Weird bedrock discovery

[Sick4gold]

I've been prospecting a creek for a while now and have had pretty good results on it.
It is glacial material and its deposited as follows: silt, then rocks, then cobble, then to hard packed clay.
The gold is usually found with the cobble and hard packed clay.
Recently I walked far down the creek and discovered exposed bedrock. I began working it and breaking it and discovered that there is clay UNDER the bedrock. The clay is 1-2 feet thick and nearly impossible to get through.
I have never seen clay UNDER bedrock?! I thought bedrock was the final layer?
As it turns out the clay that I have been working further down the creek is the layer that the bedrock sits on top of. Apparently from what I can gather the bedrock has been stripped off and broken to smaller pieces and mostly gone. Anyone seen anything like this?
Is there any way to get through 1-2 feet or more of clay?! It's not shovel able.
Would nuggets sink through 2 feet + of hard as cement clay? I find flakes and fines but rarely nuggets on the clay.
Any tips or insight or thoughts as to any of this would help.

 

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[Mekong Mike]

The flood of noah did some weird things to geology.

 

[NuggetN8]

I've been prospecting a creek for a while now and have had pretty good results on it.
It is glacial material and its deposited as follows: silt, then rocks, then cobble, then to hard packed clay.
The gold is usually found with the cobble and hard packed clay.
Recently I walked far down the creek and discovered exposed bedrock. I began working it and breaking it and discovered that there is clay UNDER the bedrock. The clay is 1-2 feet thick and nearly impossible to get through.
I have never seen clay UNDER bedrock?! I thought bedrock was the final layer?
As it turns out the clay that I have been working further down the creek is the layer that the bedrock sits on top of. Apparently from what I can gather the bedrock has been stripped off and broken to smaller pieces and mostly gone. Anyone seen anything like this?
Is there any way to get through 1-2 feet or more of clay?! It's not shovel able.
Would nuggets sink through 2 feet + of hard as cement clay? I find flakes and fines but rarely nuggets on the clay.
Any tips or insight or thoughts as to any of this would help.

I have seen clay under bedrock before but never that deep. The most I've ever seen was like 4-5 inches thick. But whenever I find something like that there's two layers of bedrock a surface layer the clay and then a bottom layer of bedrock under the clay. From what I've heard the clay is just decomposed bedrock so for some reason the layer of bedrock under the surface layer just decomposed before the top layer. If there's cracks in the surface layer I would just dig them out until you stop finding gold. No need to try getting to the bottom of the clay layer.

 

[Goldwasher]

Bedrock is bedrock fellas think about it.............there is a reason for the term false bedrock.....and watever Noahs flood did it can't hold a candle to the eons of geological activity predating it...

 

[geologyjohn]

Perhaps the clay layer you found is simply weathered claystone bedrock? Lots of that in my area. Geologyjohn

 

[BIGSCOTT]

True Bedrock is Bedrock and thats why they call it bedrock, but there's always something under it.

 

[Kruzman]

The clay is decomposed bedrock. It may be composed of something else, such as quartz that has been completely decayed and did so at a different rate than the upper layer. sulfides in upper layers create sulfuric acid which decomposes the rock. its worth testing that layer and what's under it.

 

[Sick4gold]

The clay is decomposed bedrock. It may be composed of something else, such as quartz that has been completely decayed and did so at a different rate than the upper layer. sulfides in upper layers create sulfuric acid which decomposes the rock. its worth testing that layer and what's under it.

Thank you
Any rough estimates as to how long this type of thing takes to occur?
Our glacial activity was Mabe 16-20,000 years ago.
If it takes a million years for this to happen then there will be no gold under it
( theoretically )

Also any ideas how to get through this? Shovel is a waste of time

 

[Jason in Enid]

Also any ideas how to get through this? Shovel is a waste of time

Blaster nozzle works on the clay I have encountered so far. If you aren't dredging, then just carrying a small pump, hose and nozzle shouldn't be too bad. You wouldn't need anything really big.

 

[Kruzman]

Thank you
Any rough estimates as to how long this type of thing takes to occur?
Our glacial activity was Mabe 16-20,000 years ago.
If it takes a million years for this to happen then there will be no gold under it
( theoretically )

Also any ideas how to get through this? Shovel is a waste of time

I don't know about your area, but in mine the gold runs with the sulfides such as pyrite. only fools toss the fools gold without thought! test the clay layer in any case. if there were cracks in the upper bedrock gold would work down to the clay layer. if the gold was in the host rock, its in the clay layer or dissolved and remineralized at the water table line (or where that line was at the time of the event).
https://gustavus.edu/geology/documents/MykrisM_96.pdf