What To Look For On The Goldfields (New To Prospecting)

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Very informative stuff Loamer. The diagram explains a lot. I would have gone straight for the bottom of the hill not thinking I'd get possible gold close to the surface part way up the hill.
Do you know if the workings of the old timers were the same Australia wide, or did methods change from one side of the country to the other ?
Just be interested in knowing what to look for over this side of the country, being that I live in an area known for gold but not a lot of information out there about it.

Cheers......
 
76drew76 said:
Very informative stuff Loamer. The diagram explains a lot. I would have gone straight for the bottom of the hill not thinking I'd get possible gold close to the surface part way up the hill.
Do you know if the workings of the old timers were the same Australia wide, or did methods change from one side of the country to the other ?
Just be interested in knowing what to look for over this side of the country, being that I live in an area known for gold but not a lot of information out there about it.

Cheers......

Things are different & things are the same, yeah it gets deep!!!
The most important thing is to learn the indicators & methods used in your backyard.
good luck
cheers
Lee
 
Hey Loamer - hope you don't mind but I am making a 'Loamer Field Book' for my reference.....great info and so good for a beginner like myself.

Small and spiral bound - a lunch time project before I finish up work......
 
condor22 said:
I'm from SA and I've just upgraded to a GPX5000, getting the best deal in Maryborough. So I did a quick trip and took advantage of the training near Maryborough. Much of what has been said in this thread by LOAMER was taught during the training.

So I'm kinda curious, is this coincidence LOAMER?

Loamer is trying to give people some insightful information . The fact that the minelab peeps teach this as well should lead you to the conclusion that there is a lot more to learn ... No? In the fact that your just getting handed a lot of similar information.
Loamer is just trying to help a lot of people that are new to this ( and havnt had a one day crash course) to do better. I personally thank him for his time and effort for putting , pics , posts up. You can see the response from most people for thanking him.
Good on you loamer.... And I know there's a lot more to learn from him.

Barney
 
I am not from Coiltek @ Maryborough! :lol: I have nothing to do with any dealer, website or business except buy my stuff from them.
 
Leads terminology.

Had a question asked about continued references to 'leads' - as in deep leads etc. A question was asked, " How deep is a deep lead?" Good question - short answer I always used was - if its too deep to detect, then its a deep lead. That's a bit flippant so I did some research and here are the results. (These are applicable to Victoria, but some references are made to WA. The chief source is Mr Frank Canavan MSc, from the old Victorian Dept of Industry, Technology and Resources. (Frank is no-longer with us and was wizz). His book - Deep Lead Gold Deposits of Victoria 1988 is highly recommended. Hope this helps.

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Costeaning, Loaming and Indicators

There has been some discussion on these three subjects and their relationship. The source is R.A.F Murray - Vic Dept of Mines Geologist - 1894.

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Edit: Western fields are referring to the Vic fields to the west of the Melbourne meridian - not WA. :lol:

The lower and upper silurian rocks are described here:

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Awesome stuff Loamer!

I just bought an AT Gold, which I have been researching for the past few months a your posts have provided some very good reading :)

Hopefully will get out in the next couple of weeks for a swing!
 
8) You find your first nugget of the day, how do you proceed? Start to circle from it, go directly away, look at the lay of the land? What is your method?
 
First thing is house-keeping. Mark the spot - note the settings/coil in your field-book - GPS/map reference. This is in case you have to leave, get too excited and miss the spot etc etc. Look at where the gold lay in relation to the surroundings - slope, flat, soil, wash, water runs etc. Where could it have come from - gold is lazy and takes the path of least resistance. take a close look at the gold - smooth and water-worn, sharp and angular, no matrix, matrix, what type of matrix? Alluvial/Elluvial? Did water bring it here? did gravity? has it simply fallen from close by? Has it come from a fair way.

