Prospecting in Central Queensland

[DrTrauma]

Gudday all.
As a newby I thought it would be a good idea to post my prospecting efforts here for you to comment on, provide advice, constructive criticism, guidance or general blah.

I went out today with my Garrett DD in my custom backpac to a locale known for its alluvial and reef gold and scoured some dry creek beds. I am still familiarising myself with my newly acquired equiptment. The detector bleeped heaps of times, even when I discriminated out the iron, aluminium and silver. Dug a few times without anything showing up. Even the handheld pointer was frustrating me. I tested it out on a gold ring (not a wedding band - no - me single) and it squealed loud and constant. So it works fine. Then I found a red button in the middle with "p/p - target" written on it and pressed it when passing the coil over the ring. It really squealed. Not sure why but I guess it's important.

So, found loads of serpentinite, mud rock, granite, but no gold.

Tomorrow marshalling at a 4WD comp so no prospecting until Sunday.

Hope you did better than me.

 

[Jaros]

Welcome DrTrauma. Where, roughly, were you looking. Sounds like a highly mineralised area.
Jaros

 

[DrTrauma]

Hi Jaros.
I am prospecting around the mountains between Rockhampton and Yeppoon. Lots of old maps and old tales indicate Au still in the area.

 

[Jaros]

Good luck Dr Trauma.

 

[DrTrauma]

Well, what a weekend. I was invited to marshal at the local 4WD competition. Had an absolute blast. Great people. Great time. Great location. A few heats involved racing through the creek and up the steep banks. Now, I consider myself a conservationist, but there was more in this than merely the fun of watching big boys with their muddy big toys.... they were digging out the banks of the creek for me..... revealing some very interesting geology to prospect.....

So, after the event I took several plastic bags and a shovel and hunted for ideal places to sample. I dug down to about a foot behind trees, in small cliffs, behind large rocks and more. Hopeful of scoring a small nugget. Previously I have researched this area and there are records of an abandoned mine on this creek, so my efforts may not yet be in vain.

Just after lunch I had a go at panning some of the samples. I swished and swirled for about two hours at the nearby boat ramp at the beach. It was the only clear water for several kilometres. A few pretty, small chunks of quartz, but no Au. At all. Buggar. Ah well.

Tomorrow and Wednesday I am off on a four hour drive away to investigate a locale west of me (because 4hrs east of me would be outside the Barrier Reef) that has produced of ounces of Au in the past. Try my luck there.

Cheers all and I truly hope you get lucky with glitter in your pan.

Dr Trauma

 

[MJB]

Keep at it dr trauma, your bound to get on the colour sooner or later.

I hope your next outing is more fruitful

 

[Strobez.94]

I'm new to prospecting myself, only been at it a few months now, I knew roughly where to start as I'm in the northeast not too far from beechworth/Eldorado,
Panning skills are improving, and we're finding gold there, but struggling to find anything respectable, just a lot of super fine flour gold and very few tiny flakes (which are almost impossible to collect without spending hours running cons multiple times through the table.)
Regardless, it's a lot of fun, and it's been enough to keep me interested,
but it would be nice to find somewhere that would make the trip a bit more exciting,
5 days on reedy creek with two of us and a sluice, and I doubt we even got a gram for our efforts.. :/