On to a new prospecting section of a south Denver creek I identified using Google Earth overlaid with geologic outcrop maps. This section is about 150 yards long with the following features - a few good point bars with inside bends, some bedrock that is anywhere from a few feet below stream bed to right at stream bed, pockets and incised channels cut into bedrock, a few large boulders and two small waterfalls. Went out for a few hours to the upstream part of section, which starts with a small waterfall.
At the base of the falls there are some football size rock and fist-size to 1/2" gravels. Took a shovel full of gravel and panned out about 15 colors (#30 to 100 size gold), so a positive start.
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There was a great spot to set up the Bazooka about four foot below the waterfall, so I decided to run about eight gallons of material through the sluice.
Bazooka set up:
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The first several shovels were mostly running gravel/sand/black sand through the Bazooka. The I hit a soft clay bed mixed with a fair amount of 1/2" and smaller gravel and black sands.
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With a little bit of hand mixing I was able to dissolve the clay in a plastic oil pan (see in background above photo) and the run it through the sluice. What was cool was after dumping the clay/gravel into the sluice and rinsing the pan out, I almost always found a few small flakes (#30 size and smaller) still in the oil pan.
Here is a shot of the gold I sucked up just from remnants left in the oil pan.
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Moved downstream about 20 feet to an old piece of concrete (really old and crumbling) in the middle of the stream. There was 2" to 1/2" gravel piled up behind it, so I dug up two shovels of material and panned them down to black sand. Wish I had taken a photo of the black sand- each pan ended up having about 1 1/2 cups of black sand --- and about half was magnetite, which I removed with a magnet. As I was double dropping the magnetite I could see several colors in the pan, so am really excited to process this also!
Will post photos of processed cons from both of these spots within the next few days...