Placer Claim Mined Out?

[desertgolddigger]

I belong to a local club that owns a claim. This club has had this claim for many years, and acquired it after the old timers had mined it previously, and others after they commercial outfits closed up.
I walked quite a bit of the 160 acre claim, and noted that just about every wash had been worked. Most of the surface nuggets has also been detected by those with gold detectors. In other words, this place has been picked over and over and over.
But I m a stubborn type of person, and I figured, just watching how people ram their puffer and blower drywashers, that some gold was just being blown through them. maybe not much, but some small stuff that never got a chance to settle behind the riffles.
I know many of you would never go to the effort of digging for three to four hours through the tailings in these washes. Again, I'm a bit stubborn, and anyway, I just wanted to have some fun locally, instead of driving 300 miles roundtrip to something that gives a little more for less effort.
I've spent the last three weeks, digging a few times a week along about 30 yards of wash, and have recovered just about a gram of gold. That might not seem like much, but I have only dug up 5 grams, not counting this one gram in almost 20 years out here drywashing in the desert of southern California.
As you would know, things always seem to go wrong. My gas powered blower motor decided it was time for the repair shop, and haven't heard from the shop in two weeks. So I purchased a WORX WG521 corded electric leaf blower to use with my Royal Large drywasher. I'm using a portable generator to provide the power. And it actually is working better than with my old gas powered blower. I have to run the blower on the lowest speed, or I just blow everything through the riffles. Results are very good, as I am getting gold specks so small that I will have to use the Blue bowl in order to recover them.
I'm not only getting a little gold, I'm having some fun, and I am getting a good workout. I've lost 10 pounds since I started. So things are going well.
I'm still digging test holes around the old time hard rock mines in the hope I will find where the gold has drifted downhill below these mines. So far just a couple specks here and there. I figure I just have to move laterally one way or the other before I get something better Of course, I' don't really know if the old timers stripped the hillsides. Even if they have, they apparently aren't as thorough as I am. I hope that I may be lucky and find a larger piece of gold that the old timers, previous placer miners, and detectorists have missed.
Hope everyone is having as much fun as I have been having.

 

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[Assembler]

You probably have long arms. I tried to do what you mentioned, but my head was almost a foot behind the data. screen. I'll either have to slide it towards the coil, or reverse it, in order to see.

If the detector says what its detecting is ferrous, should I still keep the rock, or toss it? So far I've not gotten one peep out of any rocks. Maybe the signal is very weak, and I'm not listening hard enough. I'll try headphones.

A large amount of iron can over signal out a coil in most cases.
Moving the coil away from the background minerals in the earth is less to over load the coil with.

Enough values / gold has to be there in order to be detected. This is just one method to check out.

 

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[desertgolddigger]

Detecting today was a bust. I tried the elevated coil, but when I presented rocks to the coil, I got hits on everything. Turned out that my hand was setting off the detector. And no, I don't have any metal in my hands. It also sounds off on any part of my body.

When I detected on the ground, I got little yips that weren't anything but false signals. I quit digging once I figured out the there wasn't anything where the detector mad that little yip.

It does sound off on my boot eyelet, my keys, and my paleo pick, but nothing in the half dozen locations I tried detecting. Four hours of nothing.

And yes, I ground balanced frequently.

Anyone want a cheap detector? PM me. I've given up trying to use this Minelab GM1000. My Time Ranger is easier to use.

 

[Assembler]

Detecting today was a bust. I tried the elevated coil, but when I presented rocks to the coil, I got hits on everything. Turned out that my hand was setting off the detector. And no, I don't have any metal in my hands. It also sounds off on any part of my body.

When I detected on the ground, I got little yips that weren't anything but false signals. I quit digging once I figured out the there wasn't anything where the detector mad that little yip.

It does sound off on my boot eyelet, my keys, and my paleo pick, but nothing in the half dozen locations I tried detecting. Four hours of nothing.

And yes, I ground balanced frequently.

Anyone want a cheap detector? PM me. I've given up trying to use this Minelab GM1000. My Time Ranger is easier to use.

