Need advice - Prospecting a new, sandy creek in New England

[JeffA]

Hello, I'd like to ask some advice on doing some test pans on a new (to me) creek. Today I was granted access to it, which is on my parents neighbor's private property which has me quite excited! Let me first say I believe there's going to be gold in it, because I've found a few small pieces of gold where this creek empties into a larger river further down. I believe this creek to be an ancient river, because when standing in the creek, the banks vary from shoulder to head high, and the banks are also jammed with round rocks. In some places along the banks you can see different layers of material, ranging from soil, sand, black silt, clay, and as I said, many round and jagged rocks mixed throughout. The creek bottom has many rocks, ranging from tiny up to boulders that I could never move. There are plenty of bends and curves, even a mini "waterfall" where water drops off of some very large rocks, that has a waist deep pool below. I did a few test pans as it was getting dark today, and found one little fly poop piece of gold, however small pieces are what one would generally expect to find in RI. Further down the creek there is one small section where bedrock is present, however there aren't cracks to do crevicing. The reason I ask advice here, is there is lots of loose sand mixed between rocks. In a very sandy creek, where are some of the best spots to test pan? Although I've already had some success at another location in RI finding small pieces, I'm still a newbie to prospecting. The 5 or so test pans I did today were behind and under large rocks, the bottom of the little waterfall, from the bank, and from an inside bend. Each pan was rock, mixed with lots of sand. Based on this explanation, where do you more experienced prospectors recommend I focus on testing before running my sluice (if I find gold test panning)? The signs of gold are there: quartz, mica, garnets and black sand at the bottom of pans. I'm very hopeful to find gold here, because it's basically a drive up and prospect spot, and only I have access to it. What concerns me is the high amount of loose sand. When I dig behind a large rock for example, it seems like an endless bottom of looser sand, in which the gold would probably sink way down, no? I will take some pictures and add them to this post within the next couple of days. Thanks in advance for any advice. Jeff

 

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[et1955]

You are very perceptive in looking at the banks, that will help you mine the creek. Test the banks, see where the gold is. Learn the deposition of different types of floods, slow floods sand and more powerful floods rocks. Also maybe this will help, of all the rivers I have mined, 3 stand out because the deposition of gold was so different than the others I mine, there are certain patterns on some rivers that make it easy to locate the gold, what was different about these 3 rivers was that during a flood leaves were laid down in the slow spots creating false bedrock giving a place for the gold to deposit. The base of the river is 3 to 4 inch rocks, no bed rock in site. Even in that type of material I was able to dig down and see the layers of floods and find gold.

 

[ghostminer]

See if they will let you take a mini excavator in there to dig out some of the benches you suspect carry gold. You can rent a small one for a day or two. Get yourself a decent highbanker & run the material - maybe 5 yds at several locations. See what you get & if it's worth your time. Remember, time is money, panning is a back breaking pain in the ass.

 

[JeffA]

So today I went back to my new private property access site for a couple of hours. I classified and ran one 5 gal bucket of material and ran it through my sluice. Upon panning that, I found 5 tiny little pieces. Again, this is all one would expect in RI. I then headed further down, to the bedrock area and after a little digging, found some natural ripples in the bedrock as shown in pictures. Short on time, I filled a 5 gal bucket about 2/3 of the way with classified material from the bedrock area and nearby banks and lugged it way back up the hill. I'll pan that at home here and let you know what the results are. I have a feeling it will be decent material for this area, considering I found the 5 little pieces further up above that little "waterfall" falling between those two boulders. This creek dries up entirely as the Summer goes on which isn't too far away. Feel free to offer any advice upon viewing the pictures (other than go north for bigger gold lol). Thanks! Jeff

 

[placertogo]

See if they will let you take a mini excavator in there to dig out some of the benches you suspect carry gold. You can rent a small one for a day or two. Get yourself a decent highbanker & run the material - maybe 5 yds at several locations. See what you get & if it's worth your time. Remember, time is money, panning is a back breaking pain in the ass.

You have already gone on record as telling people they should not allow others to prospect on their property and now you are telling someone to bring in a mini-excavator on property that a landowner was kind enough to let the person prospect upon. Perhaps it is people such as yourself who are the problem.

 

[placertogo]

Hello, I'd like to ask some advice on doing some test pans on a new (to me) creek. Today I was granted access to it, which is on my parents neighbor's private property which has me quite excited! Let me first say I believe there's going to be gold in it, because I've found a few small pieces of gold where this creek empties into a larger river further down. I believe this creek to be an ancient river, because when standing in the creek, the banks vary from shoulder to head high, and the banks are also jammed with round rocks. In some places along the banks you can see different layers of material, ranging from soil, sand, black silt, clay, and as I said, many round and jagged rocks mixed throughout. The creek bottom has many rocks, ranging from tiny up to boulders that I could never move. There are plenty of bends and curves, even a mini "waterfall" where water drops off of some very large rocks, that has a waist deep pool below. I did a few test pans as it was getting dark today, and found one little fly poop piece of gold, however small pieces are what one would generally expect to find in RI. Further down the creek there is one small section where bedrock is present, however there aren't cracks to do crevicing. The reason I ask advice here, is there is lots of loose sand mixed between rocks. In a very sandy creek, where are some of the best spots to test pan? Although I've already had some success at another location in RI finding small pieces, I'm still a newbie to prospecting. The 5 or so test pans I did today were behind and under large rocks, the bottom of the little waterfall, from the bank, and from an inside bend. Each pan was rock, mixed with lots of sand. Based on this explanation, where do you more experienced prospectors recommend I focus on testing before running my sluice (if I find gold test panning)? The signs of gold are there: quartz, mica, garnets and black sand at the bottom of pans. I'm very hopeful to find gold here, because it's basically a drive up and prospect spot, and only I have access to it. What concerns me is the high amount of loose sand. When I dig behind a large rock for example, it seems like an endless bottom of looser sand, in which the gold would probably sink way down, no? I will take some pictures and add them to this post within the next couple of days. Thanks in advance for any advice. Jeff

My great grandmother’s sister married a man named George Lyon who had a nice vein of gold in quartz protruding from bedrock on his farm in Foster, RI. It happens there were a number of such small outcroppings in that area. Some went so far as to build small stamp mills to process the free milling gold. So all gold in RI is not necessarily glacial in origin and originating from away.

 

[JeffA]

My great grandmother’s sister married a man named George Lyon who had a nice vein of gold in quartz protruding from bedrock on his farm in Foster, RI. It happens there were a number of such small outcroppings in that area. Some went so far as to build small stamp mills to process the free milling gold. So all gold in RI is not necessarily glacial in origin and originating from away.

I couldn't agree more. My main location has gold of different sizes, lots of different types of rocks. The gold is small, but I am convinced it is coming from somewhere upstream. In time I hope to find the source. I have a feeling it comes from rocks that wear down from the water running over them. Just a gut feeling. There is definitely gold in RI, in more than one location/town as I have already proven to myself.