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Bullion.Forum
breaking the gram barrier
- Thread starter 20x
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Hey scott
How are you? I see you have moved down south a bit. The gold from down there looks good btw.
I felt sure you would break the gram barrier on your spot up the mitta. Cold & foggy up here this morning.
Jethro.
How are you? I see you have moved down south a bit. The gold from down there looks good btw.
I felt sure you would break the gram barrier on your spot up the mitta. Cold & foggy up here this morning.
Jethro.
Teemore
One foot out the door
Great haul there 20x, sure you will uncover plenty more where that came from. And we'll forgive you for not putting the rocks back in the holes till you've finished there ;-)
Remember as a teenager fishing upstream of the area, there used to be plenty of evidence of old dredging operations around the areas ....... Was never 100% sure if was mining or just gravel related. Oh, plenty of snakes back then as well.
Cheers Tom
Remember as a teenager fishing upstream of the area, there used to be plenty of evidence of old dredging operations around the areas ....... Was never 100% sure if was mining or just gravel related. Oh, plenty of snakes back then as well.
Cheers Tom
jethro said:
Heya Jethro,
Im going great thanks mate, Yeah the old man wanted to move back down here for his fox shooting and he's getting a few ey. He gets $17 a skin so the challenge is gold versus foxes and im winning :lol: .
I did break the gram barrier on the flour gold dig but the time to dig the pay,sluice and pan the cons properly with that white sand was taking 2 days. I will go back to that one but not until I design a specific HB and sluice that works efficiently on that ground and gold.
A little story about the 'new ground new gully new gold' dig...
ON the second last day I was there I helped the old man load the last of all the furniture into the removalist truck but I stayed behind one more day because I wasn't quite finished sampling and working out the problems of that spot.
The photo of the 'top hole' was taken from standing on a missive granite rock. between the edge of the rock im standing on and my hole is about 1m of ground. It would have been about 3pm and while digging and pan sampling the wash layer in that hole I for some reason turned around and thought "hmmm, I have sampled that side at all so I better".
Every pan from that side was producing about 0.05 - 0.1. I couldn't believe it and instantly thought "this whole time all I had to do was turn around" :lol: . The way I see it mate is that nothing is ever a waste of time because everything I did up to that point tought me sooooooo much ey. The positive to the result of zero is 'elimination', as long as you are very thorough with sampling.
That spot requires the old school approach and technique, no highbanking or sluicing. Soaking buckets, puddling and panning is the way to go there (ey GT)
. When I realised how much gold I would have been blowing with the HB i really enjoyed the week or so I spent there in quiet with no pump running so I could hear the sounds of the bush all day. What I really love about gold is that it doesn't have legs to run away or fins to swim away so its safely stored in the ground
for the future.
MY journey of prospecting has so far just been an 'amazing experience' and that's an understatement. The mitta is an awsome training ground ey. My prospecting now seems to be turning into establishing payable dig sites in different areas. After yesterday I have now secured site number 5 on another private property upstream from this one and I did this by door knocking and succeeded on the first.
Need some advice again please mate...
Below are some photos of what I got from this new spot yesterday...
Im guessing the silver material is mercury?
I remember you telling me about hard rock chemical gold separation processes, the gold below is weird, not pure and im guessing is from some type of process from the old timers? How does it end up in a creek mate?
This is new to me and quite interesting
P.s...Did you go back to that area for further investigation mate??????
Teemore said:
:lol: ...I actually called in for a quick visit to my newly exposed crevices the next morning just to sample the material I left that the shovel couldn't get out. colour is good, feel free to go the finish the job if ya like. covering gold with rocks just doesnt feel right ey :lol: ...enjoy freezing your arm off :lol:
TenOunce Tone
tony
Well done on the work finding that gold and the camera work, excellent photo, the lighting is fantastic.
Cheers, Tone
Cheers, Tone
Hey Scott
I typed out a great long answer to your questions last night but the computer crashed (again) so I will try again.
The top photo doesnt look silvery enough to be mercury on gold. see Balx's thread on mercury on gold started today. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7083.
is a good picture of mercury coated gold. Just as gold migrates to the low spots in a creek so too will mercury & it will combine with any gold it comes in contact with & even adhere gold grains together or to any of the metals in the platinum group in the periodic table. This is the basic principle that the amalgamating plates placed below the outlet of the stamp batterys used to crush quartz, worked on.
The second photo looks like gold with quartz and / or ironstone still attached. The gold you were getting from mitta has travelled a long way and been belted flat and rolled up by those big boulders that make up the wash in that system. The gold in the second pic has not travelled far from its primary source. Thats why it still retains most of its original shape & inclusions.
