micro mountain nuggets

[20x]

some micro nuggets I got this arvo with sieves and pan...great fun

the ground they came from...

this is the closest water, the only way to get the material here is to cart buckets on a removalist trolley :lol: ...

a nearby old water race...

might have another crack at this spot soon

 

[G0lddigg@]

that ground looks very similar to the high benches in Creswick mate, nice pickers there

 

[TenOunce Tone]

These races are described in Ion Idriess book "Prospecting for Gold". He descibes digging these races about 100 - 200 yards long and a foot or so deep (to bedrock) depending on the ground and basically filling the bottom with your paydirt. Wait for the rains to wash your overburden leaving behind the gold. Clean out the trench and process your washed gravels...

No wonder you are finding nice gold here. I would think tge old timers would have collected the "pickers" and nuggets and moved on if this is the case here.

Cheers, Tone

 

[richo966]

nice idea with the trolley try a wheelbarrow move more dirt

 

[20x]

These races are described in Ion Idriess book "Prospecting for Gold". He descibes digging these races about 100 - 200 yards long and a foot or so deep (to bedrock) depending on the ground and basically filling the bottom with your paydirt. Wait for the rains to wash your overburden leaving behind the gold. Clean out the trench and process your washed gravels...

No wonder you are finding nice gold here. I would think tge old timers would have collected the "pickers" and nuggets and moved on if this is the case here.

Cheers, Tone

hi tone, this dig is actually out of the water race up on top of a bank (water race is to the left of the pic). the clay is allways moist from what I believe is a small underground spring. I just went and tested the 3 different levels of material, top soil is junk, below that the top soil is combined with a darker clay has colours, the few inches above the hard red clay is holding the pickers, the hard red clay bottom is junk to.
ive done only a couple of sample pans from the bottom of that water race from behind some granite boulders that have rolled in and got some really fine colours. dont know whats below or how far till bedrock or if the bottom of the races are just stack stone like the walls for stability/anti-erosion

 

[20x]

nice idea with the trolley try a wheelbarrow move more dirt

hi richo, a wheelbarrow full of material in this terrain would be impossible. im busting my ring to pull a 20lt bucket full out of there as it is.

 

[backcreek]

Ha 20x,

I'm thinking the stacked stones might be the leftovers from surfacing work where they separated the wash dirt from the cobbles and took the dirt somewhere else to be processed probably with a rocker box next to a water race or creek. If this is the case they were following a pay streak.
This is the case near where I prospect. By the way they are heritage listed and as such they are no dig zones.
How far does the race go?
Does the upper reach lead to a pond or dam?
Are there any tailing piles next to the race? Piles of smallish classified stones.
Usually a water race is not as deep as the one in your pics unless it goes through a ridge etc. and I have never seen a race lined with cobbles.
The races I'm used to are only very shallow depressions less than 12" deep and some of them wind around the contour of the hills for miles.
Food for thought.
Cheers
Mick

 

[20x]

Ha 20x,

I'm thinking the stacked stones might be the leftovers from surfacing work where they separated the wash dirt from the cobbles and took the dirt somewhere else to be processed probably with a rocker box next to a water race or creek. If this is the case they were following a pay streak.
This is the case near where I prospect. By the way they are heritage listed and as such they are no dig zones.
How far does the race go?
Does the upper reach lead to a pond or dam?
Are there any tailing piles next to the race? Piles of smallish classified stones.
Usually a water race is not as deep as the one in your pics unless it goes through a ridge etc. and I have never seen a race lined with cobbles.
The races I'm used to are only very shallow depressions less than 12" deep and some of them wind around the contour of the hills for miles.
Food for thought.
Cheers
Mick

hi mick, I just went and met with an authority to get some answers and it is not heritage listed land. it boarders a neighbouring property I have permission to prosepect. this ground is a dead zone caught in the middle of public liability issues. no-one cares but because of this no-one will ever be able to work it legally. I doubt if I will be any exception but im meeting with the man at the top of a particular company that manages it to get to the bottom of it. interesting stuff ey.

my thoughts on your water race comments...e.g, the pioneer mine at mitta used a hell of a lot of water just to feed their monitors and that's just 1 of the many mines supplied by water races here. below is what I found at the end of what I thought was a gold mine..

