12 Weeks To Find First Gold (Persistence Pays).
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Jay
Wow MG, that was an amazing read 
thanks
Heres hoping you can spend many more days there and enjoy
thanksHeres hoping you can spend many more days there and enjoy
8) love it thats awsome you might be a foot or two off a real payday . Good karma from sharing your knowledge is obviously paying off. Now i will have to wait till monday to read more , i am off to hillend for Napha agm , hopefully i can get a nuggy.
Another great post MG. Good luck tomorrow.
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Thanks for sharing your finds
Always great to read how it should be done properly
Best of luck looking forward to the next episode.
scotty
Always great to read how it should be done properly
Best of luck looking forward to the next episode.
scotty
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MG this is a great read! And I'll bet there's more! Thanks for sharing this.
Its rare that you read something that is riveting and at the same time is actually educational! Love it. Good luck Tommorrow. Regards Richard
Its rare that you read something that is riveting and at the same time is actually educational! Love it. Good luck Tommorrow. Regards Richard
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As always a great report I think I will have to start following you and Dick lol ,Tell me did you did the hole or Dick if he did he should be claiming salvage rights lol ,hope you get all the gold you deserve for all the work you have put into these post ,the books looking good too lol Keep up the good work mate might see you in the field thinking of heading your way maybe this weekend .
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Hi Minelab gold it's amazing how the planet works I've always been a big believer in Carma and for what you have been putting in to the prospecting community here are you rewards not to mention the talent in reading ground well done and good luck at finding the mother load keep up the great posts.
Goldhound
John
This is truly one epic read, I would pay money for this in a book. Thank-you so very much for sharing.
Sometimes I think you do not need a detector because you read the ground so well.
I hope you find a monster nugget as you deserve it mate.
Cheers Goldhound.
Sometimes I think you do not need a detector because you read the ground so well.
I hope you find a monster nugget as you deserve it mate.
Cheers Goldhound.
Hi All,
Again thanks for all the replies and positive feedback - its all about helping others in the field if we all help others gain experience it can be amazing when a good group of people can head out on a weekend and enjoy the complete experience - rather than looking over your shoulder to see if someone is watching you find gold.
Trust is very important not like the guy who see's you get your little spot then the next day he is back there in the exact location in the search for the gold spot you found - or the moment this happens all of a sudden you have a few more in close proximity - this is called Greed some have it and some are just cool. If you did this back in the old gold days taking another mans weekly earnings food from his table wow. They say gold can do strange things to people - "Only if you let it"
I know we cant control the fields and we dont own certain parts of the land, but we must appreciate that we can participate in this wonderful hobby. I also believe there should be certain etiquette among prospectors. We usually head out either by ourselves or with a very close friend or family and we know from experience that we have a built up trust among us.
Anyway I will start with today's findings to share some more with you all - this area is very hard going when I started today and between removing sections of this hard base material - I sat back just to reflect on the amount of material removed by the old timers in a lot of area's I have been to, it provides us with a sense of the extreme efforts these guys went through, when we dig holes in extremely soft material top soils, dirts, unconsolidated gravels etc I would choose a 2 foot hole any day over this calcrete - Also being such hard base like as the name refers its like concrete, sitting there with a hammer and various chisels and slowly chipping away compared to a 1 to 2 foot hole in softs taking maybe 5 to 10 minutes. The old hard rock miners must have been pretty well ripped in their days.
So after arriving and chipping away some material - It was pretty warm today so the first port of call was a bush umbrella various tree branches to cover the area that was being worked - this was great now full shade to work the ground.
After swinging the detector there were noticable targets still in certain area's - again very warbly not distinct signal - trying to pinpoint was hard enough with the uneven ground in the hole - I presumed the signals were showing strong and weak on the front and back of the coil - operating with the 14" DD Coiltek.
After a few swings the area of focus was in a circle trying to ensure not to hit the targets - every time material was removed a quick visual for any gold that was too small to register on the coil - this proved good for small stuff without the need to dolly and pan, anything visual was kept aside.
1. This is the hole and the sun was completely covering this area - after some bush umbrella work - some nice shade across the area.
2. First piece removed from the material
3. Everytime material was removed some pieces that were moved into the paydirt pile which will be crushed and panned off later - I also ran the coil back over this heap every so often and it was amazing to hit more targets in the pile and still in the hole.
4. This piece when removed I placed it back in the hole just for the image - I was hoping to get some more pics with the gold still encased but visual while it was in the ground. The colors in the majority of this hole were white to medium grey - majority of the gold was in the darker grey material. Also some reds coming through and water worn to very coarse quartz - there are sections through this darker grey material of quartz vein running upwards out of the ground
5. Another piece on the edge of the material
6. Here you can see the colors - I thought to get an image for you all to show you the iron mineralized material and the sedimentary material with the various minerals mixing and making the color's over many millions of years.