Yes I did go back for a hunt and prospect and camp. I followed that gully that i got those little colours in up and about 20 metres into the bush i found an old water race. Further up I came across a test hole that was sunk on a pegmatite dyke by the old guys prospecting for tin.
The camp was good as I had my young bloke with me. He shot some rabbits, we cooked a roast in the camp oven and had a few beers Didnt put up a deer though. still had a good time anyway.
jethro.
I typed out a great long answer to your questions last night but the computer crashed (again) so I will try again.
The top photo doesnt look silvery enough to be mercury on gold. see Balx's thread on mercury on gold started today. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7083.
The second photo looks like gold with quartz and / or ironstone still attached. The gold you were getting from mitta has travelled a long way and been belted flat and rolled up by those big boulders that make up the wash in that system. The gold in the second pic has not travelled far from its primary source. Thats why it still retains most of its original shape & inclusions.
Yes I did go back for a hunt and prospect and camp. I followed that gully that i got those little colours in up and about 20 metres into the bush i found an old water race. Further up I came across a test hole that was sunk on a pegmatite dyke by the old guys prospecting for tin.
The camp was good as I had my young bloke with me. He shot some rabbits, we cooked a roast in the camp oven and had a few beers Didnt put up a deer though. still had a good time anyway.
jethro.
jethro said:
hi mate,
well glad you had a good time went you went back ey.
yeah I actually seen balxs's post after I finished uploading mine, same thing 2 propsectors and same time, ironic
If its not mercury on gold the what could it be?
where I got this was from a test hole I dug below drop off of bedrock that's like a natural ford/dyke(foliation almost 90 degrees of creek),dip angle is about 80 degrees(if 90 is verticle) and dipping like reverse sluice riffles(cheese grater down a creek if you know what I mean)
rock and wash level on the downstream side is about 700mm below the top. I dug and sluiced down as far as my shovel could reach and still no bottom.
about 30m's upstream and higher on the bank are some huge old bolts hanging out of the ground about 400mm and about 40mm diameter. I wonder what was mounted there once upon a time
land owner wants to know how far to the bottom and whats down there ey. told him I will be back after winter and I will need probly 4-5 days straight to dig and sluice my way down through cubes of wash. should be fun and very interesting
Hey scott Geez man. you are the original modern day wandering prospector. Always moving from one rush to the next. Except you're driving a ute instead of a pushing a barrow Good luck in your new diggings mate.
jethro
Good luck in your new diggings mate. jethro
20xwater said:jethro said:
Heya Jethro,
Im going great thanks mate, Yeah the old man wanted to move back down here for his fox shooting and he's getting a few ey. He gets $17 a skin so the challenge is gold versus foxes and im winning :lol: .
I did break the gram barrier on the flour gold dig but the time to dig the pay,sluice and pan the cons properly with that white sand was taking 2 days. I will go back to that one but not until I design a specific HB and sluice that works efficiently on that ground and gold.
A little story about the 'new ground new gully new gold' dig...
ON the second last day I was there I helped the old man load the last of all the furniture into the removalist truck but I stayed behind one more day because I wasn't quite finished sampling and working out the problems of that spot.
The photo of the 'top hole' was taken from standing on a missive granite rock. between the edge of the rock im standing on and my hole is about 1m of ground. It would have been about 3pm and while digging and pan sampling the wash layer in that hole I for some reason turned around and thought "hmmm, I have sampled that side at all so I better".
Every pan from that side was producing about 0.05 - 0.1. I couldn't believe it and instantly thought "this whole time all I had to do was turn around" :lol: . The way I see it mate is that nothing is ever a waste of time because everything I did up to that point tought me sooooooo much ey. The positive to the result of zero is 'elimination', as long as you are very thorough with sampling.
That spot requires the old school approach and technique, no highbanking or sluicing. Soaking buckets, puddling and panning is the way to go there (ey GT)
What I really love about gold is that it doesn't have legs to run away or fins to swim away so its safely stored in the ground
for the future.
MY journey of prospecting has so far just been an 'amazing experience' and that's an understatement. The mitta is an awsome training ground ey. My prospecting now seems to be turning into establishing payable dig sites in different areas. After yesterday I have now secured site number 5 on another private property upstream from this one and I did this by door knocking and succeeded on the first.
Need some advice again please mate...
Below are some photos of what I got from this new spot yesterday...
Im guessing the silver material is mercury?
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/2569/1403499628_silver_maybe.jpg
I remember you telling me about hard rock chemical gold separation processes, the gold below is weird, not pure and im guessing is from some type of process from the old timers? How does it end up in a creek mate?
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/2569/1403499807_prospect_5_yella.jpg
This is new to me and quite interesting
P.s...Did you go back to that area for further investigation mate??????
I had this anylised today and it is not mercury at all...it is silver!
