Hi All,
Again another few hours out - and today was more breathtaking than yesterday, well in another way I should say. Yesterday was great getting that specimen piece and looking forward to soaking it up some more and soft brush to remove the extra clay still trapped - I may even just soak rinse to ensure that I dont scratch any potential gold crystal structures.
I still havent looked under the microscope yet - but will be sure to post up my images for you all to see under the Microscope.
So as you all may have read I went out today for 3 1/2 or so hours - left at roughly 3:30pm to a recent area which I have found small patches. Just to see how the GPX4500 with the elite would go for any missed gold. I can't talk this thing up enough and will leave it at that - you all know how deep these things punch and how sensitive they are.
When I walked directly to this spot and fired up the machine instantly a target - you may look back through earlier posts and you will see and image of the exact spot where I found gold with the GP3500 - this spot is the exact same which I thoroughly searched with the DD on the 35
1. If you look in the first image you can see this spot in very earlier posts on October 11th - and there we are a little solid target within seconds of firing up the machine. This was the only target in this area nothing more after a thorough search. Onto the next little area - I wasnt concerned about all the ground in between at this point just more so the main area's of previous gold finds.
2. The next spot had no more targets after going over it for roughly 20 minutes - so onto the next area, again not focusing on in between grounds just yet. When I arrived to this next spot - again another target at the edge - and it was a little piece of rust about 2 inches down - much like a small hot rock sound - but definitely a target.
3. And when I started into this area which is full of Conglomerate - its like a sheet that varies from inches to feet in thickness and on Red Clays. I hit a target right next to a fallen down burnt tree, it was solid and loud enough after removing the charcoal from the surface. Nice little piece
4. The previous section had no more solid targets and not even the usual hot rock signal - very quiet so as I continued only meters away there is another section which I have done before - you know area's that you have prospected but they dont stand out as much as others - this is an area which I had walked through on a few occasions but not a consistent sweep - hit this target on the side as I was walking in, swinging the coil all the way around this tree - here you can see depth and soil types, digging out chunks of previously broken conglomerate
And the target was in this - very solid signal from the surface and when appeared to be a good solid signal from 6 to 8 inches - needed to bring this one home, was going to break in the field but camera was getting low and also wanted to wash it to see the makeup of the conglomerate
5. Another target only feet away from the previous one, looking like this could be a winner on this undulated worked area, just from looking at this area it is easy to read the grounds, and see that it was semi worked back in the old days.
And another little piece of the good stuff.
After this I scanned the grounds pretty good in this spot, working my way through with high concentration - and boom almost blew my eardrums with these next 2 targets - 2 pieces of wire on top of the ground, very rusty and old. But there were 3 targets here - 2 pieces of rust and to the right of these only 1 feet away after I removed the wire. Another solid target - this thing was like a 303 lead sitting maybe 4 inches down. It almost appeared like closer to the surface - had someone hit these rust targets and dismissed this next target - who knows - but either way I was getting it out.
6. Here in these images you can see 2 red arrows - they were the 2 previous targets - then 2 yellow arrows indicate the 2 pieces of Rust Wire - and you can see my hole that I started to dig, at this point I knew that it may be worth taking a picture at this particular stage. The target just appeared to be closer to the surface
And here you can see I hit a very hard base material after removing the softs from the top. You can also see a depth - this thing was absolutely screaming and was hard to pinpoint - didnt have the pin pointer today but nevertheless I was going to open this hole up some and pay considerable attention to the exact location - I knew at this point after hitting this hard stuff it was ground not previously touched by the old timers.
After digging more I went through a layer of Conglomerate which was only 100mm thick and then a red clay layer underneath it, after a few drinks breaks and pictures, a bit of sweat - I had this target out within 15 or so minutes - nothing extreme just savoring this moment for what was about to happen.
And there we have it in the hand - this thing well it was out to see the light of day and I was absolutely gobsmacked when this thing came out - I didnt have to pick the extra dirt up but after the excitement I just picked it up and grabbed the camera. How awesome is that for a find
7. And again another target only meters away from the previous find, also have a look here, I have marked the area of a previous operator with arrows, which I outlined just before in the previous images. And another clear solid signal - images show hole, depth, target, ground type and target removed. Today was showing that the GPX with Elite is in a world of its own compared to my GP35 with DD Pro
8. And that was me for the day - time to head home for a clean up and some dinner. Was looking forward to checking what was in that large conglomerate piece as well.
Gold Cleaned Up - here you can also see that large conglomerate piece after a wash and before it was smashed to reveal the hidden target.
All in all an excellent few hours out and the large piece weighed 10.75g @ final measurement marked on the pick handle - 16 inches.
Hope you like the images
I will thank Bjay and Dig'n-it for this one
