Indicators and Quartz reefs

Hi folks, good thread!, love the pictures! literally worth thousands of words!!! g,day Nero great to hear peoples opinions on geology and its value to us as prospectors,....Ark, Brother!! FFS! your killing me here! what has bendigo and corrugated iron have in common? .

Wayne.

Ok ok! The indicator in Bendigo was found in some places stacked on top,of each other ,with sometimes many many meters of barren dirt between them . They were waves of soil very like corrigated iron! And so when the miners punched through all the barren ground they always knew when they hit this corrigated iron level the gold was very close .

So then! I'm envisaging layers of golden gravel wash so to speak, sitting on a clay base that forms the waves????

Well, comeón Ark, out with it man! You started this mind bender

Cheers
Chris.

No the indicators are in waves the gravel wash will be in gutters but the gold will be sometimes more on one side than the other or if the faulting is in the right direction you will have gold on say the anti cline but not on the other side .Or indeed these waves led to rich reefs in Bendigo .

George Lancels was called the Gold King of Bendigo , research him ,great reading

Ta!

Wayne.

GEORGE LANSELL 1823-1906 . A pioneer of Diamond drilling and deep shafts , made and lost fortunes in the early days of Bendigo until the idea of sinking deeper shafts in already Gold producing mines , his 180 mine went down as deep as 3750 ft , more than often finding deeper rich reefs . Known as Australia's Quartz King , at time of his retirement he was director of 38 gold producing mines and made him a Millionaire and he retired to a lavish lifestyle and was respected and known world wide . cheers Mick

The corrugated iron of Bendigo are saddle reefs, The gold was usually found in the legs rather than the heads or bottoms. The reefs dip up and down like corrugated iron.

1852 wrote:The corrugated iron of Bendigo are saddle reefs, The gold was usually found in the legs rather than the heads or bottoms. The reefs dip up and down like corrugated iron.

you know your stuff mate..

look forward to reading more post's from you....
cheers

Well then, that explains the mystery a bit better! Thanks 1852

Pretty weird why the gold was always found to be more abundant in the verticalísh legs? very selective folding going on there!!

Read this years ago. Written by Mark Twain about his travels through the Victorian goldfields

A citizen told me a curious thing about those mines. With all my experience of mining I had never heard of anything of the sort before. The main gold reef runs about north and south - of course for that is the custom of a rich gold reef. At Ballarat its course is between walls of slate. Now the citizen told me that throughout a stretch of twelve miles along the reef, the reef is crossed at intervals by a straight black streak of a carbonaceous nature - a streak in the slate; a streak no thicker than a pencil - and that wherever it crosses the reef you will certainly find gold at the junction. It is called the Indicator. Thirty feet on each side of the Indicator (and down in the slate, of course) is a still finer streak - a streak as fine as a pencil mark; and indeed, that is its name Pencil Mark. Whenever you find the Pencil Mark you know that thirty feet from it is the Indicator; you measure the distance, excavate, find the Indicator, trace it straight to the reef, and sink your shaft; your fortune is made, for certain. If that is true, it is curious. And it is curious anyway.

I found this stuff in the Ballarat area, its had some alteration by the look of it, it mainly consist of crumbly iron oxide (could have been pyrite at one stage) decomposed slate and some quartz, it was found in pockets and thick veins in a quartz reef, I didn't like the look of this stuff but decided to put some through the hammer mill, after washing the powder their were balls of gold like no 4 lead shot, the hammer mill tends to ball the gold, I tested the quartz in the main reef as well and their was only micro gold.


An indicator I have found is thin veins of black of dark green slate with galena and pyrite, this stuff was undeground below the oxidation zone, some gold was on the slate and on the galena and pyrite.

By the way that hand specimin is the decomposed material not the galena/pyrite
cheers Tezz

Clay Base wrote:
Grab a note book and pen before you watch this gentleman's youtube postings.

Such a wealth of information and a willingness to share. I take my hat off to this gentleman.



Enjoy

Cb.

Hi all, first post for me.

I notice in some of his videos he is using a jackhammer??? I thought you couldn't use mechanical tools in Australia for prospecting.... Or is he more than just a prospector? I am guessing he may have a lease or some kind of claim for the area he is working.... Just trying to learn more ...

