Do these rocks look like they are worth crushing?

Hi guys,

I have a property in Toolleen (Near Bendigo and down the road from the old Toolleen gold mine). The property is 40 acres and is just covered with these brown rocks and quartz. Next door doesn't appear to have many but my block has them scattered right across the paddocks and a lot of quartz, especially around tree bases etc. I crushed up 2 quartz rocks and found nothing but gave up as it was such hard work with the dolly pot.

I have taken a few quartz rocks home to crush when bored. if people think they look promising, the plan was to build an electric rock crusher to process a heap of them.

What are people's thoughts on the rocks? I am new to this so don't really know what I am looking at. I also do not have a detector good enough to find trace amounts of gold in rocks.

Have you found any evidence of old workings on the property or just scattered quartz?

Im from NSW so not familiar with the area however there are a few articles on trove talking about the Toolleen Mine which might help with how the gold in the area occurs.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=toolleen+gold+mine

someone from Vic might be able to help with a link to the Vic equivalent of DIGS which is the NSW geological survey website with mine reports etc.

I think that as it has a history of gold in the area it's worth doing a bit of crushing. You never know your luck. If you cant afford a detector the why not buy a pinpointer and see if it reacts. :Y:

i'll have a look for any evidence of old workings. I have seen some very informative threads showing what to look for with old workings so i'll check it out. I have a Garret black pin pointer. I didn't think to try that

Looks like there's digging around in your pic I always thought of that secondary iron as infill on fractures. The rocks in the tub do not show much mineralization cubes are good to see rusty looking lines. Sometimes black manganese stains show as a tracer. If I was there I would look for where that slate shale rock came from hunt around to see if there is any sandstone on the line
If your lucky you may find a point where the two meet look for quartz there and dolly that cheers

Gemo said:

Looks like there's digging around in your pic I always thought of that secondary iron as infill on fractures. The rocks in the tub do not show much mineralization cubes are good to see rusty looking lines. Sometimes black manganese stains show as a tracer. If I was there I would look for where that slate shale rock came from hunt around to see if there is any sandstone on the line
If your lucky you may find a point where the two meet look for quartz there and dolly that cheers

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. What slate shale rock are you referring to? The piece in the bucket?

Also,
Your photo above tells me that area was cleared at one time.
Small hint, Look at the size of the trees. :0
Do any of the rocks under the tree look fire blackened.
Hint, May be the remains of an old chimney.
Also, The land to the left of the photo looks like it was heaped there.
Small Hint, Detect the area looking for relics and such.
You never know what you may find.
It will tell you the history of the land.

Yes. The contact of 2x rock types is always important and should be part of what your looking for at any time all the best

Mate far be it for me to rain on your parade but I'll state what I have read about Tooleen mine and you can decide from there.

As far as I can gather (I just reread some info I had tucked away) the gold occurrence at this particular mine was found in quartz veins in basalt host rock. It was a late worked mine (1900s) and found its end of life only recently after it was modeled into an open cut.

So from this I can deduce two discerning factors in your search. Firstly gold occurrence in the area is very localized. Secondly the type of rocks you are looking for are quartz hosted in basalt.

For the time and effort I would consider spending time in more productive areas within a short distance, you have a decent range spanning from Bendigo/Costerfeild , moving anti clockwise around the south, Eppalock, Heathcote, the top edge of Magambie workings up To whroo/Rushworth area, all of which have had significant gold occurrence.

I've spent time in all those areas with (small) success, there's definitely gold all around you, but finding it at your doorstep I think you would need to be extremely diligent or very lucky due to the very localized nature of gold at Tooleen.

Thanks for all the comments/advice. you have not rained on my parade. I was just more curious about all the quartz as I have been looking at them for over 20 years. I knew It is not known to be a gold rich area but it is close.

The land looks to have been cleared at some stage. Next time I go up I will do some relic hunting and see what i can find.

check your pm 1968falconxt. :Y: