Newbie Question / Looking for opinions

[aescal]

To start off Im new to the forums, and a totally amateur at prospecting. I've recently acquired a nice tract of land in a valley of the Andes Mountains that I think has some potential. Every year, during, the rainy season, the snow caps melt and flood the river that borders the property with fresh silt/rocks/sand. Ive collected samples from around the biggest rocks and most of the color I am seeing comes from material ive screened with 1/8th mesh, and is extremely small (probably the size of glitter flakes). What would some of the more experienced members recommend for catching gold this size? Ideally I would like to be able to bring back about 2 tons of screened material to the house on the weekends and work it during my down time. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[GoldHunter24k]

Hey Aescal and welcome to Tnet! I'm fairly new here also but it already feels like home Been learning so much here. sounds like you need a good sluice box. It allows you to run material faster if you find decent color in your sample pans. I'm a beginner also and i've just recently started prospecting and I know the glitter flakes you speak of all too well.

I've heard of blue bowls and spiral wheels that are newer designs but less tried and true.

I had been fooled a few times by what seem to be tiny gold flakes but now I know to ignore the shiny stuff! I've been doing a lot of research and you can search you tube for blue bowl, sluice box, and you'll find all kinds of stuff good for separating the gold from the black sand. Just make sure you find the real thing before you start digging buckets-ful I learned the hard way

 

[B H Prospector]

Hi Aescal,
Get a sluice box and run the material at the creek you are working on. Easier to work 2 tons at the creek than to lug it home. Then take your cons from the sluice and either pan it at the creek (use a safety pan) or take your cons home to work them. After panning the larger gold then screen the cons down to 100 mesh and blue bowl the -30 to -100 mesh to get the micro gold. However only do all this if you know you have real gold. Test it first. You don't want to do alot of work for nothing.

Good Luck!

B H Prospector

 

[jcazgoldchaser]

First you need to determine if you have rights to the material.

If you have moving water and you are allowed to discharge into it, a sluice would be ideal.



If not, if you can use the water and can get a pump to the location, use a highbanker



Either of these will allow you to process a great deal of material, bringing home only the concentrates (heavies) which contain the gold (hopefully).

Simple to make a drop ripple. Many various items can be used as classifiers.