12 Weeks To Find First Gold (Persistence Pays).

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I'm staying up for tonights installment !
If there's gunna be one. :p
 
Hi All,

Just an update with todays findings - after leaving yesterday there were very small noticeable signals still in the hole

1. So this is the hole at the very start of the find
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2. This is roughly how far the hole area was opened and you can see the depth is relatively shallow - at the top of the image where the hammer is - this would be 300mm in depth to the hard base material - 50 or so mm of top soil, not much at all - then gravel wash from marble size to golf ball size roughly 100 to 150mm thick and embedded into the upper clay layer- then the layer of dark chocolate brown clay roughly 100mm thick - and finally the hard Silcrete/Calcrete layer - this had large waterworn quartz boulders upwards of golf ball size. Some much like a half size football
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3. On arrival there were faint signals still in various area's - some were difficult to get because the coil needed to be placed on 45 degree, this was mainly due to the hard base material being hard to remove and get a good flat swing.
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4. After pulling out a few targets - and sitting down for some lunch I walked a couple of meters downwards just for a 15 minute spell on the hard stuff and noticed a very faint signal some would have dismissed this for ground noise - I always scrape to be sure. And there it was a target with solid signal response
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5. Back to the hole - here in these images you can see the hole area with the section that was cracked out - working around the edges after the target is centralized just to be sure not to hit the gold. You can see also in these images which I wanted to capture for you all - the hole - the section cracked out - the gold and the quartz vein running through the Silcrete/Calcrete hard base - today a lot of these targets were starting to appear around this quartz vein.
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6. Again I wanted to share this image with some cool colors running through - as well as a nice piece of gold still in its hiding place and finally seeing the light of day possibly for the first time - you can see the red staining from the iron oxide running through the calcium silica material. I would presume that the red iron oxide is leaching up through this silica calcium carbonated material - be good to find some coarse hard sedimentary rock or even some metamorphic rock with thicker iron stone further down. It could be a foot below this hard base or even up to a meter - usually the red is a good signal for close proximity - its just like a color chart with iron staining the further away the lighter it becomes - yellow, orange, red, darker red to brown, brown to very dark almost like black.
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With Silcrete it is a hard material composed of silica hence the name silcrete - it is very fine powder of quartz much like quartzite - and over time it turns hard and when mixed close with the iron oxide it becomes a lot harder and was used for making spear heads etc in the very early days by aboriginal tribes.

7. This was todays findings all up total 37 pieces - and the hole is now not showing anymore signal responses, I would be safe to assume there is no more large pieces still in this hole area - and pretty safe that no 4gram plus gold is within a 1 mtr circle radius as this is as far as the hole has had all of the softs and clays removed.
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8. This piece of gold taken today was very interesting - I wanted to capture some images for you all to see - at first it looked like a solid cube sticking out of the piece that was cracked out - when arriving home and removing it - it wasnt a cube much like a pyrite cube when you see these they are perfectly square in many cases. Take a look at this piece of gold - the only part protruding outside the silcrete was the cube square section - its pretty unique though perfect square cut sides and a little ball sitting at the base - with another part that appears to be almost like fine wire.
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9. Another interesting thing documented for this area is these 3 pieces of gold - First being very reefy found on the first day 3 mtrs away from the main hole area in red clays - second piece which is the piece in the middle - semi water worn found towards the top of the silcrete - the very last piece which is the first in the image - found below the middle piece and it is extreme water worn appearance.
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10. Without crushing any pay material removed - this is what was taken with signal response from the detector and any visual pieces while chipping away. Total 86 pieces in 2 1/2 Days of enjoyment
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Also the inconsistency in the various type of gold has been very interesting while documenting this - so many variations of reefy sharp pieces suspended in silcrete and not stopped by rock or anything else and very waterworn looking pieces again suspended in silcrete - the gold in different sizes ranged from small pieces to large at different depths throughout this silcrete - very interesting

Next stage with this area will be to work 2 feet one way then 2 feet in another down to the hard base material to see if there is this direction of gold. The direction could not be established in the small section because the gold came from every part in the hole as it opened up

