tonnes of black sands, literally tons...

[Ragnor]

So there is this creek and it has a little bit of gold in it. Just some real fine colors. Never seen anything bigger than a color or more than 4 or 5 in a pan. But the black sand. You could probably fill 20 buckets with black sand in a day easily. It has to be something right? So what would you do? Throw it in with an equal part of Chapman flux and give it a go? Or should I use a litharge maybe? I've just always had a sneaking suspicion that that huge amount of black sand must indicate an unrecognized resource of some kind.

 

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[Jim in Idaho]

I've got a seasonal creek not far from me that is the same way, but no gold. I could easily pan many pounds of black sand/day. I keep thinking there might be something of value there, but if there is, I haven't found it....LOL. There is an old story of platinum in the area. Hope yours pays off eventually.
Jim

 

[deserdog]

You know peopel will buy clean, screened black sand. I was just looking at Ebay and one seller, from AZ , sells 1 lb. magnetic black sand for $15.00, and has sold 62 so far!

 

[Capt Nemo]

I sell the magnetite after I clean it to a local blacksmith. I keep the magnetite separate as to which state it was mined in. He can then tell the customer which state the steel came from and charge accordingly for it.

 

[Reed Lukens]

The creek out my front door is mostly magnetite also. It makes it really hard to work under normal circumstances but there's a lot of gold mixed in and a lot of gold completely covered by it. With a river like that, it's a good bet that if you collect a bucket of heavies and crush it, there will be a lot more gold then you realized was there. We would have a 5" dredge box clogged with magnetite in less than an hour with most of the gold unrecognisable because it was covered completely with magnetite.

 

[winners58]

have an assay done for rare earth elements
from the latest EOMA newsletter;

RARE EARTH THE NEXT GOLD RUSH? -Chuck Chase
The Northeastern part of Oregon is positioned for a minerals boom in the coming years that will equal the gold rush of the 1800’s. The rare earth elements (REEs) are found predominantly in intrusive rock. That’s molten rock that was deeply buried and never made it to the surface in the form of eruptive lava, like the basalts that cover much of Oregon. Some of the creeks and streams have quite large quantities of REEs contained in their non-magnetic black sands. Large deposits in Union County are found not only in the black sands of the placers, but also in the intrusive that are rich in REEs. In Malheur County, going south along the Owyhee River, there was extensive work done on exploration for REEs in the past, but these elements were found to be ejected and scattered by volcanic eruptions. In Baker County, REEs have been discovered in the Auburn and Camp Creek areas in quite large quantities. Both Union and Baker County deposits carry most, if not all, of the 17 different REEs. A few of these deposits are quite large and are exposed in large areas of 20 acres or more, before disappearing under soils and eroding rock debris.

Congress, in the last few years of the Obama Administration, tried to pass a Critical Minerals Bill that would have cut through the vast swamp of the permitting process to make the USA not dependent on China as a source of REEs China has been going all over the world and acquiring most of the REE producing mines, thus, cornering the world market. The REEs are so important in all aspects of electronics, for hybrid cars, wind turbines, aerospace, photovoltaic thin film, and military high tech. Our entire society is so intertwined with REEs, that we can’t do without a secure supply. With that being said, if Congress does pass a Critical Minerals Bill, wouldn’t it be great as a placer miner, to slide into mining REEs with your gold as a bi product, thus, bi-passing a ton of permitting?

Most of the REEs produced at a mine site are collected as an oxide of that metal, and are sent to a refiner to be converted to metal. The REE’ price indexes are listed in kilograms, one kilogram equals 2.20 pounds, or equals 1000 grams. Some of these rare earths, such as Scandium metal, were listed at around $18,000 a kilogram a few years ago. The scandium oxide was $7,200 a kilogram. When you add all of the REEs found in this part of Oregon together, you start to understand the enormity of the REE mineral potential just in Baker and Union counties.

ASSYING FOR REES-Chuck Chase
Most of my assay work has been done on working with water, where I first got interested in the REEs. While collecting ion’s and colloidal of gold, silver and pgm out of water, I found I also was collecting REEs in my water collection concentrate. Ken Anderson and I conducted exploration on REE deposits in Baker and surrounding counties, but we had only little success. A lot of teasers, but there are properties that really have the possibility of becoming large mining operations.

In the back of the newsletter in the For Sale Directory there is a listing for ALS Minerals in Vancouver B.C. Canada. You can email Katerina Paley for a quote both for gold, silver and pgm but also for REEs. The only drawback is, it is almost a month turnaround to get your assay returned, but on the good side they are cheaper and more reliable than most of the other assayers. When I first started using them, I sent them a split of the same material to see just how accurate they were Both were almost carbon copies of each other. Her email is [email protected]

 

[Ragnor]

have an assay done for rare earth elements
from the latest EOMA newsletter;

RARE EARTH THE NEXT GOLD RUSH? -Chuck Chase

Thank you very much for that information Winners58

 

[newbAu]

Sounds like a creek by me. There is so much black sand, with fly poop gold mixed in. I use a walking stick with neodymium magnets in the cap and poke around when I prospect. It is everywhere, I have several pounds of it from my cons. I have no use for it really, but I refuse to dump it.

 

[johnedoe]

Yup.... I could make a killing on blacksands alone.....

 

[Jim in Idaho]

I wonder how difficult it is to concentrate REE's? I guess I should look into that process. Many thanks, Winner!
Jim

 

[Skunked68w]

REE extraction is one of the dirtiest industrial processes we have in the world. no one likes radioactive tailings. that's why the us govt is happy to let china do it. molycorp went bankrupt after spending billions on mountain pass. that was just to reopen an old mine. a new one would be too much money for a small timer but you could always find and sell the claim.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

I know the real purification process is bad...I was thinking more of sort of a "primary" process to reduce the amount of cons.
Jim

 

[N-Lionberger]

It works great in the garden, I have a grape vine I used to dump my panning tub out on that never produced much fruit and what did grow was small and sour, the first harvest after the tailings treatment we made 6 gallons of tasty home brew wine.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

I did some more research, and it appears that many REE's display phosphorescence. This means it's possible to check black sands using an ultraviolet light. I'm going to do some of this type of prospecting on the black sands in that creek. It's about 125 miles down there, and there is still considerable snow in the mountains, so it may be awhile. I think the way to do this is to use a sluice, or other method to recover a bunch of BS, and then spread that out on a tarp and go over it with the black light. I'm sure whatever REE indicators are there will be very small. It may also be possible to check the creek bed directly...I'm not certain of how well that would work.
From the reading I did last night, it appears the market for REE's is currently saturated. When the Chinese forced the prices up, they caused a bunch more exploration all over the world. That additional exploration has resulted in way more REE's coming to the market. The only operating mine in the US, at Mountain Pass, CA is now in bankruptcy.
Jim