Good question Clay Base,I believe he is digging in WA, I imagine he has some type of mining lease different to a detector prospector, perhaps some of the WA boys would know the answer to that?, I would urge you to watch all his vids as I believe he is a very knowledgeable man and probably equally important as you say, willing to share his knowledge.

Wayne.

1852 wrote:
The way the nuggets are formed as a result of indicators usually means that you may find a big nugget and nothing else. The Hand of Faith found years ago is a classic example of this. One monster nugget, and nothing else, the same as the "Welcome Stranger" found at Moliagul. Ironbark trees, vegetation, rusty quartz veins all give a general idea of possible gold bearing ground, but are not "true indicators" as described by the Old Timers.
Hope this clears things up a bit.

Hey 1852,

Would the presence of ironbark trees be a possible indication that the ground has a higher iron content?

thanks
jc

If I may answer to what I've seen here in  Vic.  Ironbark is one of many indicators in a general area and I think it denotes ascidic ground which is usually a mineralised ground which could be arifirious !

Thanks Ark, more questions will follow, but i'll upload photos to help explain. Just have to get around to getting back out to the places I have questions about to get the photos :p
Thanks again

Not sure if this will be helpful for anyone, but this is a pic of worked quartz reef from my property in central vic. Can't see much other than busted up quartz. It runs north to south.

Yeah it certainly looks like a costain ! Can I ask you to just pan out a little ! Not so much as to identify the area but just to give a better picture as to why the old timers did what they did

Ark wrote:Yeah it certainly looks like a costain ! Can I ask you to just pan out a little ! Not so much as to identify the area but just to give a better picture as to why the old timers did what they did

You replying to me mate?

I can't zoom out any more but here is a higher resolution version of the same picture, which you should be able to zoom in on

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/8chc5.jpg

By the way whats a costain?

Interesting photo pity you could not have had a wide angle view of the spot. Yes the spot marked one in the photo dose certainly look like a costain or it could be a water race cant tell not enough view. Spot two shows me they stacked what they dug from the hole there. Now I ask myself why would they do that, the answer is simple they may have tested the dirt there been no gold in it so that is where it ended up. Did you dig a bit in the bottom of the trench to see if the old guys bottomed out? If no gold was in the dirt they may have been looking for the clay bottom to see what was on it. Just my thoughts cheers mate.

onthehunt wrote:

Ark wrote:Yeah it certainly looks like a costain ! Can I ask you to just pan out a little ! Not so much as to identify the area but just to give a better picture as to why the old timers did what they did

You replying to me mate?

I can't zoom out any more but here is a higher resolution version of the same picture, which you should be able to zoom in on

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/8chc5.jpg

Yes I was ! I have been asked by admin not to use quote if I'm the next post as it saves repidtion and space!

Thanks for the reply

I should be up there this weekend so I will get some better pictures of it. I haven't done anything other than detect it so far, and I got a good signal on one of the bits of quartz which I haven't broken up yet (https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t13516-dolly-pot-for-breaking-up-quartz)

onthehunt wrote:By the way whats a costain?

A costain is a shallow trench cut across,usually, a shedding reef !

It looks like a waterace, if it doesan't go far it might be a small costean where they followed a leader of quartz or an indicator

I'll dig it out a few inches further on the weekend and see what I find. In fact im going to bring the dirt back with me and run it through my highbanker or pan it.

The trench is about 7-8 meters long and about 1 foot wide. It doesn't seem to be a water course.

Pan it would be my advice ..... soak it first for a hour or so then pan it out. cheers

onthehunt wrote:I'll dig it out a few inches further on the weekend and see what I find. In fact im going to bring the dirt back with me and run it through my highbanker or pan it.

The trench is about 7-8 meters long and about 1 foot wide. It doesn't seem to be a water course.

Hey onthehunt,

Does the costean run far. can you pick it up anywhere else nearby? BTW spelling is "costean"

If it is an old water race of any note you might find it marked on an old Topographic map

A Costean would be expected to follow a straight line where a water race will weave all over to follow the ground contours.

Mogo

Im quite sure its not a water race and it looks very much like diggings and its dead straight, its higher than the ground around it. Ill get some more pics when im there.

EDIT: Make that next weekend, its too hot this weekend, 35 up there.