Mullock heaps and throwouts

[Goldtarget]

Having a chat today with on old hand at detecting, had a fair bit of luck of late on the mullock heaps not far from a new spot I've gotten (many thanks to him) but in chatting he mentioned some interesting observations. The primary one being he seemed to much better on one particular side, which kind of makes sense, so my question is did the old timers have some sort of system when digging their holes, overburden to the left, paydirt to the right sort of thing? Also he had been investigating some of the tracks from mines and mullocks to processing equipment, also with some good results, next question did they mark these out with some sort of obvious clues? He sent some pics but after so many years in the bushland unused they are pretty hard to gauge so he went into patch hunting mode and gridded it up. And in the vein of helping out he put in his email a great sketch of some of the lesser known diggings in the area that would be suitable for digging based on his nugget targets he has extracted, anyone detecting ever gone back to see if they can wash some gold out of these patches? Any guidance appreciated.

 

[SWright]

G'Day Goldtarget

Yes it was quite common for miners, if and when they found a paying load, to use different sides of thier dump to segregate what they took out of the mine. There would often be an "ore paddock". the best of them were a cuttout on the side of the dump where they could back up a cart and dump the ore directly into it. Also they may have had rails along dump "fingers" on the larger mines where development material was dircted to one dump and ore to another. A lot depended on the ground slope and how big and the shape of their lease was. Gold on waste dumps is almost always a result of small veins that the miners went through that were either not recognised or too small to mine - probably both. If they were carting to a shared mill somewhere along tracks there would often be bits of ore that fell off the cart.
Araluen

 

[casper]

........, anyone detecting ever gone back to see if they can wash some gold out of these patches? Any guidance appreciated.

No not yet! but i will be returning this winter to a past productive patch near Maldon that years ago gave up dozens of sub gram nuggies for a detecting mate who fortunately has no interest in traditional gold getting methods. I'll grid the patch and go loaming. I'll carry in water and test pan. To me it makes no sense to question whether or not there is any gold there to find - of course there is - the little nuggies will have littler brothers

casper

 

[Goldtarget]

Exactly what i was thinking, those little guys must have some cousins, they didn't get there by plane. Still begs the question how to approach the attack, as you mention casper, loaming is a good start, hand tools is the restriction here after water. Still nice to have some grounds up the sleeve. And thankyou Araluen, the info will be a big help when i physically get there to assess the area which is dotted with Mullock workings, hopefully a pattern emerges after he's done so we have a chance to focus on the most likely areas in combination, after pi has been over them, we intend to do them with his whites and my vlf to try and pick up any stragglers. The little guys need a home too! I'm sure someone down the track will appreciate both your responses, and thanks again.