Wally69's Nugget Hunting Practice. The By-Catch.

Spot in Heath - camped at the Mudgee end of Burrangdon Dam for a couple of days and went for a day trip to sample the Hill End coffee.

Stopped into spinel gully on the way to the 'cow bell pub' site to swing the 705 over the missing cow bell part......or a lost sovereign.

Wasn't expecting anything from spinel gully as we covered the area very well last time with Reeks. A bit of heavy rain between now and then bought enough to the surface to keep my boys entertained., was quite surprised.

Not sure how to tell the difference between black spinel and obsidian. There is no light getting through the stones at all but the fractured faces in the host-rock samples look very glassy.

The spinel theory probably holds if this area was limited in aluminium and high in magnesium, would explain why there are no pretty blue stones amongst them. Don't know enough about obsidian, not sure if it can float around in magma and can get caught in the matrix or if it is just generated by mass-cooling of magma.

The challenge of explanation for wiser men than me has been set 8)

I'm, 99.95% certain it's spinel mate, fractured spinel faces always look very very glassy. Specific gravity test will confirm the difference between spinel and obsidian. Plus the deposit info on the area was how I first discovered that there should be at least some gems there, the deposit info also states sapphs and diamond. I'm actually quite surprised that we haven't found any sapphs there yet, hopefully some will show themselves oneday.

Here's the deposit info minus the GPS co-ords, so we can hoard it to ourselves, lol.

"Further other minerals in the host sands include corundum, zircon, rutile, brookite, topaz, beryl, garnet and tourmaline.
Major_source: company report
Commodities
Au MAJOR
diamond - gem MINOR
sapphire MINOR"

Interesdting that it does not mention pleonaste/spinel. Though spinel is nearly always associated with these other gems.

Found one of 3,768,000 ... no edit that, one-half from 2,832,000

Still quite a bit of detail on that one mate, nice. :Y:

Heatho said:

Still quite a bit of detail on that one mate, nice. :Y:

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Not bad for being in the ground for the best part of 106 years

So true mate. Cave find?

Just outside of this one Heath

Looks like the bloke had the night horrors and ripped his buttons off while tossing and turning (sleeping area was just in front of the pinpointer)....., got a bit excited by the tone iDs on the 705 when I hit multiple button targets as I had pulled a horseshoe about the size of my head out of the ground moments earlier, indicating the area had some old timber worker history.

Looks good....Amazing condition much like the one I found today... :Y:

golddiggerart said:

Looks good....Amazing condition much like the one I found today... :Y:

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You tend to pull some great condition copper out of the ground down your way GDA enjoy watching your thread arty:

most of the coppers I find locally are quite corroded but I think the early copper holds up to the local soil conditions better in my opinion. I find the Britannia's seem the hold up even better although most of them are well worn around here, with dates almost illegible.

Wally69 said:

golddiggerart said:

Looks good....Amazing condition much like the one I found today... :Y:

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You tend to pull some great condition copper out of the ground down your way GDA enjoy watching your thread arty:

most of the coppers I find locally are quite corroded but I think the early copper holds up to the local soil conditions better in my opinion. I find the Britannia's seem the hold up even better although most of them are well worn around here, with dates almost illegible.

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Yeah the track has been kind to the coppers not so much at penny park around the corner where the coppers are toasted...

When you think about that 1911 1/2d Wally, how many of them woulda been worn out through wear n tear n removed from circulation for remelting ,.... + how many of them were gotten rid of in the great meltdown pre and post decimal currency's initiation.
Could turn out to be one of a mere hundred thou even !

Wally69 said:

Just outside of this one Heath

Looks like the bloke had the night horrors and ripped his buttons off while tossing and turning (sleeping area was just in front of the pinpointer)....., got a bit excited by the tone iDs on the 705 when I hit multiple button targets as I had pulled a horseshoe about the size of my head out of the ground moments earlier, indicating the area had some old timber worker history.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1916/1509777360_image.jpg

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You sure are getting into some interesting places mate. :Y:

Had a bit of drizzle around this afternoon so went to my local military camp spot in the hope that I could pop an old silver coin or two between rain drops.

Stumbled across a little relic honey hole with a couple of rising sun collar badges surfacing first, followed by a set of dog tags

A wider sweep kept me busy popping dog tags, buckles, badges and a padlock. :rainbow:

8) Militaria is = 2 Silvers ,..... so you done real well Wally !
:Y: :Y:
arty: arty: arty:

Quite a military haul Wally, have you ever thought about tracking down families regarding the dog tags? :Y:

Goldpick said:

Quite a military haul Wally, have you ever thought about tracking down families regarding the dog tags? :Y:

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Found a couple on the other side of this site a few years back but was unsuccessful as no living relatives were traceable, these have the names of 6 individuals, so they should keep me busy doing some research for a while.

Hopefully will have some better luck this time around.

Nice rising sun's there wally. they're definitely on my bucket list
:Y: :Y: :Y:

Wow wally that is an awesome sight... Just fantastic mate. :Y:

Went back for another run over the military honey hole.

The 705 doesn't pick up stainless steel very well, if at all, sometimes the edge of the coil will register a high inconsistent number similar to a thrippy on its edge, so locked it into pinpoint mode and regridded the area and was rewarded with another 5 dog tags. The AIF buttons were mixed with rusty steel giving a mixed tone response. :rainbow: arty: :rainbow: