Jan 20 2011 Prospecting

My back is still sore from using Indyme's sluice these last couple days so today I wanted to just do a little bit of panning and hopefully find another good spot to run the Gold Trap sluice with a little more flow and drop then my last spot so I could run it faster, next time I use it.

I had been eyeballing a spot because it has a huge gravel bar with a nice bend in the river and looked like a good spot but I had never stopped there to pan, just walked past it before on the way to other places I knew had some gold. Unfortunately, that spot was pretty bad, only found a couple 60-80 mesh there as the gravel bar was not solid and a shovel would sink in without stopping for several feet. I continued on, sampling every 15 feet or so, and man was I glad I did. I found a nice little spot behind a log under some slate that was just loaded with heavies. First pan I classified was extremely heavy, and when I went to stratify the material, most of the pan was black sand and other big chunks of heavy stuff like lead shot, etc!

Some pictures of the creek:

Here's the heaviest stuff of what was in that first pan.

I knew I was in a good spot so I moved some more slate and Gneiss and tried a spot right behind the log. Which ended up looking pretty good too.

Next couple pans were all pretty good as well.

One of my better pans, and it was from an unlikely spot. It was higher up on the side of the creek the place where the least water was flowing, and yet the best pan of the day from there. It was still kinda behind the log so I am guessing that log created a really nice natural riffle before it decayed away. 
 



Here's a short little video of the creek.

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/7905/tcx.mp4

Here some more gold from sluicing there:

I put all those bigger rocks back in the creek on the way out, so you can barely tell I was there. Plus I am hoping they will act like natural riffles again and catch more gold if I dont make it back there.

February 13, Sluicing + Panning

Around February 13, 2011 I got permission for a new spot so of course I couldn't wait to get out there and see how the color was. Its not too far from another place I was finding some gold so I was hoping the color would be bigger at the new spot. Dr Phil came with, and we sampled up and down a good ways. While sampling, Dr Phil hit on a pretty nice little spot for fine gold that I had just walked past, and we worked that for a 5 gallon bucket or so. But after a bit we both wanted to see what else was around and we were both hoping for some chunkier pieces so we kept moving. There were signs of someone having dredged in a couple places clear to bedrock, and also some tailings piles that looked pretty old. Besides the pans and other equipment, I brought the bazooka, and Dr Phil brought his back packable Angus Mckirk sluice. Oh and I almost forgot, I found a spot with the most crazy pock marked, tore up looking white quartz I have ever seen there. Some of the pock marks were 2 inches or more across and looked like big crystals were in there once.  My camera was low on battery though by that point, but next time i go back I will get some pics. The quartz that was mineralized like that, was also nearby where we were finding some nice fines, so possibly they are related.  

Always exciting to be on a new stretch of creek. Never know what you are going to find before you put that first shovel in. Might be loaded with gold or (more likely) nothing important at all.

Here's all the equipment I brought that day. A shovel, the bazooka gold trap sluice, and a bucket to clean it up into. If the water flow is low, then an Angus Mac Kirk Sluice is another great choice. I use a small back packable Angus Mac Kirk sluice called the Grub Steak as well. 

This boulder had an amazing amount of black sand around it. When I was classifying the material it was solid black before I had even started stratifying. And lots of lead and other heavies, but no color!

This is the first spot I had the bazooka setup at. Because the gold was so fine (around 100 mesh) I classified to 4 mesh first, then ran it through the bazooka.

One of my better pans, keep in mind the color was mostly fines here so this one looked good. It came from a layer of false bedrock that Dr Phil found.

Dr Phil posing for a pic again. This is the stretch of creek that had a good bit of fine gold. 

Spot I was digging with very small gold (barely visible to the naked eye). Dr Phil found this spot, I had walked right past it to sample a turn instead and he called me back showing me there was some fines here. 

Here's a video of Dr Phil feeding his Angus Mckirk sluice.

Here's one of those sections of creek.

Here's how I had the bazooka setup and running in one spot, I also ran it in another spot but have no video of that. This was near where we were finding all the fine gold, so I went ahead and classified to 4 mesh first before I ran it through the sluice. Check out the black sands.

And my final take for the day. A lot of fines! It was a beautiful day to be outside, and trying a new spot. For the amount of material I worked (not that much), that is not a bad day at all. I spent more time sample panning here and there, then actually running the bazooka.The gold there is mostly powder size, but who knows there might be a couple bigger pieces somewhere around that we missed.

