THE NEWLY PROCLAIMED FOSSICKING AREA BARRINGTON TOPS

next time I am over that way we will pull up for a chat.. You will know me by the noisiest dirtiest roughest looking z1 Kawasaki 900 ratbike ever with a miners pick mounted on its side.....

Some from a quick scout to the tops



sorry about the poor lighting, in sunlight they are light pink to cherry red
rod

Wow, they're some impressive looking stones. Please excuse my ignorance but what are they?

Hi nugget, they are lovely quality but small, match head size. They are from a good ruby spot( area that feeds the mothballed cluff ruby mine, outside of their EL in state forest) but honestly im no gem expert either m8 so not to sure. They could be garnet or zircon, but the size and colours of some of them match the rubies mostly found in the area.
Also found some yellow zircon at a point as close as i could get to the lower(southern) auk1 and auk2 pipes( they are on private property and the creek that drains though them is locked up tight).
Mostly just having loads of fun exploring and looking at what can be found where.
rod

the yellow stone is most probably a yellow garnet.. they are mentioned in the geo report on the area.. have been found as big as a mans thumb near one of the diatreams.. the same diatream has microscopic diamonds as well.

Went up to Barrington yesterday for another look around back to an old spot I was shown years ago.

I have since discovered that the area I was shown and have been fossicking in is just inside the Barrington State Conservation Area. I will have to follow the river further down next time to see of the gems are further downstream outside of the no go zone.

There is evidence that others have been there as well.

The sapphires/zircons are very small and although look great are worthless, larger examples are few and far between.

I think my time would be better spent chasing gold, its harsh climate and roads up there and a similar travel time even though its only 200kms from Newcastle it takes 3 hours due to the trip up the mountain and the road conditions.

The was still remnant's of last weekends snow as well. The water was that cold on the hands it felt like it was burning!

Please enjoy the beautiful Barrington gravels photos.









And Under UV Light

Nice stones and pics
How much material did you go through and was it only from the creek? Was looking into some area there , driving through it gives you many locations you would like to dig...
I was thinking about an aquarium heater driven by a solar panel in my wash tub for winter ! Purist would curse no doubt! ..

Good work ...

Kingsolomon,

That was from about roughly 40 sieves and about 3 hrs work???

The stones seem to be only in the creek and the wash layer seems to be only about 150mm deep then you strike thick white clay. I have tried to go deeper but there seems to be no bottom to it???

The creek is more like a stream on top of the mountain and is only about 50 to 100mm deep and barely flows. Highbankers are out of the question, not enough water to feed them.

I did take up a black rectangular tub from Bunnings, complete with lid carrying the sieves, pans, pick. Filled it with water from the stream with the gold pan and had a small collapsible stool so I could sit down and sieve into the tub. far easier on the back not squatting down into the stream. I hope that the water in the tub was getting a bit warmer than the snow melt by the end of the day?

I am getting to old and smart to be a purist. It was much easier on the back!

Im off to work now, I ll PM you later.

Cheers

nice stones.. From memory the mine was only getting 1 cutter from each ton of gravel... I wonder if the sapphires could be a bit like gold with the bigger pieces not having moved as much as the smaller stones and being caught up in crevices ect.. You are keener than me going up there at this time of year.. I will wait until next spring to have a go at our local sapphires.. yellow garnets have been reported from this area and I wonder if your yellow stones are..

A small fire under a steel dish????

Kingsolomon said:

Nice stones and pics
How much material did you go through and was it only from the creek? Was looking into some area there , driving through it gives you many locations you would like to dig...
I was thinking about an aquarium heater driven by a solar panel in my wash tub for winter ! Purist would curse no doubt! ..

Good work ...

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Some may find some interesting reading in this. http://www.minersoc.org/pages/Archive-MM/Volume_60/60-401-623.htm

It's not the link, but the download in the link.
"An unusual ruby-sapphire-sapphirine-spinel assemblage from the Tertiary Barrington volcanic province, New South Wales, Australia"

Cheers
Mr Magoo

Some good info in that.. unfortunately most of those areas are off limits to fossicking.. I was lucky enough to stumble upon the mining geology report that was published by the mining mob that has now shut shop... it has 34 known sapphire bearing locations with coordinates mentioned in it... next spring we will give the area a good going over.. about 20 locations are in the allowed fossicking area. most stones found by guys so far have been small but we will give it a go anyway.. must be a good sized one someplace up there.. there is also 2 old gold mines in the area that are marked on the forestry fossicking area map. I believe that the sapphire mine was only getting one good cutter to the tonne of wash...very far and few between and not viable.

Thats why I've been a bit reluctant on the area Kawman, most reports are of pretty slim pickings there. Much better to be had elsewhere.

Visiting Newcastle 25th -27th June.

My brother and I would like to do some crevicing, sucker pump testing and or river sluicing(not in clay).

Can anyone put me on the right track for a few areas to check? The closer to Newcastle the better.

I dont have a four wheel drive, but, will take the holden station wagon on most reasonable tracks.

Kind Regards,
Phantom

Some good info in that.. unfortunately most of those areas are off limits to fossicking..

Click to expand...

Yer. I wasn't sure how close it covered the area but often these things can contain leads that bring you closer to that end point. A very large Ruby or two in this case.

We will know one way or the other as time goes by. barrington is only an hours drive for me.. I will be looking for that honey hole with some bigger stones.. most of the smaller stones I have seen from up there came from a totally different area in the creeks and rivers.. I think that the lighter smaller stones are on the move more much more readily than their bigger bros that may not have moved far from their source a bit like gold.... cant wait for spring to come around to warm the area up for my first visit...

Heatho said:

Thats why I've been a bit reluctant on the area Kawman, most reports are of pretty slim pickings there. Much better to be had elsewhere.

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I don't think you will find much gold around our area...all the gold came from very small reefs that were all worked out many years ago.. that is not to say they may have missed something... try the fishing instead ...good luck

Phantom said:

Visiting Newcastle 25th -27th June.

My brother and I would like to do some crevicing, sucker pump testing and or river sluicing(not in clay).

Can anyone put me on the right track for a few areas to check? The closer to Newcastle the better.

I dont have a four wheel drive, but, will take the holden station wagon on most reasonable tracks.

Kind Regards,
Phantom

Click to expand...

kawman said:

We will know one way or the other as time goes by. barrington is only an hours drive for me.. I will be looking for that honey hole with some bigger stones.. most of the smaller stones I have seen from up there came from a totally different area in the creeks and rivers.. I think that the lighter smaller stones are on the move more much more readily than their bigger bros that may not have moved far from their source a bit like gold.... cant wait for spring to come around to warm the area up for my first visit...

Heatho said:

Thats why I've been a bit reluctant on the area Kawman, most reports are of pretty slim pickings there. Much better to be had elsewhere.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Pretty cool you're so close to there. Give it a good go mate well worth searching for a good spot. Same as Gold too, get into the natural riffles/crevices, they really do collect in pockets for sure.

There is an area up there that is a bit too low down for sapphires(I think) but has 2 old gold mines up from the creeks.. it will be interesting to see if there is any colour in the creeks that the old guys found but not enough to be worth working in the old days. I have a lot of poking about to do next summer.

Hi All,

I recently went fossicking in Inverell and built a Walbanker to use for gem fossicking. but I was told that use of machines such this weren't allowed in NSW. I see some posts on here where guys are looking to use high bankers in State Forest etc. Can anyone clarify whether high banking machines are permissible when fossicking? Just don't want to be caught out and fined heavily.