Crushed rock another swing and miss

Crushed a fair few rocks and still no colour, this latest one was hopeful even though its along way from any mines , I would like someone to identify all the parts of the rock and tell me if I'm looking for the right rocks, this one came from a solid slate ridge and I was surprised to see the quarts vein.

So that's the sample , I was knocking some slate away for a cutting into a creek crossing when I see quarts vein with lots of minerals and pirites.

Broke it up a bit before crushing

What is the green section ? Plus what is every section ?

Bugga... it's a duffer oop: :trophy: :100: %0 :goldnugget:

Doesn't look like a likely clump does it?

Oh well - next time mate. :goldpan:

Yeah keep trying , the green in that rock was solid , rough and most likely porous , wondering if it was copper of some sort.

If pirites were gold i would be making bars

Looks like bloody hundreds of hopeful rocks I've crushed for bugga all, but also pretty close to the few I've got gold from.
Round here the gold seems to be associated with the more dense pyrites that is not at all porous and has a sort of rainbow sheen to it sometimes.

Hey Aussie Farmer. Can you trace that little leader in the rock for any distance? If so look for places where the country rock changes colour or the leader gets bigger or breaks up or is displaced in a fault. Sample those spots.

That was going to be my next question, is it worth chasing if there isn't a single spec. that peice is pretty much off the start of the quarts and it does appear to go into the hill.

I would say yes. Looking at the margins where the quartz meets the country rock. Gold precipitation/ mineralization in a vein or reef tends to be controlled or caused by either chemical or structural changes in the surrounding host rock. Ie faulting or coming into contact with carbon bearing slates.

Thanks Jethro, I will chip my way in deeper.
I have always wondered with mines wether the vein they followed had some gold the entire length with richer spots or wether the gold was hit and miss through the vein.
I know of a couple of mines that produced zero gold and they chased the quarts for 50 meters.

what State area are you in Aussie farmer?

State of Disaster. :awful: :8

Tathradj said:

State of Disaster. :awful: :8

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So that would be NSW or VIC if refering to Covid and the idiots running the show. Oh no I think ive just been baited by a mod and about to be deleted by another for casting aspersions on our state gubermints

Old saying in sampling Aussiefarmer....."a negative result is still a result"...well done for getting out the dollypot and dish. I'm not an Eastern States prospector but I think things would be similar. What made you take a sample there in the first place?...gold in the area or just out of curiosity? The vast majority of QTZ stringers are barren and whilst yes, they can pinch in and out, I would go with the law of averages and move on.

aussiefarmer said:

Thanks Jethro, I will chip my way in deeper.
I have always wondered with mines wether the vein they followed had some gold the entire length with richer spots or wether the gold was hit and miss through the vein.
I know of a couple of mines that produced zero gold and they chased the quarts for 50 meters.

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sorry....I didn't answer the bloody question.....the gold enrichment can occur anywhere along a structure. I have had QTZ outcrops 10m long with the gold being made in a small 10mm section....it's very easy to miss! If QTZ was chased for 50m then they must of had a reason....ie: it was a producing vein that cut out...thats normal and seeing if it cuts in again is well worth the effort. Also...couldn't tell from the photo but the green stuff is most likely organics.

Ok im Southern tablelands nsw , nearest detectable Gold is 40 klms , this area has a proclaimed gold field 500mtrs up stream but with no sign of mining which is common around here as I think the old-timers told the government they were mining to keep their ground.
It is close to the creek but I have only find gold specs 1.5klm up stream at a rate of one spec per 10ltrs of gravel and I know its in the creek 5 or 8 klms downstream.

The reason I crushed that sample was the slate is much more like the slate in the areas that I detect than the other slate along the creek.

There is alot of milky barren quarts in the local area and I was knocking slate out of the cutting face for the creek crossing when I seen the stringer and i was impressed with the rotten looking and also darker quarts plus the mineralisation and pirites.

I don't expect to find payable gold around here but i would love to find a bit more of a reliable source than the creek.

One of the 50 odd meter horizontal mines i refer to as barren is at Ophir and the history recons none was found , its right near the reef in the creek where they got plenty, funny thing is I walked through the mine and was dribbling at the rock and didn't read the historical documents until I got home to find out it was a dud...

Back in the day, Driving a tunnel across the strata or along the lode was the same as the modern day practice of putting down a a diamond drill to test for economic mineralization at depth. There are a number of reasons that a lode / vein would be considered barren / not payable. It has a lot to do with the mine managers ability to direct the driving to the supposed chute of rich gold mineralization in the otherwise poor gold mineralization reef/ lode or vein.