The Riddle of the Missing Gold

I've got an interesting problem that I can't work out.

There are two creeks within 2 hours of Canberra that I'm lucky enough to have access to.

When panning, I get an average of maybe 4-6 pieces per pan from creek 1, sometimes up to 15 or so.

Creek 2 gives an average of 2-4.

The problem is that when I take home a bucket to run through my sluice, creek 2 (with the lower average) gives me a healthy amount of gold return. Creek 1 (better pan average) gives me next to none.

I can't work out why & this has happened more than once.

Any ideas?

My 1st post!

Whilst panning you will have done maybe many tens or even hundreds of pans. Among those surely there would be some duds even for creek 1. Unless the bucket wash is proven by panning the chances of dud buckets is probably just as high. It maybe just a matter of chance and just perseverance is required.
The number of colours in a pan is often correlated to size, smaller lighter colours much more abundant than larger heavier colours. That you are getting relatively higher number of colours per pan at creek 1 suggests they are towards the lighter end.
That introduces the possibility that your sluice is not set up to retain these lighter colours. One way to tell would be to retain and pan off the sluiced material to see if colours are escaping the sluice.

Thanks for the response & advice!

I did check the sluice by panning tailings, & also panned some direct from the bucket. Same result.

Perhaps I'm getting good pan results from the top layer & nothing below. Or perhaps it's just the luck of the draw!

Volume is everything. I have a lease very close to town so I went over there with the little Keens puffer (12V powered dryblower) and worked a grid pattern over a large area. At each spot I put about a bucket of dirt through before emptying the cons into a sample bag marked with the coordinates. I got no gold. If I scrape the same ground with Tonka, the big CAT and load 20T or so through the big dryblower it pays good gold. It's not rich but I always get a few grams. I did the same on a second lease, the result was the same, there's gold to be harvested but I have to put tens of tons through to pay my way.

Sounds like a lot of outlay for negative return. A few grams wouldn’t seem to cover the costs.
The fuel cost, time used in labor seem huge for such a small pay out.
If it’s just a hobby and you don’t mind putting money into it go nuts. Honestly the time out bush hunting for the shinny stuff is the draw for a lot of us not money made.

Mr happy said:

Sounds like a lot of outlay for negative return. A few grams wouldn’t seem to cover the costs.
The fuel cost, time used in labor seem huge for such a small pay out.
If it’s just a hobby and you don’t mind putting money into it go nuts. Honestly the time out bush hunting for the shinny stuff is the draw for a lot of us not money made.

Click to expand...

Sounds like some of the spots I've been working.
Too good to walk away from but not good enough t stay with.

Grey Panner said:

Sounds like some of the spots I've been working.
Too good to walk away from but not good enough t stay with.

Click to expand...

Maybe a case of “There has to be more here somewhere”. I am sure we have all lingered too long on spots with little gold after finding a few good signs, indicators and just a tiny bit of gold. Sure to drive a person crazy lol.

Mal47C said:

I've got an interesting problem that I can't work out.

There are two creeks within 2 hours of Canberra that I'm lucky enough to have access to.

When panning, I get an average of maybe 4-6 pieces per pan from creek 1, sometimes up to 15 or so.

Creek 2 gives an average of 2-4.

The problem is that when I take home a bucket to run through my sluice, creek 2 (with the lower average) gives me a healthy amount of gold return. Creek 1 (better pan average) gives me next to none.

I can't work out why & this has happened more than once.

Any ideas?

My 1st post!

Click to expand...

Is your bucket of cons from pan concentrates or are you test panning a site and then just shoveling through a sieve to get your cons to take home? If the latter you can find that the gold is in pockets or stratified in the gravel, and its easy to dig past or beside the high grade paydirt. I've found it takes time to work out how the gold has deposited at a particular location. I now take methodical approach to my test panning ie once I find gold I pick a few sites upstream and downstream and then in the creek and above the waterline. I also do depth tests to see if concentrations vary through the profile.

I got duded in the Turon at Sofala last weekend. Did lots of test panning, thought I'd found a good spot, set up the sluice, dug to China and when I did the clean up I could see I'd either misread the tea leaves or got off the good paydirt. I worked out the best gold was in a clay band that was patchy and I should have done more testing as I went.

I've got another creek on private property that has some very productive gravel bars, but good looking gravel 20m away is barren.

Mr happy said:

Sounds like a lot of outlay for negative return. A few grams wouldn’t seem to cover the costs.
The fuel cost, time used in labor seem huge for such a small pay out.
If it’s just a hobby and you don’t mind putting money into it go nuts. Honestly the time out bush hunting for the shinny stuff is the draw for a lot of us not money made.

Click to expand...

Any hobby that covers your cost is an unusual one. At least with gold we have a very good chance of doing so. I turned a few wooden bowls on the lathe out of beautiful wood They came out very nice after a days work but they sell for $80 each, hardly career making but fun to give it a go.

Yesterday I wanted to see how a ball mill worked so I used my tumbler, added a pan of black sand and a few different sized steel balls and left it run for an hour or so. My sand turned to a smooth slurry so I then extracted the gold.

View attachment Ball Mill.mp4

During the process my crucible fell apart in the furnace spilling most of its contents so in the end there wasn't much gold to show for my hours of playing about.



The thing is I gave it a go, learned a bit and enjoyed my day. Not career building but I enjoyed my day.

View attachment Dryblower.mp4

The previous day I ran the dryblower (even though I've sold it) for a few hours. I got up there early and was home by 9am with just 4g of gold. Once again not career building but considering it's a hobby I think I did ok.

Sorry I got off the subject there.

One of the reasons we can't trust getting the returns that first indicators show should be there is that there may have been several others attempting to clean that spot out over the last hundred years. Your prospecting skills may be guiding you to the correct spot but then if the the previous prospectors did the same then they may have already taken the majority of the gold leaving a baron patch. Recent erosion can replenish some of the gold but the best of it most likely went a long time ago.

Moneybox said:

Any hobby that covers your cost is an unusual one. At least with gold we have a very good chance of doing so. I turned a few wooden bowls on the lathe out of beautiful wood They came out very nice after a days work but they sell for $80 each, hardly career making but fun to give it a go.

Yesterday I wanted to see how a ball mill worked so I used my tumbler, added a pan of black sand and a few different sized steel balls and left it run for an hour or so. My sand turned to a smooth slurry so I then extracted the gold.

View attachment 15751

During the process my crucible fell apart in the furnace spilling most of its contents so in the end there wasn't much gold to show for my hours of playing about.

View attachment 15752

The thing is I gave it a go, learned a bit and enjoyed my day. Not career building but I enjoyed my day.

View attachment 15753

The previous day I ran the dryblower (even though I've sold it) for a few hours. I got up there early and was home by 9am with just 4g of gold. Once again not career building but considering it's a hobby I think I did ok.

Click to expand...

Locally for me the Clarence river gold fields are a completely different beast than the western Australian fields. Definitely face different obstacles here than there.
I am definitely in the red and don’t believe that’s going to change any time soon lol.
I just love having a pan in the bush.