Stuart Brough New Member Posts:29 
| 05 Sep 2019 01:53 PM |
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For fun, and to do a bit of testing/fine-tuning, I ran some material on a relative’s ranch in southern Utah. It was fairly compact cobble, and I ran about 10 buckets, of which there was probably 2 buckets of dirt.
I wasn’t anticipating anything other than maybe iron and lead to help me gauge if I things were working. Instead, I was surprised by two iddy-biddy pieces of flour gold.
I researched as much as I could, and I can’t find any indication that there is known/prospected gold in the area, other than an old family legend of my g-g-grandfather finding a seam that was covered in a landslide by the time he got back out to it. I personally put the likelihood of the legend being true at zero.
All of that being said, as a cheechako through and through, I’m hoping to get the opinions of some of the experienced miners. If you were to find something like this in an area with no history of gold, would you poke around further, or just assume that’s probably about the best that could be expected (i.e. [I]maybe[/I] 2-8 pieces of flour gold per cubic yard)?
I’d like to avoid wasting time prospecting a lost cause, when there are so many other adventures out there waiting.
Link to a picture of iddy biddy gold: https://imgur.com/a/TqQB5r6
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Christopher Satkowski Highbanker Posts:112
| 09 Sep 2019 02:13 PM |
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If you're not quitting your job, or losing a spouse, I think it would be neat to do some sampling. Perhaps not 10 buckets per area. but perhaps a pan at a time. Point there is to trace the pay streak back. Flour gold can be carried miles downstream, but if you start finding coarser stuff, you're getting close.
These samles do not need to be in different areas, but perhaps deeper where you found the gold. Gold likes to hang out on bedrock, but may also concentrate on different layers. Probelm here is its easy to dig a foot or two down, but deeper is more challenging. Not sure of the geology of your area, but around here bedrock can be on the surface in the mountains or burried thousands of feet in the valley.
If the area you found it has water, it would be fun to spend a few hours doing test pans. 10 buckets of dirt is a quarter or third of a ton, so the place you dug at is probably .01 grams per ton, but you could hunt it down to a paystreak.
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Stuart BroughNew Member Posts:29
| 09 Sep 2019 03:16 PM |
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Thank you Christopher.
I don’t think I’ll make it that far up North again this year (it’s about a 5 hour drive from where I live), but I’ll do a bit more poking about next time I’m there.
There is a quasi-bedrock in the form of sandstone in some places in the area, but it seems to be spotty at best.
I’m moderately limited in just how far I can try to trace it upstream though. The land is surrounded by a National Monument. I’d have to break out a topo map to verify, but I’m guessing I’ve got about 1 1/2 miles of creek in total that I can work with.
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Christopher SatkowskiHighbanker Posts:112
| 09 Sep 2019 06:13 PM |
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I recommed doing your research here:
www.mylandmatters.org
You can turn on a lot of layers including which agency manages the land, turn on wilderness areas, national monuments, mines, and active claims in the areas. I only bring this up because I used to go to the USGS and download maps and those did not have the land status you were looking for. With meta data and frequent additons of national monuments, its easier to look it up digitially. You may even be able to get some of the geological maps off it.
Another source for mines is minedat.org. Its got a lot of historical data. Mine locations can be quite a bit off, like miles, but at least the minerals will be in the area.
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