I prefer to then grid in straight lines. I carry plastic tent pegs and mark out the area. Depending on your local rules and regs, you rake the area clear of leaf-litter, twigs and branches etc. I use the coil that I found the first piece and methodically up and back and deliberately get a fair amount of coil overlap. Then recross the grid lines from the opposite way. This way you can be fairly certain you have covered the area. Then, depending on circumstances, e.g. did I have a big coil on to start? - go smaller. did I have a small coil to start? go bigger? was I using a mono or DD - may have to swap. Do I need to change my settings? The area you need to cover depends on the location. Also note for example if you are on a slope - as you went higher, the gold got bigger, downhill - smaller. The pattern of gold in a patch should be noted - some form of markers are needed - plastic tile spacers was the tip I got recently.

Do not wander around a potential patch - you need to be methodical. some folk do circles, some squares. This too depends on where you are in relation to the ground conditions. An old motto was to dig two feet down and two feet around - small scale surfacing is the best description. What will surprise is that identical ground in the same area will be barren - just the way it goes. Depending on your detector, it may be worth while getting hold of another series just to be sure. I am now doing a lot of my older patches with the newer detectors. I have found two interesting things - smaller gold was still there and deeper gold.

Whatever you do - patch hunting/discovery is an absolute hoot.
 
Great info. I agree about the smaller and larger gold being there, the solution is a change of coils and different approaches, chaining etc. I am also contemplating a vlf to use as a sweeper after the 5000 and possibly a Falcon MD 20 to check for anything worth dry blowing. I pounded a spot in 2012, went back in 2013 with the same machine and coil and found several more not four feet from where I dug the previous mob. I don`t know how I could have missed them but did, the only difference being early in the morning and machine running smooth maybe?
 
Good point about time of day. Heat will most certainly affect the running - in my experience the hotter the ground, the more prone to ground noise. In this weather, I am usually done by about 10 ish - you can almost see and hear that things are going to get real noisy real quick. The VLF use is interesting - in Victoria I would not bother at all unless the gold had a quartz matrix and then I would probably limit my VLF to that. I find the Xterra 70 next to useless on the hot mineralised ground. Excellent for quartz as I can run it flat out - on horrible ground I have to wind it back so far to shut it up from burping, farting and wheezing that I am probably getting about 1/4 inch depth, and that's a maybe. Had to laugh about the gold four feet away - yes, its a bloody big question with a patch - when and where do I stop. I never tell anyone of my patches for this reason - heard too many stories of people declaring a patch finished and then it gets really cleaned out. I also know that there will be deeper gold just waiting for new technology. Remember when the first PIs hit WA and Victoria? - it was a whole new game.

I do use a VLF for checking for throw outs if I am digging into a quartz reef/vein/blow/line. has proven very handy for pinging little bits and pieces of gold the 4500 ignores.
 
I have only detected in WA but would like to try Vic at some time only to say that I been there and pinged a piece or two as long as they were several oz in size ;)
I have access to some good vlf, one being the XP Deus which has just been down loaded with a new gold program. Someone on another form used it with some success, so we will see.
In WA I know that I am leaving some smaller gold with the 5000, most users are oblivious to this and most could care less but it all adds up and at the end of the day it`s $$$$ in the pocket. Plus one could get on to a good alluvial area. :cool:
 
One of my detecting mates has a 5000 - the fine gold setting - amazing. We ran the 4500 and the 5000 both with 11" monos over a test area we set up. the 5000 won hands down on small gold with the setting. I see many people quite happy pinging small gold all day - they do quite well. Coins/tokens too off mullock heaps. I reckon its a great niche but not for me just yet. I just shake my head at people who say 'who wants to dig fly shxt all day' - what a load of nonsense. Folk who do the small stuff seem happy to me and if they at least cover their costs AND hit some big stuff as well I might add - well - good on them.

I may be old but I still love walking to and detecting new ground. It is getting harder in Vic to find - lots of walking, map recces, research, sampling etc. When the time comes and I have to give up my hard trecks through the bush - there are 1,000s of mullock heaps with my name on them. But as is often said - take out a map of the central vic goldfields - take dart - throw dart - detect that spot.
 
