Home sampling finally started

4 weeks ago on my first ever prospecting trip I got my first bucket of quartz samples to crush at home, I purchased a Compact Crusher from Ryan27 on this forum 2 weeks ago and brought home another 3 x 20ltr buckets of samples last Sunday from various places in West Gippsland. I classified 1 of the buckets and washed the clays at the same time, panned off the mud and put classified material in separate trays to dry before crushing. Yesterday I had a scrounge around work and got a 700mm length of 4" steel gas main and a 6" bank flange to make a dolly pot for crushing the big samples enough to run through the Compact Crusher, just got to weld up the dolly pot and I'll be in full swing.
Managed to crush the small stuff tonight and the CC works a treat.

I can't wait for my 9x7m shed to go up in 3 weeks as I've run out of room in the single garage. Planning on setting up a recirculating high banker to really get the samples pumped through once the shed gets fitted out.
Heading off again this weekend and will get another few buckets of samples to bring home, if I don't end up crushing all of the samples the upside is I'll put a rockery garden in

Awesome Pete.....love your work mate!

Not all gardens are paved with gold, could be onto something there.

HB will give you some great con's, think about adding a fine gold filter too your setup.....helped me heaps in bottling the VF stuff!

Cheers

Good going mate, keen to see if you pull any colour

start sampling the old mine heaps you'll get gold in most of them but great to see your having a go just sampling untouched ground too

Thanks guy's, just samplings from quartz veins in gold bearing areas when I've stumbled across them and probably no yellow. First bucket I got was just quartz but next 3 include the clays and host rock.
HTY - I'm going to try and locate the mine where I'm going this weekend so hopefully the buckets will come back with good samples.
My plan is to spend Saturday with my new Gold Rat river sluice and Sunday searching for the mine and waving the detector.
It's all a big learning curve and by the time I'm getting some yellow I'll have good knowledge and arms like Arnie :lol:

Have you been checking all the indicators on the quartz before crushing it? Have you been crushing quartz with signs metals & pyrites in it? Looks like the crusher is working well for you though

Hi AtomRat, so far I've only crushed a small amount of cons from when I classified the first bucket, it was just to try out the crusher.
I wasn't aware of the indicators until now, just came across 4 different areas where there was a fresh rock slide from falling tree etc. and on closer inspection I noticed several quarts veins or leads were newly exposed so took samples to test.
I might hold off crushing until I get back to the spots for a more detailed look now, maybe the rockery garden will be built sooner than I thought :lol:
Thanks for the heads up, so much to learn, I'll do some more research on indicators tonight and save the crusher for more potential samples .

Look for the Ore Shoots running vertically from the quartz veins Pete!

These typically occur along fault lines/Sheer zones within the host rock structure and are more commonly richer in mineral (gold etc), being that they act as (whats termed in mining) 'fluid exit conduits'.

The existence of an 'ore shoot' may be usually seen in a tunnel or 'drift' excavated along host structure, or by the testing your rock samples cut from the walls and roof of any existing digs , or those started by you.

The 'Bonanza shoot' from the north end of the Poverty Reef (Tarnagulla), yielded 324,000 oz's.......wow

Cheers

Thanks Metamorphic, got lots to study on tonight now but hopefully it will make it easier to pick out what's going to be worth taking home as samples and save a lot of hard work making my quartz into fertilizer powder :lol:

One sample I got on Sunday had me curious as to what the host rock is. It came from and embankment where the side collapsed from under a very big root ball exposing a quarts lead, but this big sample was sitting on the ground, about 600mm across and 300mm deep with a quartz vein laying across the top and bloody heavy, it's location is around the Russell Creek area and it's the makeup of the rock that's got me puzzled, seems to be about 6 different things in there and different textures etc.
I should have taken a pic before I broke it up but here's some pic's of what the makeup is.
Curious to know what it is and maybe put me out of my misery and save me from crushing it further :|
What causes the perfect squares to form, there's no crystals sticking out the other side??




I've got another 5 football sized samples of it in the garage and it looks like someone's poured cement over a pile of rocks in it's natural state until you break them open.

oxcided rock i reckon from the elements heat water sun etc

It's where Pyrite crystals have oxidised and dissolved from the host rock.

