Reading maps.

Ive read some people study maps to find their next trip out to find their fortune, my question is what are they looking for? i can see old workings and mines to get a idea where everyone else has been, but to find untouched land or old river beds or new patches is inpossable or is it, or is it just luck or knowing what to look for when out in the bush, but how can you tell before you get there.?

this is a very good question JeffH i m glad you have asked it i think it is something a lot of us wonder about so hopefully it gets good responses from those who know cheers Terry

JeffH wrote:Ive read some people study maps to find their next trip out to find their furtune, my question is what are they looking for? i can see old workings and mines to get a idea where everyone else has been, but to find untouched land or old river beds or new patches is inpossable or is it, or is it just luck or knowing what to look for when out in the bush, but how can you tell before you get there.?

Gday

Topographical maps will only give you like the name suggests "topographical" features like the ones you mention, old mines and other things like roads and tracks, buildings, most of the maps available for us to use have limited detail, where as military maps if you can get your hands on them show far more detail.

Other maps available are Geological maps, that show as the name suggest "geological" features such as the types of rock and makeup of the area, using colour coding and the explanation index and symbols, you can see what type of material the gold was derived from, areas where there appears to be no activity but shows in the same colour as areas that you can see have been active could possibly suggest that the area has not been worked and there may be a possibility of gold still being there.

Even resources such as books like gold and ghosts will give more specific information such as history of the area, approx gold yields, and often mud maps and explanations of where the gold was found, having all this will give you a place to start when you are not familiar with an area.

Often both maps are used in conjunction, and are often used also in conjunction with other tools such as "google earth", the maps wont point you to the pot of gold but they do give you lots of other things to work with such as getting a feel for the lay of the area before you get there, when using google earth as well as you research you can see many things that dont appear on the map and you specifically look for areas that appear to have been worked or scraped and the direction that say a line of mines are taking, you can take notes of the coordinates and correlate the positions of these features on your map, to be investigated more closely when you are on the ground, these are all of the things that will give you clues as to roughly where to start your search.

As you become familiar with an area, and have studied the features that are there, such as mines and workings then you start to branch out from there into the open ground and surrounding areas, thats where you can possibly find spots that have been untouched, almost every area that has produced gold will have a small overlooked bit, but the only way to find these are to do the legwork, the maps and information will get you into the zone but the rest will have to be done on the ground.

cheers

stayyerAU

I use Metallogenic Maps which show all mining activity, even small single shaft mines.
The maps cross reference to books which give details on each feature on the maps via a number on the map feature, which give you all the info.....amount found, in what rocks etc etc.
I use these with other resources like Gold and Ghosts, plus a final eyeball before the detector comes out......its all part of the fun of the chase

Just had a look at a site with Geological maps, very interesting.

g,day. im not the most expierenced joker to be answering your question, just going on my opinion.. ive only taken this sensational hobby up in recent time , but ive done so much research on the field and still know f,,,,,,,@# all... it blows me away the wealth of infomation available with out the information being availabe...... i have survey maps here from my father-in-law that date back to 1877, and beyond.. after scouring sweet F>A of our gold fields(in comparison of whats there), ive decided that u look for gold where it has been found before(makes sense).. problem is,, its pretty much been hammered for for the last 130/150 years before u look.. %%%%%%%%%%,, pretty slim.. we look for obvious sighns of probabilities but your kidding your self... gullys,,,(flogged), hillsides(flogged),creeks/riverbeds(flogged).,mullock heaps(flogged)) and so on... if u want to find gold,,,,,,,,,,,keep looking... cheers...............and good luck, ull need it...............................................

bulldiggin wrote:g,day. im not the most expierenced joker to be answering your question, just going on my opinion.. ive only taken this sensational hobby up in recent time , but ive done so much research on the field and still know f,,,,,,,@# all... it blows me away the wealth of infomation available with out the information being availabe...... i have survey maps here from my father-in-law that date back to 1877, and beyond.. after scouring sweet F>A of our gold fields(in comparison of whats there), ive decided that u look for gold where it has been found before(makes sense).. problem is,, its pretty much been hammered for for the last 130/150 years before u look.. %%%%%%%%%%,, pretty slim.. we look for obvious sighns of probabilities but your kidding your self... gullys,,,(flogged), hillsides(flogged),creeks/riverbeds(flogged).,mullock heaps(flogged)) and so on... if u want to find gold,,,,,,,,,,,keep looking... cheers...............and good luck, ull need it...............................................

