Goldierocks, from what I'm experiencing from this 1 gully, @ approx 2m down there is a layer of gravels approx 0.5m thick, there is SOME gold in it but from deeper digging the ground is turning white/orange clay.
What's deeper?
What's deeper?
Shallow gold
- Thread starter 20x
- Start date
-
- Tags
- shallow gold
Help Support Prospecting Australia:
It sounds like those gravels are a 'false bottom'. This post (and thread), may be of some assistance to you:
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/threads/interesting-quartz-i-found-digging.34129/post-553229
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/threads/interesting-quartz-i-found-digging.34129/post-553229
With all dew respect grub, the whole gully has a decomposed false bottom, I know there is nothing hard Rock down to 5m from testing
You asked, "what's deeper", mate. What's deeper is potentially multiple false bottoms and no certainty of where the lead actually runs in each layer. Eventually (more than 5m deep, apparently), there's the true bottom, but there's no way of predicting where the ancient lead runs on it. Good luck!
I thought the question was directed to Goldierocks. Mackka
Goldie (User 4386) unfortunately appears to have left the building?
That would be a real shame and a great loss to this forum as his knowledge was exemplary. Mackka
I agree a Mackka there goes a wealth of knowledge.....i hope not.
White clay is generally an earlier deposit, before the gravels, or layer above that has contained an iron occurance to turn it yellow colours upon oxodation. Theres nothing to say that geological movements havnt flipped something along the way, so its still worth testing. You may just hit a harder clay/silt/sandstone at the bottom however. But as far alluvial digging goes, generally, its move on/up time. If theres nothing in the clay that has nice potential, its not worth it. Stick woth the gravels with broken quartz
The ground type that all the gold ive got off the mullocks in this gully tells a story, the iron/quartz gravel layer has been ignored/thrown out around the collars.
Every nugget has come from either the larger broken quartz dumps or the yellow/white clay.
I've got nothing from one section of the gully where all the collars are white, it all says the yellow down deeper is the go..
Hi 20xwater
A true pipeclay bottom should be very evenly textured resulting from the breakdown of the equally very evenly textured slates which form the bedrock of the central Victorian goldfields.
Check the texture of those yellow/white clays you encountered and if they are sandy or gritty or seen to contain larger particles then it is unlikely you have hit true bottom.
There are fine examples of pipeclay bottoms further South in the Happy Valley area. The miners there tunnelled in through a deep white pipeclay to get at the hardened true bottom wash above their heads and poking around some of the old tunnels now you can still see occasional remnants of the conglomerate on the roofs of those tunnels. I have detected a few of those roof remnants but sadly with no luck, although small nuggets in conglomerate in the heaps outside. The pipeclay in that area is almost always a pure white not yellow, so may be worth having a look there and familiarizing yourself with the look and feel of a pipeclay bottom.
The leads around Ballarat were known for presenting many “false bottoms” so you need to be careful about giving up on a hole too early.
Another thing that might be enlightening is to take a clean uncontaminated sample of the clay you encounter and puddle it till it turns into a paste and keep thinning it down until it can be poured off as a liquid. A true pipeclay would probably leave little or no residue whereas later clays and even sludge from an old washing operation would probably leave some gravel or sand particles.
A true pipeclay bottom should be very evenly textured resulting from the breakdown of the equally very evenly textured slates which form the bedrock of the central Victorian goldfields.
Check the texture of those yellow/white clays you encountered and if they are sandy or gritty or seen to contain larger particles then it is unlikely you have hit true bottom.
There are fine examples of pipeclay bottoms further South in the Happy Valley area. The miners there tunnelled in through a deep white pipeclay to get at the hardened true bottom wash above their heads and poking around some of the old tunnels now you can still see occasional remnants of the conglomerate on the roofs of those tunnels. I have detected a few of those roof remnants but sadly with no luck, although small nuggets in conglomerate in the heaps outside. The pipeclay in that area is almost always a pure white not yellow, so may be worth having a look there and familiarizing yourself with the look and feel of a pipeclay bottom.
The leads around Ballarat were known for presenting many “false bottoms” so you need to be careful about giving up on a hole too early.
Another thing that might be enlightening is to take a clean uncontaminated sample of the clay you encounter and puddle it till it turns into a paste and keep thinning it down until it can be poured off as a liquid. A true pipeclay would probably leave little or no residue whereas later clays and even sludge from an old washing operation would probably leave some gravel or sand particles.
I hear ya mate, I've had to pull out of my first hole because I belled out a bit on the shallow iron gravels so I can't sure it up to go deeper.
So the lesson learned combined with what you have said is to go to the very deepest and work my way back up.
I've allready started a new hole..
Last edited:
Similar threads
