Sapphire Bend, Oberon NSW

[jimnyjerry]

If it rained and snowed then the bend should still be wet. It has a clay base.

 

[Conan]

I sort of thought that might happen but hoped somebody had been past in the last couple of days. I was hoping to avoid the slop. Oh well down and dirty its going to be. :Y:

 

[Conan]

Stopped off at a spot on Sapphire Bend Rd last Wednesday(yes I have a permit) and had a scratch around for a few hours. Boy there was some very large holes, one was about 20 metres long and the depth was roughly 5 foot deep. Wash layer was around 30cm+ wide and was hard as hell to get out. It was on a par to digging concrete. The weather was coolish but bearable and there was plenty of wildlife to keep me company. I found a nice one before heading home.

 

[Conan]

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/doc/member-docs/3987/1534738788_vulc.pdf

PDF with some more pics. I forgot to mention that a lot of the holes were filled with water (plenty of sieving opportunities) but as it was to cold I brought home all of my dirt which I still have to go through. The area looks promising.

 

[Digginholes]

Your not wrong mate thats a bloody big hole it was even bigger last time I was there a few moths back, looks like some of the sides have fallen in since then.
I tried to get some wash out of there but it was way to hard going so I dig around the corner a bit further in some softer ground I found a while back that produces mostly small bits but its better then nothing lol
My guess is who ever works that hole gets some good stuff or theyd not put in that much effort.
I also think they are using a jackhammer

 

[Digginholes]

across the road from that spot has also been logged and in some places I noticed there has been a little gravel brought up with the trees being torn up,I didnt test any of it but I think it could be worth further investigation.
I do have old exploration reports for that area and theres a lot of good info in them and a lot of good test holes were done through out the Vulcan most of them produced sapphire at varying depths

 

[Wally69]

across the road from that spot has also been logged and in some places I noticed there has been a little gravel brought up with the trees being torn up,I didnt test any of it but I think it could be worth further investigation.
I do have old exploration reports for that area and theres a lot of good info in them and a lot of good test holes were done through out the Vulcan most of them produced sapphire at varying depths

I have pulled a few from the other side of the road, lost my bearings on where my hole was when the trees were pushed and ground disturbed 8.(

 

[Conan]

I think you are right with the jack hammer, I spent a bout 5 hours chipping away with a hammer and small crow bar and only got about 5 buckets to process. Sore hands, shoulders and arms to go with it. Plus the overhang in places was over 40cm, very dangerous to get crushed. The soil in this hole is very red compared to other holes that is more brown to grey so I think you are right to persist with this they must of been chasing something for the effort. I didn't go over the road as it was too muddy but looked good. Maybe next time.

 

[Digginholes]

The thing with Vulcan is there are multiple was layers, I have dug complete virgin ground there on the other side of the Forrest and found good sapphire wash but in layers that dont resemble what you see in that hole, my digs went down deep through the brown/black top layer of soil into a grey clay, at th bottom of this clay it turns to gravel with a lot of quarts and other rounded river gravels sitting on an orange layer of decomposing granit, this hole was on an old river channel and produced a lot of colour over 100cts total from a 1x1mtr section the best wash sat in and around some big rounded granite boulders.
At sapphire bend there was extensive testing done by Fraser mining co its hard to find a good spot there thats virgin, the big hole appears to be virgin but Im not sure on its quality I think there are much better and easier dig sites there.
In some spots you will notice the gravels all similar sized these spots are most likely tailings re deposited after the testing as they used a washplant and jig after wards pushing the material back in, taking only what was larger then 3/8 the big size sieves

 

[Digginholes]

If you like I can have a look later and tell you via pm exactly what reports to look for if you want some good information on the area including test pit location results by sapphire grade and depths.
Just pm me if your interested

 

[Conan]

The big hole is virgin, the wash layer is matted with all sorts of quartz, ironstone, large, decomposed granite, granite and small rocks all compacted together. The hole stops when they got to some large granite boulders the size of watermelons and bigger. They're probably waiting for the weather to warm up before they take the hole further. I have looked at the digs reports and pretty much anywhere has sapphires there, some better than others.

