Where do I look?

[Moneybox]

I'm looking at a string of mines in close proximity to each other.



I went out for another brief look today.



I took the 30m tape measure with a short piece of chain attached to the end. I dropped the chain down three of these mines and they were all between 10m and 11m. They appeared to have dug down through the quartz reef that can be seen running through from side to side on each shaft.

If there was gold in this reef why is it still there?

Is there something at the 10m depth that they were taking out?

The only mine that I have any history on is the Golden Leaf mine that can be found on Trove and it's listed in Mindex;


The most obvious difference is that the Golden Leaf mine has no bund around it so it looks like all that came out of the mine went away for treatment.

 

[Aries]

Phil,
I think you will find that they were just sinking on the quartz leader hoping that it would improve with depth.

 

[silver]

Maybe you make a lift cage(just to make it easy) and pop down for a looksee, is there any chance that they were looking to see if there was an old creek down lower, or was their thinking that if gold is so heavy it may have all been in a lower flow of quartz.
Or.... was it just a row of houses with wells lol

 

[grubstake]

Sounds like there was a single, smallish but productive gold mine and lots of attempts to find more nearby, both along strike from and parallel to the Golden Leaf reef system. Shafts like those pictured were routine for exploration in WA during the early gold rush and a party of 3-4 blokes with hand tools, buckets, barrow and site-constructed windlass, props, etc., could sink a 10 metre shaft in about a fortnight.

Any quartz encountered was quickly sampled, dollied and dry-panned (unless water was available after infrequent rainfall), for any signs of colour. It was brutally hard work, whether in the harsh sun and dust of endless summer or the bleak cold days and freezing nights of winter.

The Hesperian Press reprints of old miners' first-hand accounts (Mates & Gold by NK Sligo, is a good place to start), tell the tale, in all its unglamorous but fascinating detail.

 

[Mackka]

Isn't none of my business but, there has to be a safe way of finding out what's down there without actually risking life and limb. Just sayin' Mackka

 

[user 4386]

Maybe you make a lift cage(just to make it easy) and pop down for a looksee, is there any chance that they were looking to see if there was an old creek down lower, or was their thinking that if gold is so heavy it may have all been in a lower flow of quartz.
Or.... was it just a row of houses with wells lol

There would not be a creek down lower in those rocks, and likewise quartz does not occur in flows and therefore gold cannot sink in it - just to clarify the geological processes.

I think in a case like this I would question whether having a quick (and potentially risky) look will find gold not seen by the original miners slowly and methodically sinking their workings. You might pick up a slug with a detector, missed because no gold was showing at the surface of the quartz in the workings, but that would be more likely in a mine that had obviously found and produced significant gold.

And old workings like that are risky - that would need to be thoroughly barred down around the collar and the top edges stabilized - when they sunk it they probably had a timber surround at the collar (and diggers were dying almost daily in their workings nevertheless). A boondie only a few cm in diameter falling over that height is just as likely to be part of a shower onto other than just your helmet. Seems a lot of effort to go to for a mine that only has 34 tons of ore production recorded (and not many more ounces of gold).

 

[Dave's Office]

I've seen a series of about a dozen shafts similar to that on Windsor Station, the miners also erected some buildings on the site so one would think they must have found a fair amount of gold but clearly the strike zone was limited as the shafts are in a line stretching about 100 metres and no sign of workings either side of them.

 

[Moneybox]

Come on guys, I wanted some encouragement but I know you are probably right. I thought I might just take a quick climb down on the 15m rope ladder and run the detector down the quartz vane but I'm sure that if they had gold in the quartz it wouldn't still be there.

 

[grubstake]

Isn't none of my business but, there has to be a safe way of finding out what's down there without actually risking life and limb. Just sayin' Mackka

Drilling.

 

[user 4386]

I've seen a series of about a dozen shafts similar to that on Windsor Station, the miners also erected some buildings on the site so one would think they must have found a fair amount of gold but clearly the strike zone was limited as the shafts are in a line stretching about 100 metres and no sign of workings either side of them.

I assume - without any real evidence - that in general the greatest chance of success is where the old timers had the greatest success, unless in a readily accessible area already done to death by detectorologists. That a goldfield that produced a million ounces of gold will have more left than one that produced a few hundred ounces.

 

[Moneybox]

I assume - without any real evidence - that in general the greatest chance of success is where the old timers had the greatest success, unless in a readily accessible area already done to death by detectorologists. That a goldfield that produced a million ounces of gold will have more left than one that produced a few hundred ounces.

No doubt you're right but we are in an unusual area. The terrain here is mostly quite flat and the gold is/was spread far and wide. There must have been plenty of gold in the mountains that have long since eroded away and we're left with the alluvial gold. Some areas were scattered with large visible nuggets while others had smaller nuggets but still scattered across the surface or buried close to the surface. One of my leases that I've been dryblowing had a lot two and three ounce nuggets but because there is only 200mm to 300mm of topsoil all those have gone. Below this soil there is a layer of rock that is about 300mm to 400mm thick and then there's more soil underneath in most places.