To me gold is gold and I will take it as it comes, big, little, medium all good stuff. I just know I will be spending more time on the big, little faint signals this year with more coil changes and a vlf sweep to satisfy my curiosity.
Thanks for the enlightenment.
 
Hi loamer

Thanks for all the knowledge you have supplied being new to this it is a great reference source, If I ever run into you I owe you a beer.

regards Hounddog
 
US article - not too bad.

Finding gold nuggets with a metal detector may seem simple enough, but it can in fact be one of the most challenging types of metal detecting there is. It certainly seems simple enough; you swing your detector until the coil is over a gold nugget, the detector sounds off, and you dig it up. In reality, while it can be very productive, using a metal detector for gold prospecting can also be extremely frustrating, so lets discuss a few of the challenges that you are likely to face when you start looking for gold with a metal detector, and a few tips that will help you get started on the right track.

The first thing worth emphasizing is to use a metal detector that is specifically designed for finding gold. Just about all metal detectors can detect gold, and manufacturers will often claim that their detectors are good at finding gold, but the truth is only a select group is specifically designed for nugget shooting. The average detector that might do just fine locating coins in a park will probably have fits if you take it out to the gold fields. Areas that produce gold nuggets often have a unique set of challenges associated with them, so lets discuss each of them in detail.

One of the biggest problems with most gold bearing areas is the highly mineralized ground that is associated with it. Most ground contains varying amounts of iron, and gold is usually found in areas that have extremely high amounts of it. This causes that vast majority of metal detectors to struggle, as they will sound off constantly because they are sensing the minerals in the ground. The other pest that you will find in many areas is hot rocks, which are rocks that contain a high amount of mineralization that will make your detector sound off as well. A detector with ground balancing is absolutely essential, but still many detectors will have trouble with this, and it can be just about impossible to cancel out the chatter produced by the mineralized ground to be able to distinguish the difference between it and a gold nugget.

Another problem that is common in many gold areas is high amounts of iron trash. The miners in the early days didnt think much about leaving behind junk. Often they were camped right on their claims, leaving behind old cans, boot tacks, nails, bullets, shovels, snuff cans, and just about anything else you can imagine. High amounts of trash can sometimes be overwhelming, even to an experienced detectorist, but it is something that has to be dealt with if you want to be a good nugget shooter.

Another thing that makes metal detecting for gold nuggets a real challenge is that the vast majority of them are very small. While we would all love to dig up those nice softball sized nuggets that we dream about, the reality is that most of the nuggets that are found with a metal detector are pretty small. We are talking little flakes that might be smaller than a grain of rice. So in order to successfully find gold nuggets on a regular basis we need a detector that is sensitive enough to find the small nuggets, while at the same time be able to handle highly mineralized ground and also distinguish the difference between ferrous trash and a gold nugget.

So now that we have outlined the biggest challenges that we will have to deal with when looking for nuggets, let talk specifically about which detectors are best at dealing with these challenges. I will go ahead and outline some specific brands and models that have good reputations as gold getters, but everyone has their own opinions about what is best. Do your research, weigh the options, and figure out which is best for your needs.

Without getting too deep into specifics, understand that there are basically two types of technology used in metal detectors today; Very Low Frequency (VLF) and Pulse Induction (PI). VLF metal detectors are an older technology, but are used in the majority of the detectors on the market today. They are best at locating small nuggets at fairly shallow depths. PI metal detectors are a newer technology and were specifically designed to detect larger nuggets at deeper depths. While they excel at searching deeper into the soil, they will miss small nuggets that a VLF will find. They are also much more expensive.

In no particular order, some of the most popular VLF metal detectors are the Fisher Gold Bug 2 and Gold Bug Pro, Tesoro Lobo SuperTraq, Garrett AT Gold, Minelab Eureka Gold, and Whites GMT. All of these detectors are well respected for their ability to find small nuggets, as well as discriminate trash and mineralization.

Minelab is by far the winner when it comes to PI metal detectors right now. They basically been the only show in town when it comes to high quality PI detectors, and they are by far the favorite of many serious nugget shooters. The older models include the SD2100, SD 2200 and GP3000, up to the most recent models which include the GPX 4500 and GPX 5000. The Whites TDI is another newer PI detector, but currently it doesnt have near the following that the Minelabs have.

Okay, so now that we have learned about good quality gold detectors and some of the obstacles that we will have to deal with, it is time to actually go out and find some gold nuggets!

The very first thing you should do when you get a new metal detector is read the owners manual. After you have read it, start at the beginning and read it again. The key to successfully finding gold with a metal detector is to understanding your machine, so take the time to really learn it; how it works, the different adjustments, how to ground balance it, etc. One thing all successful nugget shooters have in common is an intimate knowledge and understanding of their machine.

If there is one secret to finding gold, this is it; search where gold has been found before. In the case of metal detecting for gold, you need to search where nuggets have been found in the past. Some areas have produced plenty of gold, but not in sizes large enough to be found with a metal detector. Many of the gold bearing states in the eastern US would be a good example of this. Some areas have produced gold, but only dust and small flakes. If you want to find gold with a metal detector, you need to seek out areas that have a history of producing nuggets.

Dont just metal detect randomly. A common mistake is to assume that just because gold was found in a general area, that you can go anywhere in that area, turn on your metal detector and start digging up nuggets. Find the exact areas that the old timers worked. Look for old placer tailing piles, places where miners hand stacked rocks along a creek. Find those prospects in the side of the hill where someone did some digging. Look for large areas dug up with bucket line dredges or big hydraulic pits. If you are in an arid region, look for drywasher piles left behind by the old timers. Anything that shows sign that gold has been found in the area before is a good indication that it can be found today. The early prospectors were great at finding gold, but they didnt have metal detectors, so you have the chance of finding gold that they missed.

Once you have found a good looking area, its time to start metal detecting. The first thing you need to do is ground balance your metal detector to the mineralization in the soil. Since you read your owners manual you already know how to do this (you did read it, right?) If you really have found a good location that was worked by the early day gold prospectors, there is a good chance that right away youre going to get a strong signal from your detector, and you will dig a rusty nail. Youll move forward a few feet and get another hit, and you will dig up another rusty nail. You will go another few feet and dig up ten more nails, an old beer can, four little unidentified bits of iron, and a piece of bird shot. You have learned about the scourge of the modern day prospector trash.

This is where learning the language of your metal detector will really pay off. The fact is that even guys that are really good at finding gold nuggets with a metal detector still dig a lot of trash. It is just a part of the sport, and it is something that you just have to deal with to some extent. However, learning your machine will really help cut down on the amount of digging you have to do. Quality discrimination should be able to separate out much of the nonferrous targets that you go over with your detector, either by producing a different tone than gold makes, or by blanking them out completely. Each metal detector handles it differently, so learning your machine and how different types of trash sound compared to gold are extremely important if you want to be successful.

Its always a good idea to bring a test nugget out into the field with you. Take a small nugget and glue it to a poker chip or guitar pick, something that is not made of metal and large enough that you wont lose it. This will help you tune your ear to the sound of gold and what you should be listening for.

Another bit of encouragement... if you are digging small pieces of lead, you are on the right track. It is almost impossible to distinguish the difference between lead and gold. While this can definitely be frustrating if you get into an area that has bullets and bird shot everywhere, you should also think of it as a good thing. If you are able to detect a small piece of bird shot, you will be able to find a small piece of gold. Often it just takes time, and maybe hundreds of pieces of trash before you are lucky enough to find that first piece of gold, but if you are persistent you will be rewarded.

Metal detecting for gold nuggets is probably the toughest type of metal detecting, certainly much different than digging up coins at the park. Nuggets are generally small, the ground is highly mineralized, and often there is metal rubbish scattered everywhere. Still, when you find that first gold nugget there is a good chance that you will be hooked for life. Good Luck!
 
Awesome article, easy to read and understand. From a sluicer/panner about to get into detecting, I really appreciate it. Thanks Loamer!
 

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