I now think its a water race because of the straight line and slight fall it was cut at and there are no rails for carts on the floor. the floor is now up to 1ft of rusty silt with a lower gutter on 1 side. at the entrance/exit of this race I found an old rocker box plate(approx. 500x500mm sheet of iron with holes punched in it. there is also some old riveted iron boxes approx. 1m across and deep. I have an ilistration in a book that shows the effort that was put in to mining up here. very respectable stuff.

this is a nearby mine, cart rails on floor(all made from wood and only iron rails on bends obviously to cut costs)

the men that were actually there have passed and their sons to, I think field observation is all theoretical guess work but allways very interesting.

food for thought back at ya mate

scott

 

[backcreek]

Yea 20X,
I agree with you on the field obs. and theory.

When I first went to this area as a newby I was dumbfounded by the amount of earth they turned over by hand. I suppose gold and starvation are great motivators.
It took me a long time and a lot of visits and a lot of research to figure out how they were working the ground.
It turns out they were Padocking in a lot of areas where they dug into the hill and ran the water from the races over the top of the cut.
Other areas were surfaced as I described before and there are shafts dug everywhere where they were trying to find the deep leads.

If your interested in the way the old boys did it my area get a copy of a book called Bungonia to Braidwood by Barry McGowin.
There are heaps of pics of areas similar to your pics.

 

[backcreek]

Hay Tone,
This process is called ground sluicing

These races are described in Ion Idriess book "Prospecting for Gold". He descibes digging these races about 100 - 200 yards long and a foot or so deep (to bedrock) depending on the ground and basically filling the bottom with your paydirt. Wait for the rains to wash your overburden leaving behind the gold. Clean out the trench and process your washed gravels...

No wonder you are finding nice gold here. I would think tge old timers would have collected the "pickers" and nuggets and moved on if this is the case here.

Cheers, Tone

 

[20x]

Yea 20X,
I agree with you on the field obs. and theory.

When I first went to this area as a newby I was dumbfounded by the amount of earth they turned over by hand. I suppose gold and starvation are great motivators.
It took me a long time and a lot of visits and a lot of research to figure out how they were working the ground.
It turns out they were Padocking in a lot of areas where they dug into the hill and ran the water from the races over the top of the cut.
Other areas were surfaced as I described before and there are shafts dug everywhere where they were trying to find the deep leads.

If your interested in the way the old boys did it my area get a copy of a book called Bungonia to Braidwood by Barry McGowin.
There are heaps of pics of areas similar to your pics.

im a newby myself and its the same for me, im overwhelmed with the amount of activity that went on here and particularly the amount of methods used and you just added another one. paddocking explains a lot of things I have observed. interesting that you have said this because I have many idea's and methods to experiment with by using water to do the hard work for me.

on a small scale harnessing natural erosion caused by heavy rainfall over time to steer flour gold into concerntrations is one. I have three prospects going at the same time that I spend a couple of days at and rotate. my other post 'prospecting a dike' im thinking of creating a small race to feed the top side of the dike to cut through the top soil and exposing whats below for easyer sampling.

my other prospect is basically a heavily eroded gully that has concerntrated fine gold from the area above that has been disturbed by logistical activity since the old timers. I went there this arvo and did a lot of digging and separating overburden and piling pay dirt ready for a serious sluice run tomorrow.

im having an absolute ball here, im not finding large amounts of gold at all but colour is plentyfull if you know where to look.

I think this is the perfect training ground for prospecting and it was fete that brought me here. my time maybe limited as I may be moving back to Seymour where I was born grew up. I don't know how far from there gold will take me but I would like to get up in the Tallarook ranges because I have possible old contacts there.

scott

p.s the prospect above if I continue is only a short gully and the micro nuggets( :lol: ) are concerntrated within the width of a shovel.