Shallow ground observation

[20x]

Walking around surfaced areas, the 'edges' are what I only show interest in.
The main area of the surfaced workings is allways red iron clay, I think that's actually the bedrock that if I recompose and un-oxidies it's as deep as the gold from the old reef gravels the layed out to sink.
Iron Stone from what I've experienced has the slowest decomposition rate of all the ground types in the field.
In time lapse I think of the reefs decomposing and laying out over the 'then' solidified ironstone bedrock. Over time that bedrock oxidised/and decomposed below the gravels, in places it's in situ and its foliation still evident, but in many it's moved with time and gravity keeping the reef gravels above it.
I've observed soooooo much higher and surrounding ground that looks natural today but I think before the rush was covered in good gravels.
There are still patches of these gravels that can only be found by mapping areas by sinking your pick everywhere feeling for 'the crunch'.
No crunch, no swing,
Find the crunch then swing...

You find an area of crunch..
Let's say you have 3-4 inches of 5hit over it,
That's 3-4 inches to the highest zone of the 'crunch' you need to know of what the detector and coil your using can hear the minimum size nugget depth ratio is and how to maximise its performance to hear the un-hearable.
Based on the top of the gravels, the ratio is harder the deeper for smaller bits, which is what to expect because if the patch of crunch was rich it wouldn't be there..

 

[20x]

Without even sinking your pick there are things to notice that tell you it's there, something I don't share, but for you to figure out.
And when you figure that out you will see pick mapping on every scale..

 

[grubstake]

Walking around surfaced areas, the 'edges' are what I only show interest in.
The main area of the surfaced workings is allways red iron clay, I think that's actually the bedrock that if I recompose and un-oxidies it's as deep as the gold from the old reef gravels the layed out to sink.

I used to think that too. Back in 1983, it took a mate finding three nuggets at a little patch my wife and I had found in Alma, to show me how wrong I was. We couldn't believe we'd missed them, especially since he was using a sad old Whites coin detector and we had state of the art Garrett Groundhogs! Turned out he was searching right on what he called the 'claypan', whereas we were like you - only searching the unsurfaced areas.

Nothing educates a prospector faster than finding out he's been overlooking obvious ground, so we started looking harder at the actual surfaced areas in the GT, which eventually lead to this find, 10 inches down in red clay, where the oldtimers had already taken about a foot off the top:

 

[20x]

When I share knowledge I'm thinking about the age view rate on my channel, there is a dangerous age bracket for views but young people are LAZY and impatient, so overall I don't expect much change in thier recovery.

 

[20x]

I used to think that too. Back in 1983, it took a mate finding three nuggets at a little patch my wife and I had found in Alma, to show me how wrong I was. We couldn't believe we'd missed them, especially since he was using a sad old Whites coin detector and we had state of the art Garrett Groundhogs! Turned out he was searching right on what he called the 'claypan', whereas we were like you - only searching the unsurfaced areas.

Nothing educates a prospector faster than finding out he's been overlooking obvious ground, so we started looking harder at the actual surfaced areas in the GT, which eventually lead to this find, 10 inches down in red clay, where the oldtimers had already taken about a foot off the top:
View attachment 10943

Awesome anomaly mate, it's now 40 years later