how to calculate amount of gold in a spot with a gold pan?

[BIG-LAKE-GOLDPANNER]

have found a spot with 5-6 fines per 1/3 unclassified shovel and am wondering how much that would add up too if classified and if i run around 10-5 gal buckets trough my sluice, i am new to prospecting and any feedback would be great

 

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[johnnysau]

Just classify a 1/3 shovel full , guesstimate how many of those in = ONE 5 gallon bucket X and how many 1/3 shovels in a bucket, X your (fines)


X and how many 1/3 shovels in a bucket.
X your (fines)
X how many buckets ya got.

Roughly 480 grain of gold in a troy OZ.


Thats how id do it, if you can figure out what i said; sounds fairly rich with enough material.

 

[JasonG]

It depends on the size of your fines, the purity, etc.

In general 0.01 to 0.05 milligrams per color for what most people consider to be fine gold of around 85% purity. But this could be off my a magnitude or more depending on what you have.

For what I consider to be my average sized, flaky fines (around 30-50 mesh on average) I get around 0.1 to 0.2 grams per yard with about 20 colors per pan. But if your fines are not flaky and have dimension, or your fines are larger your results will be higher.

So basically, it's impossible to answer without more info, the best way is to go out and run some gravel and get some numbers related to your gold! 10 5 gal buckets is approximately 1/4 yard if they are filled slightly below the rim. Weigh out your gold and multiply by 4 and that's your grams/yard (actually a little underestimated since 10 buckets isn't quite 1/4 yard).

Oh yeah and also a good rule of thumb is around 180-200 pans per yard if the pans are pretty full.

 

[TerryC]

Jason's post says volumes. Good info there. 40.2 (5 gal) buckets will get a cubic yard. But that is not quite clear. That is to say, we miners tend to measure a bucket of CLASSIFIED material. To get a more accurate measurment of gold per ton, the rocks in the dirt should be considered also. By not including the stones(rocks) we are artificially UPPING the expected gold content per (cubic) yard. TTC

 

[goldog]

So to be clear, if you are digging around boulders, say half goes in the bucket. If you are screening THAT another half is removed. Maybe 25% goes through the sluice. So10 buckets a yard would be a reasonable estimate.

 

[BIG-LAKE-GOLDPANNER]

hey thanks for the info very helpful, cant really find this kind of stuff searching on google

 

[mytimetoshine]

I never really considered the "classified angle". Good point but doesn't every one classify to some degree? Even the big wash plants use grizzlies. So when they talk about the $/yard on the gold shows. Is that before or after "classifying"?

 

[deserdog]

Before classifying.

 

[Bonaro]

You cant really quantify the gold value buy evaluating a shovel full nor is it accurate to evaluate the material you cherry pick behind boulders or after it's classified.
You have to move all the rocks to get the gold so all the rocks have to be part of your sample. This precludes taking selected samples or classifying. In hard rock thats called high grading.
A shovel full is far too small and will give a result with huge variables.

The best way to make a small and somewhat accurate analysis is to collect several buckets of bank run material from random locations. Weight it then process it to extract the gold then weigh the gold and do the math to determine oz./ton

 

[mytimetoshine]

You cant really quantify the gold value buy evaluating a shovel full nor is it accurate to evaluate the material you cherry pick behind boulders or after it's classified.
You have to move all the rocks to get the gold so all the rocks have to be part of your sample. This precludes taking selected samples or classifying. In hard rock thats called high grading.
A shovel full is far too small and will give a result with huge variables.

The best way to make a small and somewhat accurate analysis is to collect several buckets of bank run material from random locations. Weight it then process it to extract the gold then weigh the gold and do the math to determine oz./ton

Ok so what is "bank run material" then?

 

[mulletator]

Hey guys, I just signed up on this forum.

I was doing these exact calculations tonight on some sampling that I had recently done on one of my claims. Here is the formula that I use in excel:

grade= G*(1/(L*0.00130795062))

In this formula:
G = measured gold from sample volume
L = sample volume in liters
Conversion from liters to cubic yards = 0.00130795062

If you're not dealing in liters you just need to find the conversion from gallons to yards or whatever and fill it in.

This will give you grams per yard. To translate that into dollars you take your calculated grade and multiply by ("current gold price"/28). Here's an example assuming a gold price of $1200:

$/yd = grade*(1200/28)

Of course you need to carefully measure your volume in the field. Also if you don't count the larger rocks that you screened out in the initial volume you are high grading. That's OK as long as you know you are high grading. You can always come back later to get a more honest number.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Cool. One refinement: a Troy ounce is 31.1 grams, not 28 and Troy ounces is the price per "ounce" you see in the news.

 

[Bonaro]

Ok so what is "bank run material" then?

Bank run material is the name for the unclassified material you will find on the bank of a stream. It is meant to include all of the material including silt, sand gravel cobbles boulders etc... Take a giant scoop off the bank and that is bank run. Separate and remove the cobbles, large gravel or silt etc and that is classified

 

[winners58]

Sampling at regular intervals, this study has some good stuff in it.
sampling report for Sixes River;
http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1312i/report.pdf
and
BLM Manual on Placer Examination;
http://www.ntc.blm.gov/krc/uploads/463/Wells.pdf

 

[chowe]

Gram,dwt,maybe 2 grams a yard rough. 1-2 grams a yard without asking questions.

 

[meMiner]

This is a great topic and worthy of much discussion.

Bottom line for me is to pan sample the same material that I will be running thru the high banker (multiple pan samples from the place I was considering sluicing). If I intend to roll away a big rock for both pan and sluice, I would not include that in my calc, but the quantity and size of big rocks does significantly impact the amount of dead time one will have in "production mode" - dead time is getting the big boys out of the way and not running gravels.

What can be deadly in the math is the "nugget effect". If one does a sample with an unusually larger chunk of gold that is not typical, it will throw off the calculation. Also, how full you fill your pan and the size of the pan matters. Rule of thumb that I use is 200 pans to the yard (it keeps the math simple). I can shovel into a high banker max 3 yards per day.

Then what is economic will depend on the person and his equipment. A few colours in a pan is fun but probably not profitable and I would keep searching. A piece of flax seed size in the each pan would indicate a good place to "go to town".

 

[winners58]

STOP bringing back old threads or at least if someone does, state that
"I know its an old thread but" you get old senile farts like me and several others thinking
someone needs help, and and who knows how long its been since they logged on.
this is the 3rd one I've replied to this week... and it's only Tuesday....

 

[KevinInColorado]

STOP bringing back old threads or at least if someone does, state that
"I know its an old thread but" you get old senile farts like me and several others thinking
someone needs help, and and who knows how long its been since they logged on.
this is the 3rd one I've replied to this week... and it's only Tuesday....

Suck it up dude... :P

 

[mtau]

Here's what works for me: My gold averages 80 mesh. When sample panning, I pan 1/2 of a #2 shovel full screened to -8mesh, count the colors. If there are 5 colors, it will average .005oz per cy. 10 colors= .010cy per cy,etc. I've run several hundred cy, and this formula works for me.

 

[CApicker]

OK so unless I am missing somthing I would just add that there is no logical measurement for what you are asking unless you have some good equipment on a decent claim. My experience is that small Gold runs in streak lines and low pockets but it is not everywhere...
If you are on a good line now how long will that last? I have come across areas that I am sure based on my pans would yield ounces but have been dissapointed on return visits.
Anyway best of luck as always; each day is it's own wonderful adventure!