Tips on finding Eluvial Gold

I harped on in another forum about detecting so I thought I would share some tips with you guys....... for anyone who may be interested.

Im far from an expert and this is by no means a complete guide, but I thought perhaps some of these suggestions may help both new, and seasoned detectorists alike?

Anyway, its just my 2 cents!

Entree:

Buy the best machine you can afford and learn it inside out (ground bal etc), have a methodical plan (stick to it), pick out your area according to the indicators, and be thorough......try to resist wondering aimlessly through the bush.

Go low and go slow! Put your coil to the soil and dont worry to much about covering extra ground.

Dont be frightened off by areas you know have been searched before, especially if there have been previous finds.....they rarely get it all! Look for any evidence of Gridding/Chaining or other tell tale signs that someone has got gold in the area previously.

Love it when someone tells you, "there is no gold there"

Main Course:

(1) Look at low hills, rises and flats adjacent to gold producing areas such as old gold mines, old timers reef extractions etc,
Direct most effort to the hillsides, the costeans or dryblowing sites.
Gully's are usually heavily covered with soils from rains etc, and put most possible finds out of detector range. They have also usually been surfaced down to their bottoms by the old timers, especially near old diggings.

(2) Detect along laterite profiles (Red soil rich in iron oxidization) that have developed over the bedrock. Look for undisturbed hard clay areas along these slopes also.

(3) Look at the base, and sides of these hills where there is prolific ironstone and quartz rubble around.

(4) Search on hillsides where there are natural barriers for shed gold such as a quartz vein, a dike or other rock outcrops, boulders etc.
Also observe flats and depressions on these hillsides where gold cant defy gravity!
The old timers worked the reefs on top of the rises, and the gully's below them, but they generally hardly worked the slops in between.

(5) Follow the path down the hill from any gold finds, and also up the hill. Is the source of the Eluvial close by?

(6) Always read the vegetation....If there is a change of vegetation on the side of a hill, check to see if there is indicating ground, where material has been deposited in a depression or a flat.

(7) Detect for coarse gold on the banks, or edges, of old salt lakes at the bases of these slopes.(Do research on area's of high Salinity). Gold has an affinity with Salinity, as it does quartz and ironstone. This is due to the salt water fluids carrying dissolved gold. Once salinity dies, the dissolved solution starts to crystallize.

( Always use correct technique, be patient and move slowly.......concentrate on area's that have all the indicators using the above plan!

(9) Gold does not like to be lonely....learn to develop sound gridding/chaining methods around any finds as its most likely they have some brothers and sisters close nearby.

(10) Try to understand and interpret any gold you find, as well as the local geological environment your in! (know what to look for)
This will help you to determine what type of gold it is, whether it is alluvial, or eluvial, placer etc and will help you to prospect the area further if thats your wish.

(*) If your onto a patch, try not to leave any evidence of you being there once you leave, if you do, someone else may discover your hard fought work......always return even after you think you may have got it all.
A different coil or even machine, can do wonders on the next sweep over.

Research, research and research again.....use the modern tech available at your fingertips to increase the odds in your favour!

Good Luck

That be a pretty tooten good post Faultzone

Hi Faultzone and Someday,
Yes ,I totally agree with you Someday.
Faultzone thanks very much for your very imformative ,from start to finish ,ideas for finding this elusive gold stuff for all, especially newbies who need all the help they can get, so each and all, newbies, pros, young and old find and share our gold finds and stories.
Also to the many other members who contribute to help all others .
Kind regards
Graeme

G'day Faultzone,

Just came across your topic and I thought it was a great source of info, particularly for those of us who are still fairly new to the caper.

Detecting is a hobby/past-time with its own learning curve and I know enough to learn from others with more knowledge than myself.....so thanks for sharing yours.

Can't wait for the weather to improve a little so I can get out again to the GT.

Cheers, Trev

No worries lads, always glad to help.

