The Quest for Maine Gold

[OreCart]

Well today was one of my more interesting days prospecting…

I decided to do a big loop and check out various sampling sites. The first stop was number one as the geologist I am working with has an affinity for schist-muscovite-quartz-garnet, so I thought I would take some pictures there. I did, but other then some new strike directions, and some surficial flows out of the region there was nothing exciting.

I did see a site on top of a hill that was interesting. On the Northeast side there was a fairly big depression, but I could not tell if the area had been a test dig, with my forefathers onto the same thing I was, or if it was just where a big tree had uprooted, then rotted to oblivion giving the soil the dug look. I will go with the first so that I can lay claim that it was dug here before and I can mine it under grandfather Clause!

But then as I was headed to a new stream to test pan, I saw a track in the snow. It was snowing really hard out, and yet this track was super-fresh and I had expected I had jumped a Bobcat. After that the hunt was on, and it was me!

This is not really a good time of year to be jumping predators with their young, so I crossed a stream, broke through the ice and dragged myself up the ravine only to find more Bobcat tracks. There is nothing in Maine that will hurt you, but when you are alone in 10,000 acres of forest by yourself, the potential to get attacked seems more likely than sane thinking.

 

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[OreCart]

On my way to my new revised plan of checking out sample site number three, I thought I saw something up ahead, but being 44 years old, and twenty-three years of them spent welding, my eyes are not that great. Thinking it was a log with funny bark, and a knot hole, I kept going until I practically stumbled upon this little guy; thankfully it was prey and not a predator.

A nice rabbit though to say the least.

He watched me for about five minutes before he bounded off, no doubt spooked by the mornings Bobcat activity in the area.

 

[OreCart]

So, I decided to pan the stream for that Palladium Nugget I saw.

I test panned (2) pan full’s in the same spot, and drew up (1) flake of PGM, (2) specks, and a bunch of flour PGM’s. It is possible that it is silver and not PGM’s because classifying might have taken the tarnish off the silver, but that would not explain away the shape of the first PGM nugget I found, nor would it explain the low silver numbers on the nearby lode vein I had assayed. That was galena and should have been pretty high for silver? Maybe it has high PGM’s number instead? Time to resample!

That took putting on my big boy pants because in a big hole in the rock I saw Bobcat tracks going in, and NONE coming out, and it was only about 10 feet away from that lode vein. But HOLY GALENA!! It took me 15 minutes to chip the galena off the quartz, and get a big chunk of quartz out, but I could see visible gold and silver where it detached from the host rock. Of course the whole time I was hoping my hammer strike upon chisel did not wake said Bobcat.

By that time I was soaked to the bone from the snow, and miles away from home, so I slung my backpack on loaded with literally pounds of lead (galena) and headed to the house with a mental note to pack little ole Kimber (9MM) next time…just in case a momma Bobcat wants to roll with this old Orecart.

 

[OreCart]

I went to go retrieve my lost shovel today. and became hunted again.

No Kimber Micro 9mm with me this time either, but there is one big Kitty out there.

I took a picture of my tracks going in at 11:00 AM to show you the difference. My boot track is half melted and does not look fresh, and the photo was taken an hour after being made.

Now hold that thought...

 

[OreCart]

Then on the way back home I saw this Kitty print...nice and fresh as compared to my tracks going in (post above)!

She was apparently keeping an eye on me, but I never saw her. This one is quite a bit bigger than the last one, in fact this is THE largest Bobcat track I have ever seen around here. It was seen about 100 feet from where I saw that rabbit.

I would not be so concerned, but it means she has kittens around.

Never a dull day prospecting!

 

[OreCart]

Then on the way back home I saw this Kitty print...nice and fresh as compared to my tracks going in (post above)!

She was apparently keeping an eye on me, but I never saw her. This one is quite a bit bigger than the last one, in fact this is THE largest Bobcat track I have ever seen around here. It was seen about 100 feet from where I saw that rabbit.

I would not be so concerned, but it means she has kittens around.

