Detecting in a "Side Wall"

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Hi Everyone,

Just wondering if someone can clarify an apparent prospecting term for me please. I've read a number of different articles now about Syd Pearson and The Lady Catherine nugget that he found. Nearly all of the articles just repeat verbatim what each of the other articles have published about it, except for the PMAV Summer 2016 newsletter, where in the story it states "On this particular day, Syd was detecting in a side wall with his Minelab detector on his claim in the Golden Triangle".

I've been searching the term without success, and so I'm wondering if someone can please put me out of my misery and explain to me in geological terms what a "Side Wall" is/ looks like?

While you're helping and you're already here, as mentioned it also says he was detecting on his "claim". I thought such claim rights went out the window years ago didn't they? If not, then how big can a "claim" be, how long does it last, and how do you assert your right over it? I was under the impression that so long as you were on Crown land and had a miners right in Victoria that nobody owned anything other than the mineral/s they found?

Thanks in advance for helping a Newbie,
Deepseeker
 
Thanks mbasko!

The photo of him with the nugget (or maybe replica) kinda showed him kneeling on the ground with his detector over some disturbed soil. The whole thing didn't make much sense to me.Thanks for the small mining lease link also :Y:
 
In the 1980s they were called Miners Right Claims. They were 1 ha. Then they brought in a law that you could apply for an additional area of 1 ha. It cost $20 to apply for the Claim. the bond was $500 for a rubber tyred machine, and $1000 for a tracked machine. It cost about $3.00 for each tree you removed. No insurance, no planning permit, no native title searches,no quarterly gold result statements. This applied to crown land. Those were the days!
 
wiley coyote said:
In the 1980s they were called Miners Right Claims. They were 1 ha. Then they brought in a law that you could apply for an additional area of 1 ha. It cost $20 to apply for the Claim. the bond was $500 for a rubber tyred machine, and $1000 for a tracked machine. It cost about $3.00 for each tree you removed. No insurance, no planning permit, no native title searches,no quarterly gold result statements. This applied to crown land. Those were the days!
Be good to have those days back :(
 
wiley coyote said:
In the 1980s they were called Miners Right Claims. They were 1 ha. Then they brought in a law that you could apply for an additional area of 1 ha. It cost $20 to apply for the Claim. the bond was $500 for a rubber tyred machine, and $1000 for a tracked machine. It cost about $3.00 for each tree you removed. No insurance, no planning permit, no native title searches,no quarterly gold result statements. This applied to crown land. Those were the days!
Whats the comparison to costs of a claim these days? I bet it would be a large mortgage.
 
In this case a side wall is just the wall of their cut I.e. they dug out a trench like open pit & he was detecting down in it
Detecting side walls ....................... something the SDC excels at :Y: :Y: :Y:
 
The photo of him with the nugget (or maybe replica) kinda showed him kneeling on the ground with his detector over some disturbed soil.

He may have been dislodging soil from the sidewalls of the cut with his pick & then detecting the "disturbed" soil at the bottom of the cut.

Rob.
 
Deepseeker said:
Thanks mbasko!

The photo of him with the nugget (or maybe replica) kinda showed him kneeling on the ground with his detector over some disturbed soil. The whole thing didn't make much sense to me.Thanks for the small mining lease link also :Y:
The photos & media coverage (circus) all happened several months after he had found it. Some of the media TV coverage showed him swinging a detector through the bush which would have also given the impression to many that it was found like that.
 
wiley coyote said:
In the 1980s they were called Miners Right Claims. They were 1 ha. Then they brought in a law that you could apply for an additional area of 1 ha. It cost $20 to apply for the Claim. the bond was $500 for a rubber tyred machine, and $1000 for a tracked machine. It cost about $3.00 for each tree you removed. No insurance, no planning permit, no native title searches,no quarterly gold result statements. This applied to crown land. Those were the days!

Getting a lease these days, would be very difficult, time consuming and costly.
Too many hoops to jump through against governing bodies and you would need to be certain you had a viable deposit.
 
Chuky boy said:
wiley coyote said:
In the 1980s they were called Miners Right Claims. They were 1 ha. Then they brought in a law that you could apply for an additional area of 1 ha. It cost $20 to apply for the Claim. the bond was $500 for a rubber tyred machine, and $1000 for a tracked machine. It cost about $3.00 for each tree you removed. No insurance, no planning permit, no native title searches,no quarterly gold result statements. This applied to crown land. Those were the days!
Whats the comparison to costs of a claim these days? I bet it would be a large mortgage.

well you gota have 5k now just for the lease and depending on where you are digging the bond is between 2 and 10k so in total 15k to start then you need machinery to actually mine after you have jumped threw all the other hoops and paid for your lease plus bond so your looking at about 25k or more the average guy can't afford unless you find nuggets everyday that weight an 1 ounce or more its not worth doing. I can vouch for this as I tried looking into it but just to have a claim and dig by hand it would have still cost me 5k plus bond but because I wouldn't be using machinery on the land or blowing rock up my bond would be around the 1 to 3k mark depending on where I am and what sort of mining I do but that is still a lot just for the average person.
 
It all sounds like there is a big outlay for the chance of getting the gold. I think the once you are digging with heavy machinery it seems like work and stress. Let alone all the bureaucracy and paperwork. I think if I got a decent sized nugget that way ( and I'm thinking that an ounce is decent!!) I would most probable keep it so I would never recoup any of the expensive outlay!!!!
I look at gold detecting as a bit of an escape from the city and work. Even if I wander around the diggings and forest for very little reward, most of the reward comes from the surroundings and sometime a piece of gold just makes the day even better.

Thats just me.
 
Krugerrand said:
I look at gold detecting as a bit of an escape from the city and work. Even if I wander around the diggings and forest for very little reward, most of the reward comes from the surroundings and sometime a piece of gold just makes the day even better.

Thats just me.

That's it in a nutshell for me too :Y:
 
I'm happy wandering around the old diggings out in the Aussie bush escaping the pressures of modern day life . But I know of others with large machinery etc living the life of the modern day prospector with great rewards maybe just the next bucket full away.Suit yourself as long as your living your dream that's all that counts.
Cheers Crushed
 
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