7. This piece had a sign of 3 or so visuals and was placed in the pile for gold recovery later.
8. A few more pieces here in the material and removed in the field
9. All up in this image 20 pieces for today - and also the other hard base material with the visuals there is another 12 or so pieces, approximate total would be 32 pieces. Hopefully after some dollying and working the material should be able to recover some nice little pieces that are not visual and not detectable - either too small or base material is too large. Either way working the material in a dolly and panning off the lights should reveal some nice little gold.
When this hole was found I also forgot to advise that the material on top in this area was red clay like material - then there was a layer of dark chocolate brown clay above this hard base ancient creek bed. The hard dark chocolate brown clay is very brittle but solid - similar to when you find red clay that is soft and then the stuff you find that is like plasticine - rubber but brittle. There different consistencies among various clays which helps you understand the mineral and age and many other factors. Much like in this Clay Table
Anyway I hope you enjoy and - I think I have covered a lot for this find - top soil, red clay just below this area, quartz large round waterworn on very hard base material which is a sign of an ancient water area, still havent found which direction it travels yet as this hole is keeping me active - looking forward to removing a 2 ft area or dirt all the way around this hole to see what is revealed. And we have the undulated area mentioned - dark clays - quartz vein - iron oxide colors - iron oxides along side the quartz vein - hard sedimentary material. These signals are starting to look very promising for a possibility to follow this ancient waterway for another dip. Especially the few reefy pieces removed so far.
Again I had to walk away from more signals day just got away.
I will post any new findings and anything that is impressive in the finds will surely document it for you all so one day it may just appear in your next gold find.
Tomorrow is another day and looking forward to getting back out.
Enjoy the post and may you all have a wonderful plentiful weekend full of elusive metals.
Cheers M.G
Again thanks for all the replies and positive feedback - its all about helping others in the field if we all help others gain experience it can be amazing when a good group of people can head out on a weekend and enjoy the complete experience - rather than looking over your shoulder to see if someone is watching you find gold.
Trust is very important not like the guy who see's you get your little spot then the next day he is back there in the exact location in the search for the gold spot you found - or the moment this happens all of a sudden you have a few more in close proximity - this is called Greed some have it and some are just cool. If you did this back in the old gold days taking another mans weekly earnings food from his table wow. They say gold can do strange things to people - "Only if you let it"
I know we cant control the fields and we dont own certain parts of the land, but we must appreciate that we can participate in this wonderful hobby. I also believe there should be certain etiquette among prospectors. We usually head out either by ourselves or with a very close friend or family and we know from experience that we have a built up trust among us.
Anyway I will start with today's findings to share some more with you all - this area is very hard going when I started today and between removing sections of this hard base material - I sat back just to reflect on the amount of material removed by the old timers in a lot of area's I have been to, it provides us with a sense of the extreme efforts these guys went through, when we dig holes in extremely soft material top soils, dirts, unconsolidated gravels etc I would choose a 2 foot hole any day over this calcrete - Also being such hard base like as the name refers its like concrete, sitting there with a hammer and various chisels and slowly chipping away compared to a 1 to 2 foot hole in softs taking maybe 5 to 10 minutes. The old hard rock miners must have been pretty well ripped in their days.
So after arriving and chipping away some material - It was pretty warm today so the first port of call was a bush umbrella various tree branches to cover the area that was being worked - this was great now full shade to work the ground.
After swinging the detector there were noticable targets still in certain area's - again very warbly not distinct signal - trying to pinpoint was hard enough with the uneven ground in the hole - I presumed the signals were showing strong and weak on the front and back of the coil - operating with the 14" DD Coiltek.
After a few swings the area of focus was in a circle trying to ensure not to hit the targets - every time material was removed a quick visual for any gold that was too small to register on the coil - this proved good for small stuff without the need to dolly and pan, anything visual was kept aside.
1. This is the hole and the sun was completely covering this area - after some bush umbrella work - some nice shade across the area.
2. First piece removed from the material
3. Everytime material was removed some pieces that were moved into the paydirt pile which will be crushed and panned off later - I also ran the coil back over this heap every so often and it was amazing to hit more targets in the pile and still in the hole.
4. This piece when removed I placed it back in the hole just for the image - I was hoping to get some more pics with the gold still encased but visual while it was in the ground. The colors in the majority of this hole were white to medium grey - majority of the gold was in the darker grey material. Also some reds coming through and water worn to very coarse quartz - there are sections through this darker grey material of quartz vein running upwards out of the ground
5. Another piece on the edge of the material
6. Here you can see the colors - I thought to get an image for you all to show you the iron mineralized material and the sedimentary material with the various minerals mixing and making the color's over many millions of years.