 

[Nicko98]

As far as Im aware, that hole has been smashed by all sorts of people over a long period of time.
I had a go in it around this time last year and it was close to half the size! Theres heaps of chips and little bits and pieces, with the occasional larger stone popping out!
I approach it with a lump hammer and cold chisel. It is hard yakkas but some nice colours pop out.
I heard that there was a Chinese lady all the way up to her ankles under the overburden getting at the wash! Crazy, I say!

 

[jimnyjerry]

Looks like a lot of work has been happening out at Sapphire Bend since I was there over a year ago. One big hole.

 

[Lefty]

Must get down that way for a scratch someday, just for something different.

I understand that the quartzite "billy boulders" that are an iconic feature of the central QLD sapphire field don't occur on either the New England field nor the Lava Plains field in far north QLD?

 

[Heatho]

Plenty of Billy's in the New England gemfields mate. Sure I've seen them at Sapphire Bend as well.

 

[Chiron52]

I thought you might enjoy some scanned photos (before there were digital cameras) taken at SB back in the 1980's.
I have been digging on and off at SB for over 30yrs. Most of the actual bend at SB was never logged back in the day.
It was left as a public fossicking reserve. You can see in my photos there were gum trees, instead of today's pine trees.
The present clearing in the middle of SB used to have a dam - similar to the one down the road - for washing your dirt.
These photos are taken looking toward Riverview Rd with the old dam at my back.
Pic 2 was taken facing south/west after that area had been logged.

 

[Lefty]

Plenty of Billy's in the New England gemfields mate. Sure I've seen them at Sapphire Bend as well.

Oh ok - a couple of people have told me they don't get them there.

Are we talking about the same thing? What we refer to as "billy boulders" up here are a very specific rock - they are hard and composed of quartzite and more often than not posses an unusual shape and smooth, almost polished surface appearance that has previously been described as "water-worn" but having seen countless numbers of them, I have to agree with Jim Elliot's argument that they are in fact heat-glazed. At least the surface looks that way.

They vary in size from small things the size of a fist, through to basketball size, through drum size and occasionally as big as a car bonnet or bigger. I had a 44-gallon drum sized one in my hole on our ill-fated claim at Reward, was a real pain to get out of the hole!

They are often taken as a sign of the potential of sapphire-bearing wash as they often seem to accompany the stones, many believe this is a sign that they were ejected from the volcanic vents along with the sapphires, black spinel etc.

They actually make a handy bush building material and there are plenty of miners huts and houses on the field that use them as such. The Rubyvale gem gallery was originally built from them.

 

[Lefty]

They also use 750ml beer bottles to build small structures such as outdoor showers, as the couple up the road from our old claim at Russian gully decades ago had - not sure how long it took them to accumulate that many empties but mining is thirsty work :lol:

 

[Chiron52]

I sometimes think about the sapphire digging at Sapphire Bend.
If, like I have, you could see how many times over the years the forest had been logged, the stumps pulled out and burned, then the whole area replanted, you got to wonder how there can be any sapphire/gravel layers left at all.
I also wonder if in the process of pulling the tree stumps out of the ground, whether the sapphire bearing gravels have been disturbed to the point that there could be sapphires at any level - from the top down.

I did find this pretty red thing at SB when I was there last year.

 

[Lefty]

I sometimes think about the sapphire digging at Sapphire Bend.
If, like I have, you could see how many times over the years the forest had been logged, the stumps pulled out and burned, then the whole area replanted, you got to wonder how there can be any sapphire/gravel layers left at all.
I also wonder if in the process of pulling the tree stumps out of the ground, whether the sapphire bearing gravels have been disturbed to the point that there could be sapphires at any level - from the top down.

Perhaps sapphires stick around an area even after natural and man made disturbance due to thier higb SG?

Jim Elliot believes that most sapphires don't tend to ever go all that far from their point of origin at the surface. He bases his argument partly on the fact that different parts of the same field can have marked differences in the type and quality of sapphires, with certain characteristics predominating in certain areas.

Glenalva is a section of our field away from the main mining areas and the stones from their have a distinct appearence, being often much lighter in colour. The mines department says that blue stones are rare at Glenalva, many of the stones I've handled that supposedly came from that spot are in fact blue-on-green but they are so much less saturated that they appear a kind of aqua shade.