What am I dealing with here - identification please (part 1)

[ProspectorPete]

Hi guys,

A few days before Easter I ventured out to central Vic on a 4 day detecting trip to try a new location and put a couple of old ones to bed.
At the new location it had all the ingredients for a great detecting area, a mined quartz reef on top of a hill with 3 gullies of working on 3 sides of the hill, one with a puddler at the bottom and another where they surfaced the whole gully out.

I had a walk up the hill to the mined area and there was a fair amount of quartz with a blue stain or tinge to it so I took a photo and very curious to know what causes it?

 

[The Green Wanderer]

My guess would be iron or at least an iron sulphate of some form. Its usually what causes the "rusty" colour in quartz.

 

[Tathradj]

How deep was that hole. ?
Looks like a pretty fail Mullock Heap behind it.
My guess is Magnetite.
I do see some stained brecciated reef quartz around.
If there are diggings at the bottom of the gully and that mine is at
the top, The old Timers would have been looking for a reef that was shedding.
Some thing caught their eye.

 

[ProspectorPete]

Hi Doug, the hole is pretty deep from what I could tell, I wasn't getting too close but are about 4 similar holes around the top like this and looks like the also went in from 2 sides near the top, the reef is at the top and still exposed and I'm quite sure they went under it from the sides.
As mentioned, there are 3 gullies that run off this hill and all 3 have signs of workings, the best one was surfaced to bedrock and signs of surfacing between gullies where the puddler is.

As far as targets go it was pretty clean, I spent 2 solid days detecting the 2 best gullies with 14x9 evo and 15 evo on the deeper sections and only managed 2 shot pellets and some old tin rust for about 12 hrs effort, there were signs that the area had been raked probably 6-12 months ago as there were a lot of branches stacked along small trees in the gullies but not much sign of detecting on the deeper ground between the gullies and heading back up the hill, just the odd detector hole from a while back so it may be worth another trip one weekend to detect deep with the 15 evo in that area before deciding it's future prospects on my list.

 

[user 4386]

It really needs a close-up of the blue stuff - ID by photograph is hard work at the best of times, but especially at a distance. But not magnetite and probably not an iron sulphate.

 

[Tathradj]

Yes, A photo is hard to judge but I gave it my almost best shot. LOL

 

[Tathradj]

Also notice that there must have been a fair bit of clearing
going on as well.

 

[ProspectorPete]

It really needs a close-up of the blue stuff - ID by photograph is hard work at the best of times, but especially at a distance. But not magnetite and probably not an iron sulphate.

Fair point with ID from a photo, I won't be back there for a while to get better close up picks but best I can offer is the colour and effect of the blue on the quartz is very much like the blue burn mark on raw steel, not sure if that helps but that was the first thing that came to mind when I first saw them.
I'm really not good at Geology and correct terms so this post and my other post is more to try and learn a little from the more experienced here like yourself :Y:

 

[Trash]

Good post PP , the ground explanations & characteristics are very interesting...!

 

[Ship of fools]

Not that I know anything about mines but copper oxide is blue or green?
Matt T

 

[user 4386]

Copper not very important in central Victorian reefs. I suspect an iron oxide or something organic from vegetation