21.66 gram nugget makes it's debut.

Hi everyone.

This story starts on August 6th.

I had picked up the 28.8 gram nugget the week before and been detecting all day without any luck. I went back to an area where there was an ironstone ridge and I had picked up 2 small nuggets inside little ironstone rocks in previous weeks. I was detecting around the edges of the rocks when I ran the 7000 over the top of one of the large boulders and got a good signal. This signal was almost identical to the 28.8 gram nugget so I was now very interested.

I started digging following the edges of the boulder until I was now digging underneath the boulder. I removed enough dirt and put the coil in the bottom of the hole but got no response. Back on top and the signal was still good. I had to get home so I filled in the hole and hoped no-one would find it. The thoughts raced through my head. I couldn’t make it the next Tuesday but on Thursday I arrived with my cold chisel and mash hammer in tow.

First up I took the SD2000 and 14” Elite mono coil and ran the coil over the rock before moving any dirt. If there was a signal I couldn’t determine it no matter how many times I went over the area. I tried again with the 7000 and a definite signal. So, the rest of the day was spent hitting that rock with the hammer and chisel and boy, it was hard as rock. I originally thought it might have been conglomerate, but it was pure unadulterated harder than rock, rock. After 6 hours I was exhausted and a little closer to the signal so I covered it all up again and went home.

I returned yesterday and the first thing I did was get the 5000 and attach the 14” Elite mono coil. I walked to the boulder and thankfully it was still covered so I waved the 5000 over it and the signal was definite and much more pronounced than the 7000. So, back to rock breaking.

3 hours later and I managed to get a rather large piece to break away and there was something poking out of the rock. It didn’t look like gold but the shape and colour seemed different. I wiped it then had to get the water to wash it and that was when it definitely showed through as gold. Now it was just a matter of how big and how much more work would be required to extract it. A couple of hits with the chisel and miraculously it just fell to the ground.

I was surprised at how easily the rock fell away from the nugget. A quick clean up and some photos and it was into the little bottle, not for me, just the nugget. So much effort required to extract, but it was a nice piece of 21.66 grams in the end.


Here's the 27 minute video if you want to watch the 3 day ordeal unfold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWUKJQDmFP4

A lot of hard work but good reward.

Regards Axtyr.

Ax,

To say that was well deserved would be a massive understatement.

Nice piece Axtyr , well worth the effort , congrats .. cheers Mick

Well that was an interesting story.
You left the nugget twice and come third time to get it.

Very impressive.

I think could be few more there so tune the ears and go slow.


Good luck that's a beautiful nugget.


Well done.


GoldEN

Nice one Axtyr. Passions and determination has paid of mate Well done.
wombat

G'day Axtyr

Nice going, and persistence payed off that's for sure, hope you get some more from that rock/reef area.

cheers dave

As mentioned , determination +

Great result & well deserved

Thanks for the story of the nugget. Congrats.

Do you think there is more there (even if smaller)?

 good yarn, raises the fever and makes my ground balance finger twitch, ...............   come on you good thing!!!!!!

Wayne

Well done, well worth the effort

Congratulations on your persistence......... I'm happy you got a reward after all the effort.........& a great write up too.
Rob.

Good work ... nice little slug mate4

Great story, and the persistance paid off.
Do you have an image of the type of rock it was in.
DEANO

Deano.

The rock is typical of all of the large brown rocks throughout the GT. This is the rock to the right of where the signal was and it is very flat.


This is the nugget inside the rock just before I extracted it. There was a bit of quartz strewn inside the rock as well, and where the nugget was it had a sort of bluish rock around it almost like arc welding slag if you know what I mean. The area about half an inch around the nugget seemed to be more like a cavity filled with dirt rather than full rock. The rock itself reminded me of granite except for the colour.


Regards Axtyr.

Thanks axtyr.
That is so interesting, and unusual. Im sure I would generaly detect around larger rock masses looking like that, not considering gold at all being associated in that rock type. Awsome pickup.
Cheers for the reply.
Deano