Is this worth further investigation? - Macclesfield Private Property

[SonofOak]

Hi guys,

Just after a little assistance - my Uncle owns about 20 acres in Macclesfield, not too far away from the Mineshaft Reserve....I've done a little reading on Gold in the area, and know that there was a little gold found, but doesn't appear to be too much info from what I could find.

Anyway, he has a creek running right through the property which I explored today. It's a heavily tree-ferned area, and for the most part the creek has mud banks....I stuck a stick in at one point and around 500mm until you hit something solid.

I stumbled across one section however which was a white/grey clay deposit - right after this very narrow channel that the water has been cutting away at - note the creek is very small so I'm not talking large scale here.

On it were quantities of quartz, so I decided to do a couple test pans just skimming the gravels up and a small layer of clay. Reduced to black sand and managed to find a nano-fleck of gold in the first pan - did a couple more pans after that but nothing more as I ran out of time.

I don't know, but the gravel colours look good to me and is this white-ish clay pipeclay?

Last thing I did for the day was dig a big clay chunk out of the creekbed, about 400mm down and noticed that there are quartz pieces even at the bottom......

Is this worth investigation further? - or can someone shed some light on similar experiences in the area?

Photos attached (hopefully)

 

[Jaros]

Well, gold is where you find it mate.

 

[RM Outback]

Yep definitely worth a look erfect:

 

[Newprospect]

Go with your Gut!!!!

 

[Nightjar]

SofO,
Is a permanent watered creek or does it dry out?
Back when much younger and fitter did a lot of dry blowing in creeks.
Shovelled the topsoil down to with in 100mm of base rock, in likely looking spots, usually where a rock seam crossed the creek. Then using my small engine driven puffer would dig for an hour and then process the fines back at the camp with a wet sluice.
It was a little hit & miss but was rewarded greatly many times, the best was several ounces a week.
Good luck.

 

[SonofOak]

Water remains year round, a lot less in Summer obviously so wouldn't be an option for me - will do some more digging and investigating when I get the next opportunity and update

 

[3717]

I used to have a place there, I was encouraged by quartz too, but after much testing found very little.
Not worth the effort, maybe two specs for many hours work.
I gave most of the neighbours properties a good go too btw.
Not all quartz has gold unfortunately.
Have a look though, there might be a vein shedding downstream of where I tested.

 

[Moneybox]

You are not likely to find much gold in the easily accessible gravel. You have to do as Nightjar says and dig down until you reach a solid base. The gold would have been deposited there or worked its way down to that level.

 

[gcause]

See the post I just put up about reading a stream. You want to use a process called loaming. You take samples (a couple of shovels full) at regular intervals about 1 metre apart going from bank to bank. Don't forget to sample a couple of metres up above the bank of the creek as well as gold travels down hill. You work your way up the length of the creek this way taking samples as you go. The old timers used this technique, the would carry canvas scarfs and wrap the samples in the scarfs so they eventually had what looked like a string of sausages around their necks. When the scarf was full they would go back to camp and pan off the samples so they could work out the Gold Line where the highest concentration of gold was. Any pan with 20 specs or more was considered payable gold and worth setting up a rocker cradle in that area. The Gold Line is the line the gold follows down the creek. Gold goes from bend to bend in a creek and typically follows a line down the inside bends of creeks. Look for the heavies i.e. bigger rocks as that is where the gold will be look at the back of these large rocks as that is where the eddy currents will form when the creek is in flood. The vegetation will be bent around these larger rocks so you can see which way the water flows in flood. Dig down at the back base of these rocks to get samples as the eddy currents will drop the gold there. You want to find bedrock or ideally green rock as gold is heavier than anything in the creek so it will drop down. Where you get clay the clay will trap gold also. Blue clay is a good sign as it tends to trap more gold as it is denser than the white clay. Make sure to break up any clay balls you collect as the gold can be trapped inside these. Hope this helps.

 

[Lukep]

Is this creek running into wooriyallock or is this on connection with shepherds creek ? If they do run into each other it’s good chance if you dig and process some you will get results. I’m from cockatoo and have been looking at this area for years. Pancake creek that runs through Gembrook was the main creek in our areas… then ofcourse Macclesfield and wooriyallock

 

[Gold1hunter]

See the post I just put up about reading a stream. You want to use a process called loaming. You take samples (a couple of shovels full) at regular intervals about 1 metre apart going from bank to bank. Don't forget to sample a couple of metres up above the bank of the creek as well as gold travels down hill. You work your way up the length of the creek this way taking samples as you go. The old timers used this technique, the would carry canvas scarfs and wrap the samples in the scarfs so they eventually had what looked like a string of sausages around their necks. When the scarf was full they would go back to camp and pan off the samples so they could work out the Gold Line where the highest concentration of gold was. Any pan with 20 specs or more was considered payable gold and worth setting up a rocker cradle in that area. The Gold Line is the line the gold follows down the creek. Gold goes from bend to bend in a creek and typically follows a line down the inside bends of creeks. Look for the heavies i.e. bigger rocks as that is where the gold will be look at the back of these large rocks as that is where the eddy currents will form when the creek is in flood. The vegetation will be bent around these larger rocks so you can see which way the water flows in flood. Dig down at the back base of these rocks to get samples as the eddy currents will drop the gold there. You want to find bedrock or ideally green rock as gold is heavier than anything in the creek so it will drop down. Where you get clay the clay will trap gold also. Blue clay is a good sign as it tends to trap more gold as it is denser than the white clay. Make sure to break up any clay balls you collect as the gold can be trapped inside these. Hope this helps.

 

[Gold1hunter]

You'll enjoy that.

 

[allcables]

pm me l know a little bit in regards to that area