Never a dull day prospecting!

View attachment 1702093

UPDATE:

I talked with the local hunters and they said they have been tracking this particular Bobcat for awhile, but it has eluded them and the dogs. Bobcat is out of season now, but I have no problems with letting it be. I travel into their living room and not the other way around.

They said the Bobcat's are really starting to bunch up here, as the Lynx push them out of their former territory. I have nothing against the Lynx, but the wildlife people do not seem to know they change a dozen other things when they show favoritism to one type of wildlife.
I am still miffed they introduced Turkey and Fisher's!

 

[OreCart]

I have not been prospecting much lately. The frost is almost out of the ground, and my attention has turned to gravel work.

I did haul a load of gravel out of the gravel pit which got me to thinking about seeing if the gravel pit held gold. I would say I was about 50/50 on whether it had it or not, but it did. I did 3 test pans and got a lot of specks, some flakes and a few pickers. The latter was surprising, but I will admit I cheated.

There are two locations in this 8 acre pit that has bedrock, and not wanting to test pan yards of gravel, I shoveled out the gravel out of the crevices in the bedrock where I cannot get the excavator bucket. That would increase my chances of seeing if gold was laying on top of the bedrock. It was not a lot considering the ideal location, but there at least.

 

[brianc053]

I have not been prospecting much lately. The frost is almost out of the ground, and my attention has turned to gravel work.

I did haul a load of gravel out of the gravel pit which got me to thinking about seeing if the gravel pit held gold. I would say I was about 50/50 on whether it had it or not, but it did. I did 3 test pans and got a lot of specks, some flakes and a few pickers. The latter was surprising, but I will admit I cheated.

There are two locations in this 8 acre pit that has bedrock, and not wanting to test pan yards of gravel, I shoveled out the gravel out of the crevices in the bedrock where I cannot get the excavator bucket. That would increase my chances of seeing if gold was laying on top of the bedrock. It was not a lot considering the ideal location, but there at least.

Hey OreCart, would you be able to share a picture or two of the gold from the pit? (I love looking at other people's gold!)
- Brian

 

[OreCart]

Hey OreCart, would you be able to share a picture or two of the gold from the pit? (I love looking at other people's gold!)
- Brian

Sure the next time I do something there I will try and take pictures.

With prospecting I typically do not take pictures because I do not even bother to keep the gold/silver/pgm's. I typically just see if it is present, make note of it in my journal, and move on. I typically do three test pans, and confirm or deny gold from that. I figure if I have to take more than three pans, it would not be a stream worth returning too.

 

[brianc053]

Sure the next time I do something there I will try and take pictures.

With prospecting I typically do not take pictures because I do not even bother to keep the gold/silver/pgm's. I typically just see if it is present, make note of it in my journal, and move on. I typically do three test pans, and confirm or deny gold from that. I figure if I have to take more than three pans, it would not be a stream worth returning too.

Wow, interesting perspective. So are you just collecting data for an eventual full-scale operation?
See, for some context: I'm just a recreational "miner". I just got back from Virginia where my son and I dredged Friday and Saturday, and we literally get excited by -20 mesh specs of gold in the test pans. We keep every single spec...because there may only be a few. A great day would be 1/2 a gram.
So...I'm curious about what you're finding in test pans up in Maine.
- Brian
PS - when i've cleaned up my concentrates from the VA trip I'll post a story with some GoPro video.

 

[OreCart]

Wow, interesting perspective. So are you just collecting data for an eventual full-scale operation?
See, for some context: I'm just a recreational "miner". I just got back from Virginia where my son and I dredged Friday and Saturday, and we literally get excited by -20 mesh specs of gold in the test pans. We keep every single spec...because there may only be a few. A great day would be 1/2 a gram.
So...I'm curious about what you're finding in test pans up in Maine.
- Brian
PS - when i've cleaned up my concentrates from the VA trip I'll post a story with some GoPro video.

I fully understand wanting to keep every speck found. In a lot of ways I am because this is my own land, so it is not like it is going anywhere, but if I was going on excursions and trips, I would definitely keep every speck too.