No one detector will work in all settings. Can the detector be tuned to not be as senitive (like a light hum all the time)?
It does take time and effort to try different setup / detectors.

 

[desertgolddigger]

No one detector will work in all settings. Can the detector be tuned to not be as senitive (like a light hum all the time)?
It does take time and effort to try different setup / detectors.

Nope, This one is fully automatic. But you can vary the sensitivity, and volume. You can press a button to increase depth, but you lose sensitivity. That same button is used for ground balancing. If your in the shallow setting, you press the button to deep setting, and bounce your detector up and down until it quiets, then you press that button again for the shallow setting you had.

If you want fully automatic, set the sensitivity until the block in the center of the sensitivity setting comes on. To go out of automatic, lower the sensitivity until the block disappears.

It's supposed to be a detector for people like myself, who aren't very techy inclined.

One thing I noticed is the cable, even when coiled around the shaft, still tends to move, and I think that might be causing problems. The shaft is also made of metal, and that might be a problem.

I'll use electrical tape to secure the cable to the shaft so it cannot move at all, and see what happens.

But I just don't get why my hands set off the detector like I'm made of metal.

 

[southfork]

Don't give-up so quickly are you using a plastic scoop? The salt on your skin will sometimes give off false signals. It takes practice. That's why you see so many used metal detectors on the market I have several of my own that I don't use because I'm not good at it. My son will hear a signal that I missed and show me the target. I have had good days on larger gold maybe that's all I can hear not really a bad thing.

 

[Assembler]

Nope, This one is fully automatic. But you can vary the sensitivity, and volume. You can press a button to increase depth, but you lose sensitivity. That same button is used for ground balancing. If your in the shallow setting, you press the button to deep setting, and bounce your detector up and down until it quiets, then you press that button again for the shallow setting you had.

If you want fully automatic, set the sensitivity until the block in the center of the sensitivity setting comes on. To go out of automatic, lower the sensitivity until the block disappears.

It's supposed to be a detector for people like myself, who aren't very techy inclined.

One thing I noticed is the cable, even when coiled around the shaft, still tends to move, and I think that might be causing problems. The shaft is also made of metal, and that might be a problem.

I'll use electrical tape to secure the cable to the shaft so it cannot move at all, and see what happens.

But I just don't get why my hands set off the detector like I'm made of metal.

You have nothing to loose by ground balance on a sample rock (like rock type) then with the same setting detect a different rock and rotate the rock sample to have the coil scan / detect different parts of that sample rock. A fully auto detector is not the best choice in general however this test should be tried out.

 

[Assembler]

Don't give-up so quickly are you using a plastic scoop? The salt on your skin will sometimes give off false signals. It takes practice. That's why you see so many used metal detectors on the market I have several of my own that I don't use because I'm not good at it. My son will hear a signal that I missed and show me the target. I have had good days on larger gold maybe that's all I can hear not really a bad thing.

Larger gold is easier to find for sure. The method I point out is for finer values that many could miss if the same sampe is at the ground plane / minerized zone as other rocks. This is a slow process for detecting in general.

 

[southfork]

Larger gold is easier to find for sure. The method I point out is for finer values that many could miss if the same sampe is at the ground plane / minerized zone as other rocks. This is a slow process for detecting in general.

Easier to hear maybe lol

 

[desertgolddigger]

Don't give-up so quickly are you using a plastic scoop? The salt on your skin will sometimes give off false signals. It takes practice. That's why you see so many used metal detectors on the market I have several of my own that I don't use because I'm not good at it. My son will hear a signal that I missed and show me the target. I have had good days on larger gold maybe that's all I can hear not really a bad thing.

I had a plastic scoop, but I think I left it outside. The next day we had 50mph wind gusts. So I think its gone. I ordered another from Amazon, along with an attachment for my belt, which I hope will retain the scoop there.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I did bring back some discolored rocks, but the detector showed nothing. I just finished crushing 3 of the very small ones. I couldn't see any gold with a 10x loupe, but I did see some silver colored specks. Those might be just small quartz shining though.

