Hi Folks,
Havent posted for a while as life always seams to get in the way of detecting. Funny that. Anyway I have done a lot of walking over the past month looking for new areas to detect (with very little return.) Yesterday I decided that it was time to put the gpx away and see if I could squeeze out a few small bits from some of the old workings close to home using the SDC. It was a good chance to slow down and see how far I could stretch the detector (especially with my less than perfect hearing) in an area that is quite popular with people who love the yella stuff. (It was an area that a few PA members had a play in late last year.)
I picked a mullock heap and decided that I would work it over and not leave it until I was totally satisfied that it been detected to the best of my limited ability. A bit of rubbish was kicked out of the way and the slow methodical process started. Within a couple of minutes I was surprised to pick up a faint but distinct signal. What popped out was this small piece.
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...6352_b0d4f487-8a04-4c46-bf86-b7bf2d30ebf7.jpg
The most impressive part was the depth that the nugget came from.
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...6428_425b1fed-5bba-4d5d-b34f-e47e1837dcd1.jpg
A couple of minutes later another even smaller piece popped out. I know for a fact that Id detected this mullock heap in the past with the 5000 and didnt extract anything at all. This sort of confirmed how good the SDC is on the small stuff.
After spending about half an hour on the one pile, I was convinced that every detectable piece of gold was removed. But then I had another thought. Id detect the pile again but from a different angle.
I decided to start from where the first piece was uncovered. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the faintest of signals. How could I have missed this the first time? It was only just a break in the threshold but it was there. The answer was quite obvious. The width of the signal was very narrow. Move the coil to the left or right by about an inch and the signal disappeared. Another small piece of gold was rescued from about 5 inches.
Was just about to back fill the hole but decided to check the spoils pile. What I heard could not be reguarded as a signal. It was so subtle that even the slight breeze in the trees was masking it. Eventually I got something in the scoop. It hardly made a sound when it was passed over the coil. I got down to about a quarter of a teaspoon soil in the scoop and still could not see anything. After rubbing bits between my fingers, I uncovered the smallest piece of gold that Id ever detected. I then repeated this same process four more times.
After detecting the mound again, I ended up with eleven of the tiniest pieces of gold that youd ever see. Have a look at the weight of the three smallest bitshttps://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/9840/1530158052_e6f69b3f-5d17-4d55-bc9a-8e9105b2b5ed.jpg
Extracted another two from the next mound and decided to call it a day. Will get back there soon to have another play.
Cheers for now
Les
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...8207_52fd4404-d962-4e15-9191-17b9a13c006b.jpg