I would also be interested in seeing how thick this silcrete is, usually a low occurs from low spots below - so maybe if this silcrete is only a few hundred mm thick then the next material will be good to see what it is - I would presume it is a conglomerate type wash material and then that would be maybe 1 mtr thick and towards the bottom of the conglomerate would have a high concentration of gold deposits - being larger in size and a lot more gold - then it would no doubt change to a sedimentary material which would be a lot softer much like powder than what I have been cracking at the surface - the surface silcrete as we know is like concrete because of the weathering process - the lower sedimentary would be soft. And at the very bottom conglomerate layer I would see thick hard iron stone dark colored calcium carbonated rock.

Anyway guys - hope you enjoyed the 2 1/2 days write ups and documentation with images.

I will be sure to post up some other stuff in the coming days - even if the direction cant be traced with the strategy in mind - the main thing is to give it a go and see what can be found.

Enjoy
 
RCGold said:
Geez you've got to be up to about half an oz by now with still more to come very nice area indeed.

Hi RCGold,

At the moment some still has slight traces of harder material attached that did not flake off from the gold - I will wait until it fully dries out and it may just crumble away - if I cant remove some I will just perform specific gravity test for all that are not solid - at the moment total is weighing just on 2oz

Thanks again
 
silver said:
I'm staying up for tonights installment !
If there's gunna be one. :p

Hi Silver,

Thanks for your feedback and interest in the thread - I will always keep the post running with some findings - even if its a 3 foot hole with a big rusty relic. Anything of geological interest is also worth posting up for all to see.

Regards M.G
 
Great going M.G ,.... interesting article for you in GG&T magazine Nov 2016 page 50 titled "The search for stealth gold" can see that article marrying in with your efforts.
Silver. :D
 
Hi MG another great post and well done on getting 2ozs out of 1 hole, and can I say for all the hard work you have put in you deserve every gram of it, the information you have put on this thread has me getting up in the morning and getting straight on the pc to see how you did yesterday, and I must say after spending the day with you and Dick the way I approach my detecting trips has completely changed ,I spend a lot of time on google earth really looking at where we are thinking of going looking at the contours where the gully's are and where you get intersecting gully,s etc and then when we get there we have a walk and a good look at the area before we get the sticks out for a swing .we have found a couple of areas that we will be having a look at next weekend might shoot you a pm let you know where we will be maybe meet up for some lunch in-between digging up nuggets lol I hope lol,Once again congrats on your finds and thanks for sharing it makes me smile every day .
 
Pirate pete said:
Hi MG another great post - information - getting up in the morning - the way I approach my detecting trips has completely changed - looking at the contours - we have a walk and a good look at the area before we get the sticks out for a swing - we have found a couple of areas - digging up nuggets - makes me smile every day .

Hi Pete,

Great reply - excellent to see that a few notes and pointers has potentially assisted in the way you approach detecting in its entirety. Adding these extra things we do makes it that much more exciting and the possibilities of narrowing down our search area's for a higher probability.

All the best and good luck.
 
Well hell MG my estimation was a bit off obviously some good size bits in amongst all that gold definitely onto a good thing there. I dare say you'll be digging up a storm for a fare while once you find the direction of gold flow. Congrats on your haul so far and keen to read what happens next.

Cheers Ryan
 
Hi All,

Just updating thread with some findings today - after the rain yesterday and not being able to make it out for a swing.

I ventured back to the same area where the recent findings were made - when I first arrived I searched the pile of material removed from the hole by scraping inch by inch away until I reached the bottom of the pile and hit 2 little targets - looking forward to processing the material to get the targets that are not quite big enough for the detector to get a signal response.

In searching some more around the hole edge - I noticed a faint signal coming from the upper section

1. Here in these images you can see the very small section scraped away - and some water filled the hole over night - after removing the soft wash and dirt away from the top - the signal again was coming from in the hard base material - good chance another piece of gold
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2. I didnt take too many images today because the area and everything in the posts would have been much the same as previous posts - same dirt same grounds etc, the top 3 pieces the 2 smaller ones were in the pile removed from the hole - the larger out of the top 3 pieces came from that section in the previous pictures which I cracked out today - with the larger piece - I took a break from the main area I have been concentrating on just to break up the day and hit this piece about 8 inches down roughly 5 meters away from this section that I am focusing on.
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3. I also dug a couple of pieces of lead on my travels away from this area - and a 2 1/2 foot hole for a nice piece of rust - and I was well and truly covered in clay after digging it out.

