Chapel Hill alluvium (SA)

[Thumper]

Hi all, Ive lurked for a bit, first post

I occasionally make it to Echunga area from down Aldinga way, and pan or sluice in the Chapel Hill fossicking area. I love getting out, especially as its a way to connect with one of my boys heading into the teenage years!

I managed to get a few specks last time I went, from alluvium near the old stamping battery, but only averaging one speck per large bucket. I suspect it was actually tailings from inefficient extraction back in the abundant days. After voting yesterday I headed out with #1 son and we explored a bit further, lugged our stuff from National Dam to German Dam and back again. Amazing all the farm dams nearby are full, but the Chapel Hill dams are pretty low, and the creek contains hardly even a puddle, let alone running! I still tested out the sluice however, just had to bucket water. Im sure its way less ideal than a steady flow but hey.

I tried a likely-looking spot of ferrous conglomerate overlying some pretty clean-looking sand halfway between the dams, and retrieved only the tiniest speck (like, microscopic almost!) from the sand. I thought the conglom should have been the go from the geology Ive been researching, but then again the sand was pretty useless also. We headed back down to a deep pit next to National Dam, and I extracted a bucket of conglomerate with ferrous clay matrix, and a bucket of similar conglomerate in a white clay matrix. A classifier sieve and bucket did a good job of puddling the clay in both cases, but absolutely no gold whatsoever.

Does anyone familiar with this area have a good handle on what strata holds the gold? I know its supposed to be in ferrous conglomerate overlying bedrock, but I havent found any bedrock anywhere, even in the deepest spots of the valley. Ive attached a pic of the walls in the big hole where I got the ferrous clay conglom (top) and white clay conglom (bottom). The wall is about 1.8m high.

Cheers! Ben.

 

[10fp]

G`day Ben , and WELCOME to the forum, i just got back from Kuitpo testing some coils today , What a Beaut afternoon it was in the adelaide hills today hey
the property i play on was a fine gold area as well , lots of quartz but No nuggets
when im ready to go around it loaming i might give you a shout out

cheers Dave at Flaggy hill

 

[Wishfull]

10fp what detector are you using ?

 

[10fp]

4500 and SDC. Today i was testing an OLD Coiltek terra cotta 18" mono against my 15x12 commander mono for depth before heading to WA thursday
used a 22 bullet (40gn / 2.5 grams ) at 15" and the OLD 18" Coiltek mono was every bit as good for depth so i will take it as a patch coil and dont hav to panic about getting a 18 NF advantage or 15 evo for this trip

Dave

 

[AtomRat]

Do you mean ferruginous conglomerate? You would find it extremly hard to break it with your pick as the conglomerate would be a solid mass, cemented together, not loose, and will be dark brown to black.

 

[Thumper]

Hi Dave thanks for the welcome, sounds like fun and yes a shout out would be great. We were working Chapel Hill yesterday in the drizzle. Today would have been fantastic!

AtomRat I prob do mean ferruginous conglomerate, will have to look up the docs again. It was certainly partly cemented but not rock hard. Makes me suspect I could have still been in 100-year-old tailings. If thats the case then most of the valley there is full of tailings.

 

[nuggetino]

I've detected all my gold in alluvial gravels around chapel hill and jupiter creek. I've panned the gravels in which I've detected nuggets and never found a spec of gold though. It was very hit and miss even back in the day when the field was discovered. While some made wages and even better, many failed to see the colour of gold in their pans. The only way to find the gold is to search historically productive ground and keep processing the alluvium until you hit a good spot.

 

[Thumper]

Hey nuggetino, thanks for the reply. At Chapel Hill, do you detect in the valley-floor gravels, or across the hillsides with better success? Im still trying to figure that place out. As far as I understand, at Chapel Hill the gold is originally in the deeper Tertiary ferruginous conglomerate, the hillsides are likely to be (barren) alluvium overlying this, and the valley floor I suspect is pretty-well filled with modern tailings from the mining that went on. Therefore my guess is gold is largely in the valley floor gravels = tailings, and consists of that which the old-timers missed. Unless you can find the edge of the Tertiary gravels, where the creek valley has incised completely thru the Tertiary gravels into the underlying Precambrian sandstones and shales. What's your take on the area (Chapel Hill specifically)?