Stratifying

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Anolphart

Zol Straub
Joined
Nov 12, 2017
Messages
756
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2,598
Location
Yamba, NSW
Its interesting watching the various ways that people pan for gold. Whilst the process is pretty much the same, the techniques can vary. One thing that is common though is the need to stratify before washing off the material.

Now, I have seen how quickly river gold drops when inverting my vial. Its as though theres no resistance whatsoever. So I can understand that the gold would settle at the bottom of the pan quite rapidly if the stratification is done correctly. With that in mind, why do we need to stratify repeatedly? Why not stratify once and just wash most of the material out in one go?
 
I feel the constant swishing grinds clay balls etc down and repeating the process each time scrubs the rocks clean and redirties the water with silt therefore removing the clay silt each time.
If im power panning i will work the material for several minutes the first time then wash 80% of the material off , but i only do this when looking for colors and a good place to dig.
 
It depends a lot on the material your working with. If your chasing largish gold in material without a lot of clay then yeah just shake it down for a few seconds and brush off or let fall most of the material in one go. But any clay will have a big effect and if you are after fine gold or very flakey/flat gold then it's best to take a bit more time and care with it as it can get a bit stuck on the way.
Still quick panning can often be a better idea than slow panning if you have lots of easily accessible material you want to pan.
 

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