Firstly let me start by saying this is private property, I was asked by the owner to 'prove' a certain area for him to see if it was gold bearing, it showed most of the hallmarks for part of an exposed lead.
In the first pic you can see the benefits of a 'pelican pick' used widely in the mining industry (underground) these babies can move a lot of soil in a short amount of time, they can be purchased in Victoria from various stores, mine came from Blackwoods,
Anyways, this project is just to 'prove up the ground' it's not a full blown Au hunt for the day, it's merely just random sampling.
The pic here shows the top layer removed and some harder white clays underneath, I like these clays some 10km away nuggets have been found by detecting and they were dominantly in these coloured clays mixed with Quartz, so I took a sample of this and placed it in a bucket taking extra care as to only take that specific layer.
Moving right along, the next sample was taken from an area that wasn't showing large amounts of Quartz on the surface, upon close inspection you can see fine gravels, once again seperate bucket, seperate sample.
Now with five different soil type samples from different depth layers and locations it's time to start washing up, not having a lot of time I've decided to run the samples through pans and the dam at home I have set up for processing, I've ran out of CT18 truck wash, so I'm using the much harsher CT14, remember, we are just proving the ground, so we want to see the slightest bit of colour, the amount of gold is of no concern at the moment, just colour.
The CT14 helps break down the dirt ten fold above no detergents at all, this is the main reason I dug a seperate dam at home for washing and processing, mix the dirt vigorously, and I mean vigorously, you want to break down any clay clods in that sample.
And these are the clods I'm talking about, these pesky buggers are the only reason I don't take the time to set up a banker, without physically breaking these by hand they would simply roll out the over size end of your banker, the pic that shows the sample in the pan is usually where I stop panning, all heavies will be caught up in the riffles of the pan and or at the base, this sample is now returned to its original bucket for treating later with fresh water from the rain water tank.
You will have to zoom in on this pic, close inspection will show a tiny speci that was caught up in one of those mongrel hard clay clods that I showed earlier..............................VIGOROUSLY break down the dirt, otherwise you will be wasting your time
Right, more to come, it seems I'm having trouble load this all up in one hit...................as a really big Austrian dude once said "I'll be back"
In the first pic you can see the benefits of a 'pelican pick' used widely in the mining industry (underground) these babies can move a lot of soil in a short amount of time, they can be purchased in Victoria from various stores, mine came from Blackwoods,
Anyways, this project is just to 'prove up the ground' it's not a full blown Au hunt for the day, it's merely just random sampling.
The pic here shows the top layer removed and some harder white clays underneath, I like these clays some 10km away nuggets have been found by detecting and they were dominantly in these coloured clays mixed with Quartz, so I took a sample of this and placed it in a bucket taking extra care as to only take that specific layer.
Moving right along, the next sample was taken from an area that wasn't showing large amounts of Quartz on the surface, upon close inspection you can see fine gravels, once again seperate bucket, seperate sample.
Now with five different soil type samples from different depth layers and locations it's time to start washing up, not having a lot of time I've decided to run the samples through pans and the dam at home I have set up for processing, I've ran out of CT18 truck wash, so I'm using the much harsher CT14, remember, we are just proving the ground, so we want to see the slightest bit of colour, the amount of gold is of no concern at the moment, just colour.
The CT14 helps break down the dirt ten fold above no detergents at all, this is the main reason I dug a seperate dam at home for washing and processing, mix the dirt vigorously, and I mean vigorously, you want to break down any clay clods in that sample.
And these are the clods I'm talking about, these pesky buggers are the only reason I don't take the time to set up a banker, without physically breaking these by hand they would simply roll out the over size end of your banker, the pic that shows the sample in the pan is usually where I stop panning, all heavies will be caught up in the riffles of the pan and or at the base, this sample is now returned to its original bucket for treating later with fresh water from the rain water tank.
You will have to zoom in on this pic, close inspection will show a tiny speci that was caught up in one of those mongrel hard clay clods that I showed earlier..............................VIGOROUSLY break down the dirt, otherwise you will be wasting your time
Right, more to come, it seems I'm having trouble load this all up in one hit...................as a really big Austrian dude once said "I'll be back"
