Hi All,
Again thanks for all the replies and positive feedback - its all about helping others in the field if we all help others gain experience it can be amazing when a good group of people can head out on a weekend and enjoy the complete experience - rather than looking over your shoulder to see if someone is watching you find gold.
Trust is very important not like the guy who see's you get your little spot then the next day he is back there in the exact location in the search for the gold spot you found - or the moment this happens all of a sudden you have a few more in close proximity - this is called Greed some have it and some are just cool. If you did this back in the old gold days taking another mans weekly earnings food from his table wow. They say gold can do strange things to people - "Only if you let it"
I know we cant control the fields and we dont own certain parts of the land, but we must appreciate that we can participate in this wonderful hobby. I also believe there should be certain etiquette among prospectors. We usually head out either by ourselves or with a very close friend or family and we know from experience that we have a built up trust among us.
Anyway I will start with today's findings to share some more with you all - this area is very hard going when I started today and between removing sections of this hard base material - I sat back just to reflect on the amount of material removed by the old timers in a lot of area's I have been to, it provides us with a sense of the extreme efforts these guys went through, when we dig holes in extremely soft material top soils, dirts, unconsolidated gravels etc I would choose a 2 foot hole any day over this calcrete - Also being such hard base like as the name refers its like concrete, sitting there with a hammer and various chisels and slowly chipping away compared to a 1 to 2 foot hole in softs taking maybe 5 to 10 minutes. The old hard rock miners must have been pretty well ripped in their days.
So after arriving and chipping away some material - It was pretty warm today so the first port of call was a bush umbrella various tree branches to cover the area that was being worked - this was great now full shade to work the ground.
After swinging the detector there were noticable targets still in certain area's - again very warbly not distinct signal - trying to pinpoint was hard enough with the uneven ground in the hole - I presumed the signals were showing strong and weak on the front and back of the coil - operating with the 14" DD Coiltek.
After a few swings the area of focus was in a circle trying to ensure not to hit the targets - every time material was removed a quick visual for any gold that was too small to register on the coil - this proved good for small stuff without the need to dolly and pan, anything visual was kept aside.
1. This is the hole and the sun was completely covering this area - after some bush umbrella work - some nice shade across the area.
2. First piece removed from the material
3. Everytime material was removed some pieces that were moved into the paydirt pile which will be crushed and panned off later - I also ran the coil back over this heap every so often and it was amazing to hit more targets in the pile and still in the hole.
4. This piece when removed I placed it back in the hole just for the image - I was hoping to get some more pics with the gold still encased but visual while it was in the ground. The colors in the majority of this hole were white to medium grey - majority of the gold was in the darker grey material. Also some reds coming through and water worn to very coarse quartz - there are sections through this darker grey material of quartz vein running upwards out of the ground
5. Another piece on the edge of the material
6. Here you can see the colors - I thought to get an image for you all to show you the iron mineralized material and the sedimentary material with the various minerals mixing and making the color's over many millions of years.
7. This piece had a sign of 3 or so visuals and was placed in the pile for gold recovery later.
8. A few more pieces here in the material and removed in the field
9. All up in this image 20 pieces for today - and also the other hard base material with the visuals there is another 12 or so pieces, approximate total would be 32 pieces. Hopefully after some dollying and working the material should be able to recover some nice little pieces that are not visual and not detectable - either too small or base material is too large. Either way working the material in a dolly and panning off the lights should reveal some nice little gold.
When this hole was found I also forgot to advise that the material on top in this area was red clay like material - then there was a layer of dark chocolate brown clay above this hard base ancient creek bed. The hard dark chocolate brown clay is very brittle but solid - similar to when you find red clay that is soft and then the stuff you find that is like plasticine - rubber but brittle. There different consistencies among various clays which helps you understand the mineral and age and many other factors. Much like in this Clay Table
Anyway I hope you enjoy and - I think I have covered a lot for this find - top soil, red clay just below this area, quartz large round waterworn on very hard base material which is a sign of an ancient water area, still havent found which direction it travels yet as this hole is keeping me active - looking forward to removing a 2 ft area or dirt all the way around this hole to see what is revealed. And we have the undulated area mentioned - dark clays - quartz vein - iron oxide colors - iron oxides along side the quartz vein - hard sedimentary material. These signals are starting to look very promising for a possibility to follow this ancient waterway for another dip. Especially the few reefy pieces removed so far.
Again I had to walk away from more signals day just got away.
I will post any new findings and anything that is impressive in the finds will surely document it for you all so one day it may just appear in your next gold find.
Tomorrow is another day and looking forward to getting back out.
Enjoy the post and may you all have a wonderful plentiful weekend full of elusive metals.
Cheers M.G