7. This piece had a sign of 3 or so visuals and was placed in the pile for gold recovery later.
8. A few more pieces here in the material and removed in the field
9. All up in this image 20 pieces for today - and also the other hard base material with the visuals there is another 12 or so pieces, approximate total would be 32 pieces. Hopefully after some dollying and working the material should be able to recover some nice little pieces that are not visual and not detectable - either too small or base material is too large. Either way working the material in a dolly and panning off the lights should reveal some nice little gold.
When this hole was found I also forgot to advise that the material on top in this area was red clay like material - then there was a layer of dark chocolate brown clay above this hard base ancient creek bed. The hard dark chocolate brown clay is very brittle but solid - similar to when you find red clay that is soft and then the stuff you find that is like plasticine - rubber but brittle. There different consistencies among various clays which helps you understand the mineral and age and many other factors. Much like in this Clay Table
Anyway I hope you enjoy and - I think I have covered a lot for this find - top soil, red clay just below this area, quartz large round waterworn on very hard base material which is a sign of an ancient water area, still havent found which direction it travels yet as this hole is keeping me active - looking forward to removing a 2 ft area or dirt all the way around this hole to see what is revealed. And we have the undulated area mentioned - dark clays - quartz vein - iron oxide colors - iron oxides along side the quartz vein - hard sedimentary material. These signals are starting to look very promising for a possibility to follow this ancient waterway for another dip. Especially the few reefy pieces removed so far.
Again I had to walk away from more signals day just got away.
I will post any new findings and anything that is impressive in the finds will surely document it for you all so one day it may just appear in your next gold find.
Tomorrow is another day and looking forward to getting back out.
Enjoy the post and may you all have a wonderful plentiful weekend full of elusive metals.
Cheers M.G
Dron
Dron
Congratulations MG, an excellent patch you've found.
I'm looking forward to seeing how much you get from dollying and panning the extra material. What sort of dolly do you use?
If there turns out to be a lot of fine alluvial gold hiding in the calcrete material would it be worthwhile trying to process more material from the area? You might be able to get an ounce of fine gold too!
I'm looking forward to seeing how much you get from dollying and panning the extra material. What sort of dolly do you use?
If there turns out to be a lot of fine alluvial gold hiding in the calcrete material would it be worthwhile trying to process more material from the area? You might be able to get an ounce of fine gold too!
Dron said:
Hi Dron,
Yes most definitely if the concentration is contained along the area worked - I think if it was a 1mtr area then working this material by dolly and pan should be worthwhile - sometimes its more the excitement of the find - if this area turned out to be a stretch of this highly concentrated material then it would be worth processing the material on a larger scale.
At the moment this hole has only been maybe 3 shovel loads of this pay material because it is so hard to remove and so far without crushing the pay material thoroughly, only that of what has been visually noticeable or getting signal response from the detector and has proved very well - I have a pile of the potential higher grade pay material is maybe 2 bucket loads. If this was a large section they talk in grams per, and If it is large enough and by my calculations 3 shovel loads times by cubic meters then yeah it should be ok.
This is what came out of material that I just finished crushing another 29 pieces, with the visual pieces - some had a few more in them than what could be seen after crushed.
What sort of dolly do you use? To answer this question it is just a round solid steel tube with a welded bottom and a solid bar for crushing - these visual pieces were just crushed by hand with multi-grips - just to break the finer away and some crushing on the material. The idea at the moment is to simply keep going and removing all detectable targets and any material removed will be thoroughly crushed later - any visuals just remove when I get home.
Next stage is to simply keep removing top dirt and clays away in each direction away from this hole then find the direction of where it came from - I still havent distinguished this as yet because I am getting target response still in this same hole. Another issue was the travel 1 1/2 hour turnaround - thinking that I should camp for a few days.
Lets see what taking away the extra material around the hole can bring. And see what another day can bring.
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Wow MG, you've definitely got a nice area to work there, loving how you're documenting it for us to follow and learn from.
Just following/reading about your trips out each day is making me rethink my next trip out and what I should start concentrating on to gain better knowledge of the area.
You deserve all you find through being kind enough to share your time and efforts to write up the posts after each trip, it certainly makes me more determined to find more time to get out in the field when I can then try to make the most of that time.
Thanks MG.
Just following/reading about your trips out each day is making me rethink my next trip out and what I should start concentrating on to gain better knowledge of the area.
You deserve all you find through being kind enough to share your time and efforts to write up the posts after each trip, it certainly makes me more determined to find more time to get out in the field when I can then try to make the most of that time.
Thanks MG.
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Well it looks like you are really earning your gold with all that calcrete hope you can find the flow direction and hopefully the origins of where it came from .This is the kind of thing we all dream of and it couldn't happen a nicer bloke hope you find the mother of all these baby's lol ,by the way I have 198 pages of your posts in the book folder now lol .
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