Help Required On Piles Of Pipe Clay

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Crushed

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Hi all,I have noticed in my ramblings around the goldfields large piles of pipe clay.These piles are away from the diggings or not noticeably connected or close to a hole.
I have read of miners paddocking their wash while waiting for enough rain to fill dams so they can wash the paydirt. Is that what I,m looking at ? I assume that the dirt (pipe clay)has been processed but also wondering how.Am I on the right track or is there another reason ?
Also can anyone tell me if the gold in the Percydale area was course gold. I have been told by one of the reef miners in the area it is a very fine gold mixed in with pyrites.I,m thinking I'm wasting my time if the gold is fine .
Cheers Crushed
 
A few ks up the road at Warrenmang I scored these bits, small but solid.
1542150752_0441c8f8-08d7-412b-9752-8120c6c067f0.jpg

1542150752_9daa8a30-3257-4f4a-a304-6e104eedf9fc.jpg

1542150753_ed6bbd10-e381-443b-9b39-bcc991d3510c.jpg
 
take a sample of the heap -- if it has gravel in it -- worth a pan or two - if finding flower gold - have fun - you have a lot of heaps to wash
 
Crushed said:
Hi all,I have noticed in my ramblings around the goldfields large piles of pipe clay.These piles are away from the diggings or not noticeably connected or close to a hole.
I have read of miners paddocking their wash while waiting for enough rain to fill dams so they can wash the paydirt. Is that what I,m looking at ? I assume that the dirt (pipe clay)has been processed but also wondering how.Am I on the right track or is there another reason ?
Also can anyone tell me if the gold in the Percydale area was course gold. I have been told by one of the reef miners in the area it is a very fine gold mixed in with pyrites.I,m thinking I'm wasting my time if the gold is fine .
Cheers Crushed
Click to expand...

In Victorian goldfields, pipeclay forms an unmineralised layer above the paydirt layer (gold-bearing wash). Those heaps you mention are just waste material from deep shaft sinking on old alluvial leads, so the pipeclay is unprocessed. It's not impossible to detect very small gold in pipeclay heaps however, and the absence of mineralisation makes them suitable for even VLF detectors, but old iron fragments from shaft digging, bullets and other such trash are frequently encountered. If you venture on to pipeclay heaps, be very wary of subsidence of old, underlying shafts of unknown depth - it can be very dangerous ground.

In my experience, Percydale gold is not usually nuggety, but good weight can be found in the form of specimens.
 
Sorry to correct you grubstake, but in many cases pipeclay is the bottom, formed from decomposing slate. Gold is often found in a layer of wash sitting on the pipeclay bottom, but on occasions it may be also in a thin layer just below the wash as well. Gold deep in pipeclay is a rarity, although gold can be found in pug which is another situation altogether.
PS Many years ago I found pieces up to an ounce below Donkey Hill near Percydale, but this ground is now fenced off and locked.
 
Hi Reg, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on these piles of pipe clay.I was looking around the large surfaced area just outside of the Old Percydale township . Driving back into Percydale I noticed many large dumps of pipe clay ,they would be a kilometre from the surfaced area I guess.
Cheers Crushed
 
Sorry Crushed, but it is a long time since I have been to Percydale, and can't recall the piles to which you refer. Did they have any quartz associated with them or were they purely clay?
The last time I was in that area there was a silver mine still operational back in the hills nearby, and the gold in that area can contain quite high percentages of silver. I recall a number of small colors that gave a clinking sound when rattled in the hand. I put this down to the silver content, and the color was much lighter that most gold.
There is an interesting story about the ruins there. A chap was detecting around the remains of an old bluestone building when he got a big signal. He dug out a length of lead pipe and noticed it was quite heavy, and crimped at both ends. Upon opening the pipe he discovered it was full of sovereigns. Just the other side of a blackberry bush he found a fairly large detector hole left open, and lying next to it another heavy lead pipe.
 
Reg, just to clarify for my self.Pipe clay can also be decomposed granite as well as slate.Depending on the area.
 
Sulphide, granite usually decomposes to sand (granitic sand) and sometimes recomposes into a cemented white material when subjected to inundation. This recomposition is a handy indication that the said area was once a stream bed, and as such may have been a settling point for gold if there are nearby auriferous deposits. Any area thus described that has traces of water worn quartz is well worth further investigation.
Long Bush north of Dunolly is a perfect example of this type of deposition that produced many large nuggets.
 
See latest discussion on pipe clay, which describes why some of these above observations are made.

Also, granite is usually quartz, feldspar and micas (white or black). When it is weathered and washed into streams, the quartz remains as quartz but the feldspar quickly alters to clay (feldspar is commonly a sodium, potassium aluminium silicate, clay is often a hydrated potassium aluminium silicate (illite) or hydrated aluminium silicate (kaolinite) - the feldspa is reacting with water and incorporating the water into its clay structure. Quartz tends to be concentrated mechanically as grains (as does gold) but clay will stay suspended in water and travel separately until a quiet place is reached where it can settle out, So granite can give you quartz sand and also clay deposits. Some of our best china clays (eg Pittong) form from granite....
 

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