Is It Worth Digging Out Old Alluvial Holes?

Hi Hare-twigga
thanks for sharing those pics , can I ask what was the indicator for you to dig in THAT particular spot? a surface bit of reef? or an old creek bed? Like a lot on this site I would be prepared to put in a fair effort digging for some return, but how to increase the likelyhood of that return is the tease!
cheers , flashinthepan

brilliant responces by everyone here. great to read

Hare_Twigga said:

Always take care around the old digging if your unsure of the depths they were sinking,the size of the piles beside the holes is sometimes (but not always) an indication of the depth of the hole, you learn to judge this over time. The gold is there,you just have to dig it up! Remember "Luck Favors the Brave!"
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Well that ends that discussion! Nice

flashinthepan said:

Hi Hare-twigga
thanks for sharing those pics , can I ask what was the indicator for you to dig in THAT particular spot? a surface bit of reef? or an old creek bed? Like a lot on this site I would be prepared to put in a fair effort digging for some return, but how to increase the likelyhood of that return is the tease!
cheers , flashinthepan

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There's more to it than this but mottled clay red/grey or brown/grey, I use a hand auger to find it then dig a hole and test for color. If your on gold trench and back fill as you go if it's not to deep. If in doubt or have no idea of the stability of the ground timber it or leave it alone. It takes 1/10 of a second for a side to collapse and it can squash you making it difficult or impossible to breath,even in shallow hole.

thanks twigga,
'There's more to it than this but mottled clay red/grey or brown/grey, I use a hand auger to find it then dig a hole and test for color.'
so with the clay as the indicator ,we're probably looking at an old creek bed?
flash

I guess so, it's alluvial but more like water courses or old run off areas from a very long time ago but not miocene type creek/rivers. I'm not sure if the clay colors are and indicator in other areas either, it's just a connection I've made over the last 20yrs or so around the areas I prospect... There's more to it though like the areas you chose to bore a hole, I've found gentle slopes leading to river flats especially when it's mountainous country are a great place to test.

thanks for that, can I ask the size of the bore you use and how deep are you prepared to test? is it a homebuilt jobby? I think I get as much enjoyment out of making my own kit as using it :lol:

Bore size is about 90mm I think shaft is about 20mm or less, single flight. Goes about 2m deep with one extension. Pretty easy to make especially if you have a large enough hole saw to cut the flight. I haven't used mine for long time.

I use this hand auger to test for hard pack gravel/bedrock. It's about 40mm, it has the 1m extension on it in the pic, so 2m depth.





You could also just use a star picket, bash it through the clay and wiggle it around a bit, you have a hole.

DD

I'm sure to spot a few pickets then....but in all seriousness i think i just spotted my new project. My auger is set to 1400 but i now see how to get more depth !!! I've been logging an old river course but some holes don't get deep enough. Hmmm where is that assay i saw at 3m again.....excellent share DD, very handy. I wonder just how far two guys swinging either side of a handle can go down.

Awesome, had a look at those ones DD has a while back ,a bit 'pricey' for this miserly black duck but look the goods.
so to make a single flight you could cut a circle ,then cut a hole in middle for shaft then coerce (bash) it into a screw configuration? is that me workshop I hear a callin

Hare_Twigga
Could you please post a picture of your auger, it sounds interesting.

I like the look of that auger DD!

GT I know that one guy can go over 7m

That's right Flash! You have the right idea. With my auger I only go about 100mm at a time in stiff clay I have a lever set up if it's to hard to pull up.

Rege I will see what I can do in the way of a pic,it's a pretty crude homemade job though.

Bloody hell that's further than I'll ever need to go. Id like to extend mine, 3m would be plenty deep, its the cyclone style modified, excellent for loaming /sampling as it retains a cylinder shape sample 110 diameter by 450 deep giving an excellent profile when removed correctly. I spent some considerable time heat treating the cutting profiles which enables it to cut through very easily and swiftly, and goes as a recommendation for anyone using one, just access an Oxy set and quelch, followed by a simple grind at the correct angle. Set correctly the auger will be very easy to use, beats blisters and sweating.

Yeah 3m is heaps I only went that deep to see what was there, I hit a reasonably rich wash at 3m it's about .6m thick. It's too deep to warrant digging so it's not really worth testing deeper than your prepared to dig. There's shallow gold still about.

Rege-PA said:

Hare_Twigga
Could you please post a picture of your auger, it sounds interesting.

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The cutting head has a removable pilot for when you hit bedrock you can take the pilot out so as to take the sample from as close to the bedrock as possible. The shaft has lugs on it as I have a lever contraption that I can still lift it when in stiff clay.

very nice!! whats the weight of all that?

Hare_Twigga said:

Always take care around the old digging if your unsure of the depths they were sinking,the size of the piles beside the holes is sometimes (but not always) an indication of the depth of the hole, you learn to judge this over time. The gold is there,you just have to dig it up! Remember "Luck Favors the Brave!"
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1994/1398168461_img_0282.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1994/1398168486_img_0261.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1994/1398168514_img_0260.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1994/1398168531_img_0243.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1994/1398168544_img_0188.jpg

Click to expand...

Sorry liam I don't remember exactly but somewhere around 90g give or take 10...

Well what a great read! I was looking for the same original question that was asked and got alot of good answers. Ive found a gully with more than probably 50 diggers holes running along a creek, some that go all the way to bedrock which is around 20 feet and are still clean at the bottom. You can see the layers perfectly. Ive found many sub grammers detecting around them ( in fact ive only found 2 +grammers out of probably 50) Some course unwashed and some so round they look like shotgun pellets. Ive talked myself in and out of the idea of dropping holes until recently when i read in some old online archives that the reason the diggers moved on was because the area was so wet that the holes would fill up over night and it was too much work to get the water out.
Nowadays the gully is so dry that we even in winter there isnt enough water to wash a pan in. Im going to wait until spring when theres a bit more water about and go for it! Wish me luck! ickshovel: :Y: :goldnugget:

Been thinking of doing this lately. Has anyone actually dug a hole and had success? See so many old timers holes along a creek or in a gully and wonder if theres anything left inside them. Do most of the holes reach a layer where no more gold is found? Or can the gold theoretically keep going down for hundreds of meters? Or even digging a hole between there holes?