Apart from where there's a quartz reef I think the majority of the gold was deposited above this cap-rock.

 

[Aries]

I assume - without any real evidence - that in general the greatest chance of success is where the old timers had the greatest success, unless in a readily accessible area already done to death by detectorologists. That a goldfield that produced a million ounces of gold will have more left than one that produced a few hundred ounces.

Goldierocks, with all due respect the general area in question produced a lot more than a million ounces, not that far away is the Great Fingal which produced 1.2 million ounces alone and not that far to Big Bell over 2.5 million from memory and still producing.

Get down your ladder Phil lol

 

[user 4386]

Come on guys, I wanted some encouragement but I know you are probably right. I thought I might just take a quick climb down on the 15m rope ladder and run the detector down the quartz vane but I'm sure that if they had gold in the quartz it wouldn't still be there.

It might be but the odds are against it. Quartz going half an ounce per ton has around 15 grams gold per 1,000,000 grams of quartz. !,000,000 grams of quartz is about 431,000 cu cm. Exposed 10 m deep and in say a 20 cm wide vein, you would have to only have around that much quartz available in total to detect. And the gold won't be evenly distributed, perhaps a small number of sub-gram bits spread over that volume. But of course that tonne of quartz may have no gold specks at all….


Which is why I only bother with free gold (eg in soil) or with gold-ridden quartz in the soil or in quartz on a quartz-rich dump. Let nature or others concentrate the gold first.

You really should not consider going down a shaft like that without barring down and stabilizing the collar (which, together with the above sum, is why I don't bother with old workings - too much work for too little reward).

 

[user 4386]

No doubt you're right but we are in an unusual area. The terrain here is mostly quite flat and the gold is/was spread far and wide. There must have been plenty of gold in the mountains that have long since eroded away and we're left with the alluvial gold. Some areas were scattered with large visible nuggets while others had smaller nuggets but still scattered across the surface or buried close to the surface. One of my leases that I've been dryblowing had a lot two and three ounce nuggets but because there is only 200mm to 300mm of topsoil all those have gone. Below this soil there is a layer of rock that is about 300mm to 400mm thick and then there's more soil underneath in most places.

View attachment 5897

Apart from where there's a quartz reef I think the majority of the gold was deposited above this cap-rock.

Yep - and it makes for scarey shaft collars....

 

[user 4386]

Yep - and it makes for scarey shaft collars....

Goldierocks, with all due respect the general area in question produced a lot more than a million ounces, not that far away is the Great Fingal which produced 1.2 million ounces alone and not that far to Big Bell over 2.5 million from memory and still producing.

Get down your ladder Phil lol

Which is info not given - all I had to go on was Moneybox "the only mine that I have any history on is the Golden Leaf mine that can be found on Trove and it's listed in Mindex;" and it showed a few tens of ounces production (usually Mindex shows production for the biggest mine in an area). And grubstake, who I assumed knew where it was"sounds like there was a single, smallish but productive gold mine and lots of attempts to find more nearby, both along strike from and parallel to the Golden Leaf reef system".

 

[grubstake]

Which is info not given - all I had to go on was Moneybox "the only mine that I have any history on is the Golden Leaf mine that can be found on Trove and it's listed in Mindex;" and it showed a few tens of ounces production (usually Mindex shows production for the biggest mine in an area). And grubstake, who I assumed knew where it was"sounds like there was a single, smallish but productive gold mine and lots of attempts to find more nearby, both along strike from and parallel to the Golden Leaf reef system".

I don't personally know the area at all. My comment was based on my own field observations in other central WA mining areas, historical accounts of gold rush era methodology and the info Phil provided here:
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/threads/2022.38656/post-656638

 

[aussiefarmer]

Camera on a rope,
Detector could also used on a rope with loud speaker, ( if detectable Gold was there, the mine would have to have eroded a fair bit since it was dug imo. Any rock of hope would have been extracted and crushed).
I wouldn't go in a shaft until I lowered a light and camera down first.
Twice as easy and 100 times safer plus 90% of the time you would find its not worth climbing in, even more so if you have 10 holes you can assess the safest and also most promising.

 

[Simmo]

There is a lot of 'not required' in this video, but an Insta 360 on a string would give you some awesome options???
I love my Insta360!!

 

[nucopia]

No guts no glory Moneybox break out the rope ladder !

 

[Moneybox]

There is a lot of 'not required' in this video, but an Insta 360 on a string would give you some awesome options???
I love my Insta360!!

Great toy Simmo but I don't have enough hours in my day now