Gday

I can understand what you are saying about flogged areas, but good gold is still being found in a lot of these areas and will continue to be found, with each advancement of metal detectors that can better handle the ground conditions there are further finds that have been missed with previous models.

The key to finding gold on a regular basis is perserverence, you simply have to do the yards, and put the time in on the ground, if you are looking for something new its even more labour intensive, patch hunting in virgin ground is tedious and time consuming even for the experienced detectorist and there is never any guarantee that you will get on to anything, even with all the hard work.

Finding gold in flogged areas is possible, and always the best place for the new detectorist to start, when you are on "gold bearing ground you have already achieved phase one of your objective", when you dont have a lot of experience this is the place where you become familiar with what a gold bearing area can look like, you learn to recognise the signs of activity,rock types,terrain workings etc etc, very often in many areas you will see a similarity between all the hot spots that have been worked, so the objective then is to look for other spots within the area that have the same appearance.

Concentrate your efforts on a small likely looking area, take your time and work it methodically, go over it and remove rubbish signals, make sure you pay special attention to bits that appear undisturbed, areas under shrubs and deadfall, and around the bases of trees and between the roots, and in amoungst built up leaf litter, all these spots can and will hide nuggets, after thoroughly searching try using a bigger or smaller coil than what you started with, if you get a signal that you think may be gold, before you dig it in excitement try to take a few moments to tweek the settings on your detector first, to try and improve the signal, this will make it easier to find any more bits that are about.

Hope this makes sense

cheers

stayyerAU

stayyerAU wrote:

bulldiggin wrote:g,day. im not the most expierenced joker to be answering your question, just going on my opinion.. ive only taken this sensational hobby up in recent time , but ive done so much research on the field and still know f,,,,,,,@# all... it blows me away the wealth of infomation available with out the information being availabe...... i have survey maps here from my father-in-law that date back to 1877, and beyond.. after scouring sweet F>A of our gold fields(in comparison of whats there), ive decided that u look for gold where it has been found before(makes sense).. problem is,, its pretty much been hammered for for the last 130/150 years before u look.. %%%%%%%%%%,, pretty slim.. we look for obvious sighns of probabilities but your kidding your self... gullys,,,(flogged), hillsides(flogged),creeks/riverbeds(flogged).,mullock heaps(flogged)) and so on... if u want to find gold,,,,,,,,,,,keep looking... cheers...............and good luck, ull need it...............................................

Finding gold in flogged areas is possible

Indeed this is very true, i was lucky enough to witness a 35 gram bit being taken out near some surfacing over the weekend!

Rob...

Ive been reading some map as per the forum members recommendations, i didnt know that they existed, all i need to do is decifer the info.

JeffH wrote:Ive been reading some map as per the forum members recommendations, i didnt know that they existed, all i need to do is decifer the info.

Gday

If you are referring to the colour coding on Geo maps then you will have to have close look at the side information such as the "symbols" and "reference" and that information will tell you things like what the symbols on the map mean, and also what the rock types are in the area, if you can see on your map the symbols for mines (two crossed picks) have a close look at the colour and the symbols for that colour surrounding that symbol, if they say something like (Aih) for example then the rock would be Hemetite-magnatite-quartz banded iron-formation, when you look at maps that have several mined sites visible, often you can see the similarity in the type of rock that they have been working for gold, with this in mind you can then look for other areas on the map that show rocks types like that but dont seem to have been worked.

I am trying not to get too complicated, but as I said earlier almost in all the places I have been I have noticed that most of the hot spots will have a very similar appearance to eachother, sometimes either close to one another or klms apart, sometimes I have been to places that could be many klms apart but still on the same goldfield, and straight away you will recognise a particular familiar makeup of the ground, and most often you will see that they have been worked as well, but sometimes they have not so these are the places you are most likely to find something new.

cheers

stayyerAU