. If it's large and is really rounded around the edges then it's gone quite a long ways. The more jagged it is, the closer to the source the nugget is.

 

[Willy]

Up in Alaska we had a few 'rock rollers' where the stream flow was so great that boulders would be moving downstream. Have seen a few of those in B.C. too. ..Willy.

 

[kuger]

Small particles of gold are flowing down gold bearing streams all the time,but it takes floods of century proportions to actually tear up the bedrock and get gold(larger peices) moving.Also what you need to take into consideration is alot of the big gold you see come out is from Tertiary(ancient river)channels that were miles wide and bed rock was over a hundred feet deep.

 

[bigfish31]

Here's an old picture of some tertiary deposit we worked about 25 years ago. We chiseled along the bed rock and got a lot of 2,3 gram nuggets. It's the tail end of Bunker hill deposit(at least that's what they called it) east of camptonville.

 

[kuger]

Thats the kind of place to find the lunkers!!!!!Be careful though undercutting that stuff,you have to jackhammer and chisel it then it "air slacks ",and collapses!!!A freind of mine was drifting in and old channel finding some real big nuggets (several ounces each,I seen them)and started finding bones,then chinese objects,then a skull!!!That was the end of that!!!

 

[bigfish31]

Those artifacts couldn't be "in" the cement gravel, could they? and yes, that was scarry, the deeper you dug. Tons, and tons of rock above us. I did use the air hammer, but I was lucky, and it didn't fall. Overhanges aren't safe to work under. There was water drippng on us all the time.

 

[kuger]

No they werent in the cemented gravel,he was digging in a caved drift,widening the sides of the original,he didnt expect to find what he found though!!I have an old hydraulic pit I mess with every now and then and have had several of my "coyote holes",cave fortunatly when I wasnt around!!I did have a basket ball sized rock fall from about 40 feet up the face though!!It landed about three feet from me!Old Ma' Earth protects her gold in those!!!

 

[kdfritton]

I have been watching the shows/TV,reading the books/internet and all that stuff, and understand that the nuggets/flakes etc are usually found in /around stream/river beds and have washed down the mountain to that location. My question is this: If the lil nuggets etc. have washed down then the big heavy nuggets are probably still up high on the mountain, right ? arent they? It just makes sense every time I think about it,,Then again I have never used a pan and I am new to this sport..In any case I gotta know the answer, Any Takers? Dan AKA Alumadude

Thanks Guys: Your input is usefull...Dan