Gold is very hard to find nowadays and does not give itself up easily.

Hours on the ground is what counts and having a basic knowledge of geology gives you a further edge. This goes for all forms of prospecting from swinging a coil to full on sluicing.

Remember that testing ground with a pan is critical to success, you all see it on shows such as 'Gold Rush' etc where they do pan tests on gold counts before taking new ground or moving their operations to a new cut on the claim.

The pan is the oldest, but still the best tool available to us. You dont have to be on a river to use one, just have a 20lt plastic water container handy at all times.

Learn to read the ground and surrounding vegetation....these can be your best visual clues. Once it looks good, do a pan test to confirm!

Good luck out there lads and if there is anything you want to ask about, dont hold back!

Regards

Wayne!

Thanks Faultzone,
Thats got to be one of the best straight forward,imfomative helpful post i've read in along time.
Cheers and good luck. Neil.

In relation to the above strategy, I believe that its a very pertinent time to give an insight into the differences of gold formation, particularly Primary and Secondary gold formations.

What does this mean? Why should i worry about this crap? I own a GPX5000....its certain to come my way right?....... Maybe, but then again, maybe not!

Its like fishing......if you want to catch a fish, you need to think like a fish! We have all heard this saying, yes?

The same for gold......if you want to know where to find gold, you need to develop a basic understanding in geology, and as to how the various types of gold are formed (think like gold).
This will undoubtedly help to better guide your search for the elusive precious metal, and hopefully increase the odds in your favor.

When it comes to gold, nothing is a guarantee.....all we can hope to do is increase the odds in our favor through extensive research, and knowing as much about its formation as possible to guide us.

Primary Gold

This stuff was formed many, many moons ago (tens to hundreds of million of years) especially in WA (2300 million years old). It formed from very hot, sulphurous water containing very small amounts of dissolved gold.
This dissolved gold was sourced from a very large volume of rock and was transported in solution eventually being deposited out (usually in quartz veins) over a very much smaller volume of rock several K's beneath the earths surface.
This resulted in significantly enriched gold grades in the form of veins, reefs, shoots etc.

These are what we call 'Primary deposits' and were only exposed at the earths surface after millions of years of uplift and erosion. (those old timers back in the 1800's were lucky buggers, yes?).
Once exposed at the surface, this primary gold was naturally eroded by mother nature and shed as nuggets down the slopes and into the drainage channels to become what we know as Alluvial gold.

Nuggets of this derivation are generally associated with quartz veins and/or other sulfide related minerals and usually rest in the form of specimens.....(primary gold hosted in rock).
Remember, Primary gold does not generally weather completely away from its host.

But how come we find countless small nuggets of pure gold with no host rock attached when detecting with our GPX5000's?
Good question.....and this is where the formation of Secondary Gold comes into play!

Secondary Gold

Secondary gold forms at, or near, the earths surface from gold which has been 'redissolved' from a nearby Primary Source!

The Primary gold has obviously been exposed 'up slope' and been deposited at, or above, the water table in saline groundwater. (Remember what i said earlier that gold loves salinity, it will only crystallize from solution when the salt level drops).
My point being, as the primary gold dissolves at 'near surface' salty groundwater and is carried down-slope under gravity, it is re-deposited at the ground surface water table (bedrock) particularly among valley floors and other drainage areas.
As the salinity of the groundwater drops during natural rain events, the solubility of dissolved gold drops dramatically........You still with me? Yes thats right, it starts to crystallize.

Tens of millions of rainfall events over the last few million years repeat this process over and over again, building up more and more 'layers' of gold to form larger nuggets! Make sense?

Secondary gold is very young in comparison and is still forming today after these rainfall events.

Secondary gold in the form of secondary gold nuggets, is one of the main interests of most prospectors, particularly those interested in metal detecting for the good old yellow stuff.

Hope this sheds as much light as it will secondary gold for you.

Regards

FZ

Thanks for your post has been most informative
Bill