4. These 2 pieces of silcrete also had signals coming from them, these were taken out of the main hole - I was surprised when I got home and cracked them open. Small one had 5 pieces and large one had only the one piece
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5. This is the first 4 after semi cleaning when I arrived home.
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6. Going from left to right - the first pile was gold removed from some silcrete pieces last night - this was roughly half a cup full of crushed silcrete - 9 small pieces. -

The next pile labelled number 1, this is what came out of that little piece of silcrete from the previous images which was found today, very surprising to have 5 little pieces in this marble size silcrete the larger piece in pile labelled number 1 is what the detector was getting the signal from.

The gold labelled number 2 - this is what came out of the larger piece of silcrete in the previous images - no other small pieces were in this piece - safe to say that piece of gold was the signal response from the detector.
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As mentioned in previous posts - I will now look to take away the soft material down to this hard base around the hole - basically in this below image any pieces of gold which are still at the main hard base level would be very hard for any detector to pick up with having such a large amount of compost and unconsolidated wash sitting above the main hard base - the section of interest is mainly at the end and the right of the hole.
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I will keep at it and see what more comes from this - I will be sure to post up all material after crushing and let you guys know what has come from it when washed off.

Regards M.G - as always be safe and well, and talk with you all soon.
 
If this be just the old flow through the sand, just imagine if you find some billy boulders along the ancient flow line ,.... gold could be thick as ants at a picnic.
I'm excited for you M.G :D
 
Thanks Lord, Silver,

The material that has been coming from the upper calcrete has been large water worn quartz boulders almost half football size some of them. The main Gold concentration was found below these large boulders maybe 3 inches into the silcrete.

Its hard going breaking this stuff up - when I put the large chisel into the calcrete and give it a fair old whacking - the ground vibrates a lot different than when I have had previous finds in more solid/thicker calcrete - it almost gives the impression from the vibrations that it is not super thick maybe another 150mm-250mm thick layer. I will attempt to break through and let you guys see the images - my thoughts were that if this is younger gold deposits then maybe there is the potential for a more ancient older and possibly larger gold deposits below this level - depth of the ancient deposit I wouldnt know until we see what makeup is in the next level.

I think taking away the material around the hole to try to ping some closer gold along this hard layer - then look to punch through. I would also be very keen to move down from this hole 1mtr then another meter and just dig some test holes to see if this hard layer continues downwards from this hole.

Nothing ventured nothing gained :)
 
Another great report mg this is the hole that keeps giving by the look of it will be interesting to see what is in the lower level under the calcreate never know could be a hand of faith down there lol well you never know good luck mate hope you get a really big one
Keep it going .
 
Hi MG,
I don't know how you sleep at night, I'm excited just reading your posts, you must dream of rivers of gold flowing from that little hole. Wait, there are already rivers of gold flowing, hope you just keep finding more and more as you are surely keeping us all entertained and drooling, we can all only wish oh and dream.???????

Good luck and fortune to you (and may some of that rub off onto the rest of us???)

Cheers
Bob
 
Great stuff m.g. What a wonderful read and a inspiration to all of us. I think you should lodge a claim on your patch before someone beats you to it. Looking forward to meeting you on the 26th carn,t wait
 
Hi All,

Back out today - couldnt ask for a better day - weather was great

I seen something today that I have never seen before - some people would have no doubt seen this in the past but was a first for me. I was exploring a section of ground that I have been to before - the area is just at the base of the hills in the thick bushland area surrounded by many trees and workings along a main gully area. At the base of where the 2 hills meet and the upper section of the gully is a Dam

When I was walking downwards of the gully just to check something out from a previous trip to the area - I ventured back in between when the gully splits in 2 and continues back towards the dam - when I got closer to the dam while kneeling down to look at something I heard a large splash sound at the dam. I thought maybe ducks Mmmm interesting.

