Do big Nuggets travel further from the source than small nuggets

[Aries]

What about lateritic gold in WA? Originally deposited in quartz reefs, from which it is later slowly dissolved by hyper-saline groundwater and transported in that fluid until it precipitates out of solution when it comes in contact with iron-rich laterites.

Grubstake, do you have any scientific proof of this occurring ? If so could you please direct me to the source.
To the best of my knowledge all laterite gold nuggets in WA can be dated to the Archean period whilst all the laterites were deposited much later. ie they were deposited "whole" during the formation.
The weird one in WA is that our gold is much older than say the gold in Victoria, all Archean with only 3 geographically isolated mines that don't conform to this period (T, B and SoM).
The gold being so old there has been much more vertical erosion in WA (kilometres ) and what is now a laterite hill was once a river valley or floodplain.

 

[Aries]

https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/b2004/html/bull2004lateritesaprolite_au.htm
A bit of info on chemical enrichment ( Boddington style- No Nuggets ) and not sure if this is the current understanding.

 

[grubstake]

Grubstake, do you have any scientific proof of this occurring ? If so could you please direct me to the source.

It was personally explained to me by the then Chief Geologist of Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines, Kevin Lines, about 30 years back, so I took it as being definitive, as it was his area of expertise.

I've also seen surface geology and historical mining in the Eastern Goldfields of WA that appear to clearly reflect such a process. A quartz-covered hill with outcropping quartz at the top, but without any mining shafts or surface diggings, while within walking distance, a laterite/ironstone ridge with little quartz, but covered with diggings and shafts all along it and also in the gullys alongside.

 

[Aries]

As you say "Where it is, there it is".
I can think of many similar examples, but it doesn't follow that the gold was "grown"in the laterite.
NOT trying to get in a argument as definitely don't know it all.
My understanding is that Archean ( 2,500 m year old ) gold nuggets in a Cenozoic ( max 65 m year old) laterite can only point to that gold being deposited as a secondary deposit and not grown in situ.
Who knows for sure? Not me.

 

[metaldetective]

a guide i found a few years ago , not sure how true it is
it was snipped from a old miners journal i was reading

View attachment 11102

Too many variables to attach these type distances to a particular type of gold (but fines do travel a considerable distance). Rough nuggetty is "normally associated with gold in Situ, or Elluvial - close to the source

 

[geof_junk]

This is from an old doc. that I collected years ago.

1. RESIDUAL PLACERS
A residual placer is, in effect, a concentration of gold (or other heavy
mineral) at or near its point of release from the parent rock. In this type of
placer the enrichment results from the elimination of valueless material
rather than from concentration of values brought in from an outside source.
Residual placers may be rich but they are not likely to be large and as a
class, they have been relatively unimportant. The "seam diggings" in EI
Dorado County, Calif., (Clark and Carlson, 1956, p. 435) offer an example
of residual gold placers.
2. ELUVIAL PLACERS
Eluvial placers usually represent a transitional stage between a residual
placer and a stream placer. Where one type merges into another, they cannot
be clearly distinguished. They are characteristically found in the form of
irregular sheets of surface detritus and soil mantling a hillside below a vein
or other source of valuable mineral. It should be noted that the parent vein
or lode may or may not outcrop at the actual ground surface. Eluvial placers
differ from residual placers in that surface creep slowly moves the gold and
weathered detritus down hill, allowing the lighter portions to be removed by
rain wash and wind. As the detrital mass gravitates downhill, a rough
stratification or concentration of values may develop but this is rarely
perfected to the degree found in stream placers. Eluvial placers are typically
limited in extent but there have been cases such as at Round Mountain,
Nevada, (Vanderburg, 1 936, pp. 1 33-(45) where this type of placer
supported large-scale mining operations.