What am I dealing with here - identification please (Part 2)

Hi guys,

A mate and myself set out on a trip last Saturday to suss out a very remote location we'd read about and have waited 3 years for the right time to try and get there, access was tough and not conventional which made it even more appealing to check out.
We had to battle our way in to the location and found what we had hoped to find, the old timers workings.
Locating the old dyke was a challenge and still not sure if we did, pretty sure we found the quartz lode located at the top of the workings.
The more we scratched around in the thick scrub the more the scene revealed to us, we had taken detectors in to do some searching but for the most part it was just too thick to detect, there was an area off to the side where some larger deep holes were dug so we managed a detect around them and started uncovering some relics before the day was getting on and we had to make the long trek out.

Question 1,

While trying to locate the dyke and in the general area of where it should be we found bedrock near the top of the hill running across the hill for 30 meters, this was the only exposed bedrock we found made up of sandstone(?) and a band of red rock with a fine quartz vein running through the centre, this line ran right across the exposed bedrock from one side to the other.
Is it a good indicator for a contact zone? This would have been about 50 - 100 meters to the side of where the quartz lode was located and the workings start at the top end of that gully. The gully was really rich in the day with big + ounce nuggets.




Question 2,

Can anyone identify what the long thing is in the pan, these 3 items were found along with other rust junk and a miners button in a 10m radius section between the deep holes and rock tailing pile.
Top item looks to be an iron buckle off a belt or horse saddle?
Middle item is a horse shoe but it is small and thin and would fit the heal of a boot, did they use them on boots back then? or would they have used small pony's?
Bottom item is the size of an arm from a pair of sun glasses but it's heavy and a green tinge to it so thinking it's brass or copper based but no idea of what it is.
Any suggestions what to soak or treat the copper/brass item with to help identify?

"Is it a good indicator for a contact zone"? Contact of what - a dyke? Very unlikely. You give little info so I can't really help much (obviously I don't need to know the actual mine name, but you don't even say what state you are in). For example if you were in the Woods Point dyke swarm of Victoria, it is at least 100 km long so you would not be giving much away. If Eskdale-Tallandoon 150 km, Maryborough tens of km at least. All of these I am familiar with, and knowing which could result in a more sensible answer that might help a bit.

Why have you shown three photos in Question 2?

Start on the rusty objects first.
The little Horse shoe is a heel plate from a boot.
Hob Nail Heel comes to mind.
The long thin brass item, No Idea.
Now the rocks side of it.
In my Post of Dr George Mining,
Heavy Red stained Quartz intrusions into Sandstone was and
is a pointer.
What the old timers did was to follow these quartz intrusions until they
found a pipe.
If the quartz was still very stained and broken, They put a shaft down and sampled
as they went.
Very good Gold was won from this but at times it included heavy sulfides and such
making it a bit hard to process.
Next time you visit the area and you can find a run of quartz widening out to about 6",
Break a bit out, Crush it and pan it.
You would most likely get a small surprise.
Yambulla South of here has the same thing with some intrusions of quartz into granite and
a lot of it is Gold Bearing.
Good Luck. If you are also finding things like buttons and such.
It has not seen a detector around it.

Perhaps something like a file, the indentation made to fit your finger? Looks a bit light for horshoeing though (usually a heavy rasp)

LOL,
Maybe a Hoof Pick. ???

Might it have had a blade on one side? Like a poor man's straight razor?

Could the long brass things be an arm off a set of scales.

Bloody good pickup there.
Measure it and divide by half.
If it is, It must have been a good one to leave some thing like that around.
Or they got fed up and smashed them.

goldierocks said:

"Is it a good indicator for a contact zone"? Contact of what - a dyke? Very unlikely. You give little info so I can't really help much (obviously I don't need to know the actual mine name, but you don't even say what state you are in). For example if you were in the Woods Point dyke swarm of Victoria, it is at least 100 km long so you would not be giving much away. If Eskdale-Tallandoon 150 km, Maryborough tens of km at least. All of these I am familiar with, and knowing which could result in a more sensible answer that might help a bit.

Why have you shown three photos in Question 2?

Click to expand...

The reason of little info on location is because I intent going back there for the rest of the year and having it to ourselves but good point.

3 photo's in Q2 so it paints the picture of where the items were found and hopefully helps identify the object, I'll try and get a closer pic up with better detail and I might rub a small section to confirm the metal.

Doug, I really appreciate the input and it helps a lot when explained like that, we'll be heading back up there soon with more time to investigate the general area further as well as detect for more relics to put the pieces of the puzzle together and hone in on any likely areas where they may have missed, it's a harsh environment up there and they may have walked away from it due to lack of water or not being payable anymore, time will tell.
Thanks again :Y:

Take a paper map with and make a line in the direction of
the veins of quartz.
Very interesting that this is on top of the hill
yet there are Alluvial workings down below.

Will do Doug.
This intrusion is about 20m from the top and about 50-100m to the side of where the main workings are at the top of the gully, the intrusion line runs straight across to where the big workings are where it looks like they stripped it out and there's piles of tailings everywhere just to the side of the gully, appears they were taking the quartz out and the bulk of the tailings is sandstone with quartz mixed on top, the workings run all the way down the gully which is steep(ish) and there's shallow and deep test holes either side the whole length down with sections off to the side stripped out, the deep test holes are right next to where they stripped a side shoot about 40 x 10 meters at the depth of that test hole in the pic, funny thing is there's big coarse sandstone rock piles that have been shifted to the side and a mix of fist size water worn rock in areas as well as the water worn rock in the other pic, any quartz sighted seems to be rough hence why I'm pretty sure they were digging the quartz reef out, the other water worn stuff has me puzzled.
I'll take many decent pics next trip and PM you Doug, I'll explain the location and travel in etc. and hopefully you'll get a better picture of this area and help me (us) understand it better too.

ProspectorPete said:

goldierocks said:

"Is it a good indicator for a contact zone"? Contact of what - a dyke? Very unlikely. You give little info so I can't really help much (obviously I don't need to know the actual mine name, but you don't even say what state you are in). For example if you were in the Woods Point dyke swarm of Victoria, it is at least 100 km long so you would not be giving much away. If Eskdale-Tallandoon 150 km, Maryborough tens of km at least. All of these I am familiar with, and knowing which could result in a more sensible answer that might help a bit.

Why have you shown three photos in Question 2?

Click to expand...

The reason of little info on location is because I intent going back there for the rest of the year and having it to ourselves but good point.

3 photo's in Q2 so it paints the picture of where the items were found and hopefully helps identify the object, I'll try and get a closer pic up with better detail and I might rub a small section to confirm the metal.

Click to expand...

Ha! No location but I knew where it was from the photos
- mums the word.

The waterworn pebbles are from a high-level former stream (White Hills Gravels the formal name)

goldierocks said:

The waterworn pebbles are from a high-level former stream (White Hills Gravels the formal name)

Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks goldierocks and much appreciated :Y:

goldierocks said:

Might it have had a blade on one side? Like a poor man's straight razor?

Click to expand...

Noticed a slot running where the red line is and after a google search of cut throat razors it confirms this is what it is.
I'm chuffed, need to get back there soon and dig the targets we left behind.

Aha,a cutthroat razor,nice to find out what the mystery item is. :Y:

Great find mate
Mackka

Hi Prospector Pete, did you have any luck or did someone rat it out on you? :argh: