Should I dig here or there?

[bryler]

I have a small creek on the back of my property that I think might have been significantly bigger way way back. It's only about 2-3 feet deep now on average but My 98 year old neighbor says that when she was a kid they used to have boats come by to load/unload at the flour mill all the time and the water was over her head. Anyhow, I was curious were my best chances would be, in the creek bed or along the "old" creek bed? I randomly dug a hole about 25' away from the creek and hit pure silt about a foot down. Should I bother digging deeper or just go straight for the creek?

Oh yeah, I panned 3 shovel fulls of mud/silt from the edge of the creek just for kicks and got a few very very small flakes. That's how I discovered there was gold there. Not much but still, it's a hobby I guess. I was looking for clay to be honest but gold seems more fun.

Here is a layout of the creek area. It looks like it was a lot bigger long ago with the older creek getting covered in muck and today is very small.

 

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[arizau]

Interesting question. I would probably test pan the existing creek especially if it has a rocky bottom. Maybe scoop out to bedrock or to a clay layer that the rocks are laying on if it is possible. You might also check against the inside edge of a bend if your creek is crooked. I am guessing that the creek was dammed and the dam diverted water to run a water wheel to power the flour mill.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

PS: Your general location may help us help you.

 

[bryler]

I live in the Northern part of Trumbull county, North East Ohio. I have looked up prospecting maps and such and I can't seem to make heads or tails of them but I figured I should try. Is it normal to find small flakes in the surface mud? But yes, the existing creek has a rocky bottom. Almost completely covered in golfball-ish sized rocks, several basketball size and a few feet wide. The creek is crooked but was more gracefully shaped before, I think. Yes, the neighbor did say it was damned a bit up creek to create a swimming spot and a watering hole for the horses. That was in the 20s. My house is actually the old store and changing rooms built in 1920.

 

[Underburden]

"Is it normal to find small flakes in the surface mud?"
Flakes of what? Not common for flakes of gold to sit on surface mud. Are you looking at mica flakes perhaps?

 

[Lanny in AB]

If your area has glacial gold, and if your flakes are flour gold (truly tiny flakes indeed), you can pan them just about anywhere. We have glacial gold here (no detectable gold for metal detectors, just glacial gold, but it's everywhere), and I can head out to fields during the spring runoff and get flour gold wherever there's a clay layer to let it hit and stick. You can't get a lot, but it's spread all over the place; every tiny stream or running gully has some. This may be what you're finding. When I hit the creeks around here, I always look for rocks fist-sized or larger and I pan there. That's where I'll get garnets and flakes that might get as big as the head of a pin, but that's about it for size. Plus, nothing ever works its way down deep as it's all flood gold: it sits shallow in the tops of gravel bars and gets blown out and replenished with every significant water event.

Because all we have is glacial gold, that's why I always travel a few hours either west or south to get into the nuggets!

So, check out your little creek, but it sounds like you might be chasing flour gold; however, I've used flood gold to cure the gold fever when I can't chase the big stuff in the mountains.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[bryler]

Flakes of what? Not common for flakes of gold to sit on surface mud. Are you looking at mica flakes perhaps?

I suppose I shouldn't use the term flakes. I'm guess it's flour gold(?) that Lanny in Ab mentioned. Sorry, but I don't know what mica flakes are. I'll have to look that up.

If your area has glacial gold, and if your flakes are flour gold (truly tiny flakes indeed), you can pan them just about anywhere.

I looked up the glacial map for Ohio and I think I'm in a "ground moraine" area from Wisconsinan. At least that's what it looks like on the geosurvey map. We just had a snow and there is some ice build up on the sides of the creek. After that melts and the creek goes back down a little more in a few days, I'll do some testing away from the muddy edges and get into the rocky center more. I'll snap a few photos so maybe you experienced diggers can eyeball a good spot to test in as well.

Glacial map of Ohio
https://geosurvey.ohiodnr.gov/portals/geosurvey/PDFs/Glacial/glacial.pdf
I live in Trumbull county, second from the top, all the way to the east. The yellowish area inside that blue arc.

 

[Goodyguy]

I live in the Northern part of Trumbull county, North East Ohio. I have looked up prospecting maps and such and I can't seem to make heads or tails of them but I figured I should try. Is it normal to find small flakes in the surface mud? But yes, the existing creek has a rocky bottom. Almost completely covered in golfball-ish sized rocks, several basketball size and a few feet wide. The creek is crooked but was more gracefully shaped before, I think. Yes, the neighbor did say it was damned a bit up creek to create a swimming spot and a watering hole for the horses. That was in the 20s. My house is actually the old store and changing rooms built in 1920.

