Hello Matt
These days most modern miners look for valuable gold, copper silver in host rock. To mine reef gold is expensive because of set up cost of mine is much more complicated. They do costings of the amount of precious-metal per tonne of host rock to mine for the best approximate cost of ore mined and processed.
In Aussie slang we have term for these type of gold reefs we call them noodles as they can be very rich in quartz vein. But poor mineral value in the host rock surrounding them. Once the quartz reef is dug up the mine is finished. There are thousands of abandoned reef mines in the United states and Australia like that. So large modern mining companies are not really interested in Very rich in small concentrations along the quartz reef. They prefer open cut large mineralsed ore body that has several million tones of ore to process for a good return, to justify huge set up costs.
A good paying reef mines are the ones very close to the surface that do not require large scale underground operation. Ones on surface are the easy ones that can be worked one or two miners small scale for big profits. Some reefs are small but can yield high amounts of gold in small area. The Downside is during the Gold rush the First miners sifted the alluvial gold from the rivers and creeks. When that began to get worked out they took their attention to reef mines. However to mine them effectively they had to form companies to mine them. It spelled the end of independent miner in some respects. Many of the 49ers ended up working for wages, not much better of than where they had come from. Still I have no doubt some reefs where were missed or only partly worked lost or abandoned for various reasons.
So perhaps Levi Carson reef still has some life in it, if you can find it of course.
Just quickly for example, I show plan of reef mine the trio had an interest in years ago. it was actually a series of reef deposits.
This maddens reef was series reefs formed along the fault. Surrounded by world heritage area the site was restricted by soaring operation costs and falling gold values to make it worthwhile operation. The site became a hobby mine for a group but they still had to comply with state mining laws and compliance codes and permits.
So the best reef to find one is one you can hack out the gold bearing surface quartz reef yourselves and get a couple of hundred ounces and not be tied up with large scale mining costs and liabilities.
Hopefully with Carson reef it has not been fully exploited.
Crow