When I got up and walked up over the dam bank - I was surprised to see a dark head what looked at first to be a dark colored foxy or big jack russell taking a dip - it then dawned on me that it was a bloody wallaby. This thing was about 5 meters in off the bank taking an mid afternoon dip - it was quite funny watching it swimming across the dam - it got maybe another 2 meters in towards the centre and then it spotted me - it was hilarious watching it swim as fast as it could moving about 1 meter every 10 seconds - they swim in slo-mo and it was probably putting a lot of effort in after seeing me and trying to get out of the water. I couldnt get my camera from the car to take some pics because it would have all been over so I sat and watched - the moment it hit ground and was able to stand in the water - it shot out quick as anything and took off into the bush behind some scrub and just sat there.

Anyway after finishing at this area - I went to another spot of interest just to break things up from the previous area where the gold hole is. After walking a fair distance and narrowing down some potential area's - I stumbled across a really rich area from previous mining days.

1. When I searched around this area that I have now taken very keen interest on - after digging a few targets at great depth and getting some really nice pieces of rusty metal and a few bullet shells - just the usual - I ventured into this undulated area cleaning part of the bottom at one end to get another piece of rust - I then moved upwards into this area and right in a clear spot with a big dead shrub type bush and a few large sticks - I moved them out of the way and hit this nice little faint signal - after scratching an inch off the top the signal response was a lot more clear. I dug maybe 8 inches - the target was in between the 6 to 8 inches of material
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Out came this little ball of gold - the material was only very light clays - very soft and not much wash material only the odd piece of quartz/gravel type rocks - this leads me to believe that this is material that was moved here from the old timers working lower area.
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2. Was starting to get late and the sun was almost down below the horizon - here in these images is the area where I found this piece - directly behind me are very large white clay workings - it is like a line of workings that wraps around the top of the area that I found and the area I am standing on is all reds - and lot of gravels - there are also signs of some conglomerates from what the old miners had removed sitting on some mullocks. If you look at the third image this is me looking down into this undulated area that I will focus on removal of any large sticks and compost material on the ground to get me closer to potential targets. Best thing is the first target hit in the upper end of this undulation was Gold so hopefully some cleaning might even get some more targets. After I removed this target I ventured around this undulation just to focus my attention to any rocks and what the make up of the material is that was removed from this low lying area
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3. This was on the long 1.5km walk back to the vehicle - thats right 1.5km in and 1.5km out - but all worth it because the bush area is excellent here no signs of previous operators detector holes. Anyway this little fella was taking his late arvo walk - only a meter or 2 away from me.
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Seen all the wildlife today even some Jacky Dragons running away - if they have legs then its all good - havent stumbled across any legless lizards yet

4. A hillview on route back to vehicle
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5. Some of todays finds - the top right corer all these signals were those nice solid, even, mellow sounds at good depth
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6. Couple of rocks with mid tone sounds - havent broken these open as yet, one I presume is just medium concentration of mineralization with iron oxide
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7. And there is the little yellow pebble - very small this one 0.47g but at good depth 6 to 8 inches.
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Again was a fantastic day - done some more exploring found some promising ground and good area's to focus down on for a few days. Looking forward to tomorrow to clean some areas and have a good search.

All the best to all - enjoy your day/night and happy prospecting
 
Thanks again MG for another terrific account.
I must say that the only time I saw a kangaroo swimming was at a lagoon in an estuary in southern NSW crossing to get to the other side on a beach.
Didnt notice if it had a surfboard or not.
 
stoyve said:
Thanks again MG for another terrific account.
I must say that the only time I saw a kangaroo swimming was at a lagoon in an estuary in southern NSW crossing to get to the other side on a beach.
Didnt notice if it had a surfboard or not.

Thanks stoyve - I wish the camera was in hand to capture the video - when it noticed me and turned around to get out it was quite funny swimming so slow to turn around.

With the area that I found it should be pretty good for a good go over - like they say take only pictures and leave only footprints - in our case its take only pictures, memories and gold and leave not even footprints.
 
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