Forget the gold panning for now........ Sounds to me like you have a great area to metal detect!
Think of all the old coins and gold and silver rings lost in and around the swimming hole not to mention all the coins around the store. Sure you will also find a lot of trash and stuff but what you have is a metal detectorist's dream come true.

As for the glacial gold it's going to take an awful lot of it to equal the value of just one gold ring, not to mention a small gold coin or even a few silver ones for that matter.

Hopefully, you have a friend or relative with experience metal detecting who will work with you.
In the meantime learn as much about the history of the property as you can.


GG~

 

[bryler]

Forget the gold panning for now........ Sounds to me like you have a great area to metal detect!
Think of all the old coins and gold and silver rings lost in and around the swimming hole not to mention all the coins around the store. Sure you will also find a lot of trash and stuff but what you have is a metal detectorist's dream come true

Haha. Funny you should mention that. My daughter has one of those $25 cheapo detectors and it pinged everywhere. Turns out the previous owner and the neighbor were both machinists. They must of never heard of garbage cans because there is metal all over this property. She found a chunk of metal the size of a softball. We thought it was a heavy rock at first. It looked like a lava rock but that thing turned out to be a heavy metal glob.

I took a couple pictures up and down the creek and the type of rocks that are mostly present. I dug down into the creek about a foot and it's a mix of sand, pebbles, rocks like in the pictures and a few grapefruit sized rocks. I tried to take a picture of a spec of gold I got today. I got 3 of those little pieces from three shovel scoops from the creek. I don't know the sizes of gold but they were small. One was flat like a flake, the other two where rounder like a nugget, but all were small.

 

[arizau]

A speck or so every shovelful is pretty productive even if the gold is pinhead sized or smaller. If I were you I would consider getting a sluice so I could process many shovelfuls since you seem to have proved that the creek is gold bearing. The creek seems to be pretty lazy, with very little drop, in the pictures but you may find a spot where it pinches down, or has a rapids, and build a temporary rock dam to set it up in. At the very least you could do some production panning and accumulate quantities of concentrates that you could then screen classify and pan down.

Good luck.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Haha. Funny you should mention that. My daughter has one of those $25 cheapo detectors and it pinged everywhere. Turns out the previous owner and the neighbor were both machinists. They must of never heard of garbage cans because there is metal all over this property. She found a chunk of metal the size of a softball. We thought it was a heavy rock at first. It looked like a lava rock but that thing turned out to be a heavy metal glob.

I took a couple pictures up and down the creek and the type of rocks that are mostly present. I dug down into the creek about a foot and it's a mix of sand, pebbles, rocks like in the pictures and a few grapefruit sized rocks. I tried to take a picture of a spec of gold I got today. I got 3 of those little pieces from three shovel scoops from the creek. I don't know the sizes of gold but they were small. One was flat like a flake, the other two where rounder like a nugget, but all were small.

It looks quite small, so find an inside bend, or a bar, and work the top part. Start right at the surface and work down to say, 6-8 inches sampling across the bar. Watch for indicators like black sands or garnets, and start testing where the surface rocks are largest. Glacial flour gold is so light it doesn't get a chance to work very deep in the bars. With bigger gold, you'd try to hit an armour layer of clay or bedrock with your digging as the heavy stuff will sink, but not flour gold as it's too light.

All the best, and welcome to the fun,

Lanny

 

[Ragnor]

I have a small creek on the back of my property that I think might have been significantly bigger way way back. It's only about 2-3 feet deep now on average but My 98 year old neighbor says that when she was a kid they used to have boats come by to load/unload at the flour mill all the time and the water was over her head. Anyhow, I was curious were my best chances would be, in the creek bed or along the "old" creek bed? I randomly dug a hole about 25' away from the creek and hit pure silt about a foot down. Should I bother digging deeper or just go straight for the creek?

Oh yeah, I panned 3 shovel fulls of mud/silt from the edge of the creek just for kicks and got a few very very small flakes. That's how I discovered there was gold there. Not much but still, it's a hobby I guess. I was looking for clay to be honest but gold seems more fun.

Here is a layout of the creek area. It looks like it was a lot bigger long ago with the older creek getting covered in muck and today is very small.

Find bedrock..... Run a pit and trommel if yah have nothing better to do. I know I would.

 

[sherm]

Hey! wish I had a stream like that on my property. Been prospecting/mining now for 18 years, found some, even had my own 40 acre claim in AZ. Your best bet is getting on the net and type in HOW TO READ A STREAM AND FIND GOLD. You should get your info from there. May the bottom of your pan always have yellow.

 

[TerryC]

Ragnor hit it. Bedrock. If you're finding flour in every shovel, the bigger/heavier gold is farther down. Inside curves, down to bedrock on the older shelf/bench! TTC