Great pics Pete,

Without seeing the area, its my guess that the host is a mixture of Metamorphic and Sedimentary rock (Slate and Sandstone mainly).

The sedimentary would have been closer to the surface crust of the reef and its deterioration with calcite, or sulfides over time would have formed the 'cement' covering you speak of.

In some of the snaps I can see evidence of Ironstone infiltration, perhaps where the reef host changes along its line, or the calcites have weathered into iron stained spots when the pyrites convert to iron oxides as Heatho points out.

Either way would be good as large amounts of iron oxides like hematite, magnetite and ironstone can be favorable indicators..

The old timers used to say that at the end of the reefs gold bearing structure, they would commonly find this type of evidence.
In many districts, acidic mineral solutions have bleached the area rocks to a lighter color like those in your pics.
This can be an indicator of gold.

I would attempt to follow the 'line of reef' if possible, and locate any areas where the host changes to Ironstone, if at all.

Hope you get some color mate

Cheers

Thanks for the identification guys, geez I may have found my indicators by accident then, I just took samples as it looked a lot different to the other locations and hoped one of my buckets of samples might show colour if I'm lucky then investigate that location further.
I'll get back to this location soon and do a bit more investigation on it.
The big question is........is it worth crushing these samples in the hope of colour or would I be wasting my time? :|

Appreciate the help and info guys, learning plenty and fast tracking to less wasted and more productive time management

ProspectorPete said:

The big question is........is it worth crushing these samples in the hope of colour or would I be wasting my time? :|

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Its all in the sampling mate, not sure how much you have, but crush a few and run them through your HBker.

If you get color, the rest are worth processing.....if not, then use them in the garden!

This will also tell you if the area warrants further investigation which, from what you say, I feel sure it would.

ProspectorPete said:

Appreciate the help and info guys, learning plenty and fast tracking to less wasted and more productive time management

Click to expand...

Now your thinking like a pro mate

Good Luck

Thanks again Metamorphic, I'll crush some samples next week and see what the pan looks like, no high banker yet.
I've got about 20ltrs worth of these samples once crushed small enough for the Compact Crusher, I'd be very happy to see just a spec or 2 in my samples as these were just a quick stop, look and grab a few bits to see.
If I get the chance tomorrow I'll crush as much as I can to take away and run through my new river sluice on Saturday in the bush and see what shows.

Crush it up I reckon Pete. You have the tools at your disposal so put them to use and pan it out....that way you may get some sleep tonight and put your worried mind at rest :lol:

You're right MJB, I'll aim to do a bit every night and see how it goes.

Hey Pete
Those samples in the above pics are prime looking rocks to hold gold mineralisation. Crush them up by all means but I would resist the temptation to run the crushed material through a sluice of any sort. You will get a much better indication of the gold content if you pan it down to a tablespoon of fine concentates in an 8 inch sampling pan. Pan off into a tub so that you can rerun your sands if & when you get a few positive samples. Use a loupe of at least ten power to examine your concentrates with & save them into a container for later processing or doing a quantative assay.

I'm not a geologist but to me those samples seem to be primarily country rock and the mineralization suggests possible association to an adjacent contact zone with an igneous intrusion. Look for a nearby basaltic dyke and go for rocks both country rock and basaltic that show quartz veins and stringers.

good luck ... Casper

jethro said:

Hey Pete
Those samples in the above pics are prime looking rocks to hold gold mineralisation. Crush them up by all means but I would resist the temptation to run the crushed material through a sluice of any sort. You will get a much better indication of the gold content if you pan it down to a tablespoon of fine concentates in an 8 inch sampling pan. Pan off into a tub so that you can rerun your sands if & when you get a few positive samples. Use a loupe of at least ten power to examine your concentrates with & save them into a container for later processing or doing a quantative assay.

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Thanks jethro, that makes a lot of sense to do it this way so I'll start crushing next week and get hold of an 8" pan.

Hey casper, I'm going to head back there in a couple of weeks and start some proper investigation of the area, I'll take the camera, GPS and try mapping what I find on paper, at the very least it will be good experience.