February 9 2011, Gold Panning

I did some panning on February of this year, I didn't take a pic of every pan that time. But heres some of my better pans that day. 

Some of the dirt, see the lovely oxidized rust color in there? Almost always good gold in that stuff.

 

Some of the tailings pile. Lovely pegmatite (thanks Indy!) and enough white and smoky mineralized quartz to thoroughly wear me out when I carried it out.

More of the manganese stained vein quartz. Whenever I find this stuff, I know its going to be a good day.  I dont know what the other rock is with the quartz vein, but it was rust stained so I carried it out too. Will crush and examine later. That other rock was pretty heavy for its size, maybe gneiss.

This was one of the better pans for a little bigger pieces since most of the stuff I was finding was fine.

This is the cleanup pic after I re-panned all my concentrates.  

January 13, 2011 Gold Panning in the snow

On January 13th 2011, college was canceled again, but my back was sore from shoveling and I didnt want to carry a sluice and buckets and all that plus my other gear. So I just did some panning.

Creek pictures.

I did some test pans, didnt find any color in most places so I kept moving.

I did some test pans, didnt find any color in most places so I kept moving.

My pack and pans. I started finding some little specs here so I focused on this spot further.

Here's some of the material I was working. some kind of saprolite false bedrock. See all the black sand?

Another pic of the clay/saprolite.

Yet another pic of the saprolite/clay.

More clay/saprolite loaded with heavies.

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This is the saprolite bedrock that was decaying away into that clay. It sure holds onto the heavies once it decomposes.

This is how much black sand per pan in this spot on top of that false bedrock.

First pan with color of the day.




Another pan.

Yet another pan.

Despite getting lots of heavies in this pan, didnt get much gold, but still better then nothing.

Best piece of the day, about half the thickness of a grain of rice.

Short video of that piece.

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/8043/dm4t.mp4

One of my better pans from today, see how many heavies are in there with the gold? I was almost into the pay streak.

Pictures of the woods.

Overall the gold was pretty small, except for that one piece, but at least I got out and had a great time.

January 2011 Gold Sampling

Sampling means going somewhere to see if there's any gold or other precious commodities (minerals/gems/etc) there. In this case me and my buddy Dr Phil (hes a doctor of bedrock busting) had an area we wanted to sample, which looked real promising. We also wanted to go to another spot I knew had at least small gold from a previous trip there, but I didnt have the time to do more then a pan or two the first time. But the 2nd spot is another story for another time.

Here's some pictures from the first creek we sampled. In the very first pan there, I found about an 80-100 mesh piece, so I thought this might be a decent spot.

We then spent the next three hours, sampling further up river trying to find more Au. There was lots of bedrock to work, crevices, and plenty of gravel bars. But unfortunately, we didnt find much other Au, at all. I found one more 80 mesh in some red stained gravel that was almost a clay. So I setup the Bazooka trap and proceeded to dig to bedrock and ran about 30 or 40 shovel fulls through the trap sluice, but the cleanup was disappointing, with no Au.

Here's some pictures of the pictures of the first area we sampled.  Click on any photo to enlarge it. 

Some of my gear next to the creek.

About to do some panning here.

This is one of the crevices I was working, between bedrock. Didnt find much in here at all, except for some garnet chips.

This is how I had the bazooka sluice setup.

Here it is from another angle.

Here you can see some of the many layers of sediment and some larger river rocks. We sampled the layers and found no gold in any of it.

Another shot of the creek.

Some of the black sands from the area. Lots of black sands and garnet, but little else of interest.

Dr Phil and another area of the creek.

Sampling a sand bar.

Dr Phil classifying some material.

Dr Phil poses for a pic.

This is some promising looking bedrock we found, it even had a quartz vein running through it, but no luck working either side of it.

Here's the quartz vein next to my shovel for comparison. 

Here I am with my favorite hat. 

Packing up the gear, about to head back home. 

So we ended up working a pretty good section of this creek determined to find something bigger then about 80 mesh with no luck.  At least now we know another spot that is not worth working further. Gold prospecting is often times like this, a lot of work and time spent with no tangible return. But getting out in nature is its own reward.

Here's what I found after panning out all the concentrates from the sluice that day.  

One piece of lead, and lots of very tiny garnets and black sands from mineralization. 

Heres a close up of the garnets and black sands. Some pretty little gem chips in there.

Here's the piece of gold I found that day, its very tiny and you can see it right under the bullet. (Click on photos to enlarge)