Gold at$1058.00

[montana]

Dutch John. About 14 months ago I pretty much gave up hitting the old famous gold areas and resolved to spend most of my time searching out obscure small areas of of favorable or marginal geology. This has worked out great since these places have no trash to amount to anything, no claim markers, no prospectors. The downside is that the gold is either very spotty , or very widely scattered , requiring lots of walking with gully after gully being barren , or only 1 or 2 nuggets in a mile of gully. I've hit some little jackpots doing this though. These places were just too poor for the oldtimers to bother drywashing in most cases but the detector makes it relatively easy to find a small concentration or scattered nuggets. With only the occasional bullet or horseshoe I dig every target without getting discouraged and some gullies the only targets are a few nuggets. These nuggets came from just such a place. About 4 miles away there was one gully that had been drywashed and I got some nice nuggets there so I just started working out from there since the geology continued on to the north and south in a small band between 2 areas of very unlikely looking ground .----Bob

[AZNuggetBob]

Dang Montana now your goin and giving up all the pro's trade secrets. But I do agree with you huntin the fringe can produce some good finds. I often hunt the general area even though it doesn't look right. some times the fringe can have a thin cover from later alluvial deposits and hide whats just under the surface, the deposits may be small but nothin wrong with a one ounce deposit. (small patch) or going after little known area's. most people are concentrating on the well known high producers. But enough secrets for now. this thread looks like its all over the place anyway may as well through in a little inside info. BTW nice finds. Take care. AzNuggetBob

[dutch john]

Well Montana and AZNuggetBob... Right on... But even so, it takes persistence to

ferret out the fringe gold... (Right Sandtrap?)

The old time placer prospectors were working against all odds. Their equipment

was primitive and they needed to also spend time with their daily housekeeping

choirs. The early dry washers were home built from whatever was available in the

early mining camps. So they tended to move about and just skim off the best.

Today many are still re-working numerous times the same ground happily getting

a few flakes to show at the Monday morning coffee break... But Montana and AZ,

yah' both know that...

[AZNuggetBob]

Your correct dutch john and that's the beauty of it. you see the old timers generally were testing the ajoining creek drainages looking for signs and as with many small patches never bled enough small gold to the nearest drainage to attract attention of the old timers, or more recent outcrops for that matter that just have not had time to bleed or erode out. and that's why the deposits were never discovered. AzNuggetBob

[montana]

Aznuggetbob and DutchJohn. A lot of these places I've found seem to be nuggets or nothing with no tiny nuggets and maybe no fine gold to speak of . The gully gravels aren't stream worn, but rather rough and angular. My theory is that there just hasn't been enough time or water in these areas to beat the larger pieces down into finer gold. Most of the nuggets have some quartz attached and are rough , suggesting recent deposition . If there was no fine fine gold or very little, a test pan would not reveal the gully as being worth drywashing and rightly so. With only a very occasional nugget it just wouldn't be worth doing . They would move on to where a sample pan would encourage them to pack a drywasher in. This situation would also discourage most detectorists because after detecting 4or 5 gullies with no results they would assume the area was barren . I got lucky and hit a gully that did have a few nuggets on my first trip in there and that has kept me going back . I've been working it for several years now , only going in there every once in a while. It's not going anyplace as most people would write it off after a quick look around and not finding any signs of placering activity and the overall geology is very discouraging looking. There are tiny islands of geology that scream gold but they are often not visible from the trails and I search these out. The ancient underlying schists have been covered by much younger volcanic activity throughout most of the region, obscuring the productive ground . There are hardrock prospects , but most are in the volcanics where the tailings show copper staining and I suspect they were more interested in the copper rather than the insignificant , isolated gold occurances . It is a prety dismal gold area except for the fact that the occasional nugget averages about 3 grams . That's $100.00 at todays spot price . Finding two or three of these nuggets surely makes a good day ----Bob

[dutch john]

Gosh... Bob and Bob... How true. Many old placer mining districts date back over 100 years.

Back then the miners were using primitive (by today's standard) ineffective equipment

and mostly just skimmed off the cream... and moved on to another location (The location and

knowledge of many of these old sites has been lost in the sands of time...). Even by

researching a specific site that once, according to your research 'yielded nice nuggets

while dry washing', you may get a common reply:

"shear zone of quartz stringers with greeo oxides of copper. probably the source of some

placer gold in alluvium, worked in the 1890's and 1930's; average pay of gravel reported to

be 50 c. per cubic yard. Undetermined probably abandoned"

Nuf' said...

[montana]

Jim. Sometimes I'm amazed at what the oldtimers left behind and other times I'm amazed at how they found the only gully in many square miles with gold and pretty much cleaned it out. I guess the human condition is the same throughout time. Some people are very thorough and some are sloppy in their work. Of course in the desert there were restrictions on how long they could spend in an area. If it was extremely remote and there was no water they would have to work when the weather permitted and then get out of there. On a hot day I'll go through as much as 2 gallons of water . I've often wondered how they would have hauled enough for a week of work before there were roads. That's a lot of water to pack on a mule and the mule would require a lot of water too. Even during the depression with the lousy tires , getting a car into remote spots would be a huge undertaking and there weren't near as many roads then either. The areas I've been prospecting would still be almost roadless if mining exploration companies hadn't put roads all over in the last 40 years. ----Bob

[AZNuggetBob]

Jim there is a lot to be said about what has been lost in the "sands of time" Im not trying to take anything away from the old timers. If ya think about it the pickins would be slim if the old timers would have had metal detectors. I agree with you the old timers new a lot and were limited by the technology of their day. One of my best hunting secrets is to research old books. I have a very large collection of mining and geology books, yours included. I have several placering books that as the new editions are republished these low producing areas just seem to disappear out of them and are forgotten forever. I assume because the publishers think these small producing areas are not of much interest to readers? Its a shame because there is also a lot of other info being lost that the old timers used that works as well with metal detectors as it did with drywashers.You can learn a lot by going to the well known areas especially if your new at this game. desert placers are an animal all there own, and the basic rules are best learned by what worked for the drywashers. AzNuggetBob

BTW Jim I know what your saying, there aint nothing wrong with 50 cent a yard back then. at $20.00 an ounce and considering economics back then, Enough Said.