For right now I am just plotting out where the gold is, what concentrations, etc. I have a few research projects planned this summer that will help me get an even better idea (trenching across one field of my farm).

I still have to determine the best method to extract the gold, but I would like anything that I get, to pull the gold out of the gravel, and then be used for the lode gold. If I do it right I could dig the gravel in summer, and do hard rock in the winter...or get my gravel pit cleaned out, then switch to hard rock. But my gravel pit is pretty small.

I make it sound like Maine has a lot of gold, but that is not the case at all. I am finding gold most places I go (75% of the places checked on my farm so far), but it is not big gold at all. Flakes, and specks rule...with only a few pickers. There is always hope there is something better; with the late snowmelt I have not had the ideal places to search for gold, but as I revisit the streams I have been too, maybe I will find pay streaks?

The only real surprise was PGM's, that was a complete surprise.

 

[OreCart]

As is always the case with groundwork, start a big job and the skies of rain open up like a cloudburst piñata. I think the animals are lining up in pairs and headed for the Ark...Frost is still in the ground anyway, and snow is still in the woods. I know the latter, because bored out of my skull, I went prospecting despite the deluge.

I wanted to get a lode sample in a clearcut we made last year, and nearby was a nice stream, but up until now had been covered with ice and snow. I had test panned that stream before, so I knew it had color, but when you are bored as I am, it is nice to see something shiny on such a gloomy week (no sun in sight for the foreseeable weather forecast).

I only got one picture because it was raining so hard, but it shows how the stream comes down from the upper left of the picture, then horse shoes around towards the right and exits the upper right hand corner. You can tell from the tipped over trees it is eroding into the bank pretty hard. But that means where the trees are tipped over, and where the ash is standing (no Emerald Ash Borer here yet), that is one heck of an inside corner. I am betting nuggets to flakes there is gold in the gravel where the stream has been shifting over all these years.

I will have to get the excavator down there and reach over the bank and pluck those trees out so I can work the inside of the horse shoe easily, but that is no big deal. I just got to wait for the frost to get out of the ground, and the skies of heaven to dry up.

As for the lode sample I wanted, in skidding wood last year, a skidder kicked up a huge chunk of quartz streaked with mineralization, which looked almost as good as Tiffany Amber Thiessen, so despite the rain, and soaked through to my Scooby Doo underoo's; it was a decent day.

 

[OreCart]

I got permission from my neighbor to check a few streams on her land, but to save some steps, I had my wife drop me off in the truck. It was a good thing I did, I ended up hiking 4 miles in 5 hours, and test-panned 5 streams, covering about 900 acres.

I wanted to check this location because it consists of the drainage coming off my land, and I suspected the area streams had gold. My land is difficult in that it is at the top of a big hill, so I have only a few streams on it, but just off me, they begin to converge.

I suspected gold was in this area, and I was right, all five streams had gold, but honestly, the area they were draining meant they should have. The biggest surprise was that these streams were not even on the maps, so I was not expecting much size wise, but they were fairly decent in size, and quite pretty.

The funniest part was “drinking out of the golden goblet”. Here we can drink the water in streams because it is safe to do so, and I had just panned this stream, but since I use my pan as a cup, I was drinking away when I saw specks of gold that had stuck to the bottom of the pan. It was kind surreal to see gold glittering off the bottom of the cup as I was drinking.

It was raining so I did not see much for wildlife, no bobcat tracks in the snow, but I did see a few deer in a field.

Here is the second stream I found and sampled, taken gravel just under the beaver dam.

(This is part 1 of a 4 part series of posts)

 

[OreCart]

This stream was a complete surprise as I was not expecting anything to be here. It had good gravel on top of bedrock and test panned well.

(This is part 2 of a 4 part series of posts)

 

[OreCart]

This was the stream where I was drinking from my gold pan and saw specks of gold as I was drinking.