I may invest in a small chain type rock crusher. Which is better, gas powered or electric? Please recommend a powered type rock crusher, as my hands are toast, after my round of just crushing those 3 rocks, and they weren't even powdered very well.

I get the feeling I just need a way to crush the rock into fine powder. Then maybe I can find some fine gold that even a detector can't find

 

[Assembler]

Easier to hear maybe lol

Yes that is what I mean as there is not much bigger gold in my neck of the woods. Finding fines is what it is here.

 

[Assembler]

I did bring back some discolored rocks, but the detector showed nothing. I just finished crushing 3 of the very small ones. I couldn't see any gold with a 10x loupe, but I did see some silver colored specks. Those might be just small quartz shining though.

I may invest in a small chain type rock crusher. Which is better, gas powered or electric? Please recommend a powered type rock crusher, as my hands are toast, after my round of just crushing those 3 rocks, and they weren't even powdered very well.

I get the feeling I just need a way to crush the rock into fine powder. Then maybe I can find some fine gold that even a detector can't find

It is more fun if you can spot some gold with your eyes before crushing.

 

[desertgolddigger]

It is more fun if you can spot some gold with your eyes before crushing.

Yes, but what I just read said that you should look for banding in the quartz, and then fracture the rock along the banding. But the gold might not be visible to the naked eye, or even with a 10x loupe. Guess I need a cheap microscope.

 

[Assembler]

Yes, but what I just read said that you should look for banding in the quartz, and then fracture the rock along the banding. But the gold might not be visible to the naked eye, or even with a 10x loupe. Guess I need a cheap microscope.

Not all deposits are in a mineral band of quartz. You may be able to spot specks where others may not be looking. If you are looking for a gram or two start looking away from the quartz that others have. You could be the first to start finding it.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Not all deposits are in a mineral band of quartz. You may be able to spot specks where others may not be looking. If you are looking for a gram or two start looking away from the quartz that others have. You could be the first to start finding it.

What do you mean by looking away. Would gold be in the brownish layer the OT prospectors stopped at. The seemed to strip the quartz rock, and when they got to the brownish layer, and sometimes grey colored rock, they stopped.

 

[Assembler]

What do you mean by looking away. Would gold be in the brownish layer the OT prospectors stopped at. The seemed to strip the quartz rock, and when they got to the brownish layer, and sometimes grey colored rock, they stopped.

If you can't see any specks in or next to the quartz try looking near by.

 

[desertgolddigger]

If you can't see any specks in or next to the quartz try looking near by.

I'm picking through OT hard rock tailing piles, not mining hard rock mines. I can't go in the four cave mines on our claim, as they are vertical. We have a few surface hard rock mines, but they don't look promising. I get the feeling the OTer's worked this area pretty good, leaving very little, if any around for people like myself. They were commercial companies primarily, not individuals who worked these mines.

 

[Reed Lukens]

You need to spend enough time with your minelab to know everything about how it works. Learning that detector isn't that time consuming. Use it until you completely understand it.
Use velcro to tie the cable to the shaft. Go to a park and do some coin hunting to help you learn that detector. It's a great machine.

 

[arizau]

Subtle sound responses (barely detectable targets) may not be percieved when using the detector's speaker...are you using headphones?

 

[desertgolddigger]

Subtle sound responses (barely detectable targets) may not be percieved when using the detector's speaker...are you using headphones?

Now that it's cooling a lot, it's probably safe to do so. I do hear little yips, but haven't found anything. I get my plastic scoop today, so I'll have a better chance of locating something. My hands are just too reactive for this detector. My Time Ranger doesn't sound off when I have my hand near the coil. Guess this GM1000 is a lot more sensitive.

Reed, we have two parks in town, and detecting isn't allowed. I can understand why, as we live in the desert, and grass is hard to grow, and water is scarce. I'll probably go to one of the locations where they processed ore. I did years ago, and found a manufacturer plate that probably had been nailed to a pick, hammer, or some such tool.

EDITED: BTW, I broke, and crushed another rock. This time it was one with pock marks in it, where gold had been. I figured that maybe some fine gold might still be inside, and I was right. But only three very very tiny specks. I'll try another one tomorrow of the same type.