(This is part 3 of a 4 part series of posts)

 

[OreCart]

This stream is actually on me, but there is some history here. It is hard to see in the picture I know, but the stream has now shifted and eroded the left side of the picture, but down the center is a livestock waterer my forefathers went to great lengths to build. Again, it is hard to see, but two rock walls flank each side of a channel that directed water into the pool. The lower part of the dam is rimmed with rock to prevent erosion. All this was built for sheep since we live at the top of a hill, and have few places to water sheep while on pasture.

As far as I can tell, this was built in 1850 or so.

(This is part 4 of a 4 part series of posts)

 

[triple d]

Ore Cart your like the energizer bunny. You keep going and going. You have covered a lot of ground. Hope it pays off. If it all leads to some hard rock mining. It would be super. You have been putting the work in. Keep it up. But don"t give up on the silver. I still think this might be the pay off.

 

[OreCart]

Ore Cart your like the energizer bunny. You keep going and going. You have covered a lot of ground. Hope it pays off. If it all leads to some hard rock mining. It would be super. You have been putting the work in. Keep it up. But don"t give up on the silver. I still think this might be the pay off.

You very well may be right.

I noticed a lot of silver metals at the bottom of my pan yesterday that exceeded the amount of gold I saw. I have not had a chance to test that to see if it is silver or pgm's yet though, as I got home late in the afternoon, and had church to go to last night.

I am a little slow to say pgm's because this area drains the southeast side of my farm, which is where the granite rock tends to be instead of the slate. The pgm's have been on the Northeast side (and drain to a different watershed entirely). Still, according to Maine Geological Survey maps, this is the direction most of the topsoil took as it migrated away from the top of the hill. In fact, at the farthest point of my hike yesterday (due east), there is an old gravel pit. There was not much there in the way of gravel because it is the start of the sedimentation, but this is why I was not surprised I found so much gold.

The literal trail of soil continues on further south on the other side of a road, but this is very rugged country with all the roads I speak of being dirt roads. There are no houses in this second section, consisting of 1300 acres, 95% of which is forest. But it is too far to hike too, then hike through, test panning the streams, then hike back home. Due to it being mud season, the roads are unnavigable so I will have to wait to have my wife at least drop me off in the area to cut down on some hiking miles. (not that hiking would not help my aging, and fat carcass). (LOL)

As for being the energizer bunny...hardly...as I was some sore yesterday, and still am today!

The worst part was the rain; I was soaked through to my underoos again!

 

[triple d]

Remember to follow the gold to the source. In the streams. Look for the bigger chunker gold and follow it up stream. It may not be coming from the hill side. And i think I read platnum is connected to lead. With the lead mines in the area. And of course silver can come lead. Usually with a little gold mixed in. You are finding a fair amount of gold in a few test pans. Wish you had a sluice and run a few yards. Would love to know the results. Good work hang in there.

 

[OreCart]

Remember to follow the gold to the source. In the streams. Look for the bigger chunker gold and follow it up stream. It may not be coming from the hill side. And i think I read platnum is connected to lead. With the lead mines in the area. And of course silver can come lead. Usually with a little gold mixed in. You are finding a fair amount of gold in a few test pans. Wish you had a sluice and run a few yards. Would love to know the results. Good work hang in there.

I was thinking about what you are saying last night, and realized on my sample reports I am making a fatal error.

You mention pay streaks which is a very valid point, but on many of these streams, pannable runs can be very short in length. For instance, at a place I call Beaver Dam Stream (pictured), I found gold, BUT the pannable run is very short because it is bookended by two beaver dams, so its run, where I can pan anyway,is only a hundred feet long. I have NOT been calculating this into the “quality” of the location site.

I do rate the location by gold “volume”, but that is more in terms of how many specks, flakes and pickers I find per pan. But a location may be in a pay streak and show quite a bit of gold in each pan, but not be a stream of vast length. If I go back and add that variable into each sample site, I will get a better scoring percentage on each sample location.

Thanks for making me realize where my sampling scoring has been coming up short. This will improve my sampling of the area greatly.