Gold Nuggets in Rock

No, I am not talking about gold specimens in quartz or water-melon shaped nuggets in conglomerate. I’m talking about smooth-edged nuggets embedded within rock.  


Nugget in rock.

When I first found this nugget a few days ago it was a very pleasant surprise.   I can’t recall ever having found gold quite like this before, or at least as far as I can remember. I can’t be too sure though, as I have been doing this for far too long and my memory sometimes becomes a bit hazy over time. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if gold like this is quite common around some areas, as the country was laterite and the ground gravelly. There was not much in the way of quartz in the direct area. Probably the rock was formed by dissolved minerals leaching down from the surface, precipitating around the nugget at some point in time. Just a guess.  


Ground type where nugget was found.

Now what was really surprising was the iffy signal of the relatively large nugget in relatively shallow ground. When I first passed over it I was tempted to ignore it and keep walking, but just at that moment I had this flashback of the Missus picking up a 3-ouncer in similar ground not far from the spot (not exactly close either). Dammit, I’ll give it a crack. I had to; there was the remote possibility of it being a decent sized nugget and I didn’t want to leave it behind for someone else.  

My pick was truly blunt, as I hadn’t sharpened it from the previous season, the third and last pick from the previous year. I was saving my new ones for when this sucker finally wore out. So I pounded the blunt end into the ground the best I could and eventually made it down to five or so inches. Even with this much dirt and rock out of the way the signal hadn’t improved much. I managed another two inches before the ground hardened significantly. The blunt pick was having real trouble penetrating further, making the job much harder than it should be at an excruciating slow rate of progress. I gave up and made a mental reminder to come back with something a bit sharper if I had the time.

Three days later I did return and boy, was I glad I did.     Not only had I sharpened the pick, I had a digger with me (Missus). Another two more inches off the top and the sound definitely had a crispy metallic tone to it. A few more energetic, adrenalin-induced hits and the target was dislodged and finally removed from the hole.


Digger and prospector candidate Brenda widening the hole.

But this is the funny part. When the digger (who works on commission) realised the target was only a rock, she yelled in disgust “hotrock” and gave me the most crestfallen look. No doubt about it that she was disappointed.  After taking the hotrock from her, I realised that this was no ordinary rock – it was way too heavy for its size.

“This” I explained, “is not a hotrock”.


The "Hotrock" before being cracked open.

Clearly, she wasn’t convinced and suggested with some urgency to crack it open.

And so I did, and a nugget weighing about an ounce was exposed, the bottom half still securely fixed into the rock.  Now, you may all be thinking why hadn’t all the other detectors before me pick up the nugget, especially a one ouncer that was no deeper than a foot. Good question. Maybe they had heard something but ignored the iffy signal like I almost did. Maybe the answer lies elsewhere. Anyone who has spent time working laterites will know that it can sometimes be difficult to achieve good depth in such ground, thus larger nuggets can pass unnoticed. Or maybe I just got lucky.

Lucky in the fact that you didn't give up on it, believing it were nothing more than a hotrock.
Great write up, great story. Well deserved slug of gold. Well done to both of you.

Kon

Great story P-A ,nothing worse than a blunt pick that just bounces off the ground; combined with a iffy signal is one hell of a nightmare scenario.
Well done for the perseverance ,great bit of colour


cheers moredeep

Thanks guys. The start of the season was a bit slow and this sucker helped bump up averages. Just like most prospectors, I just can't shake off old myths. The saying "slow start, good finish" has never worked for me, whereas "good start, good finish" has. This crazy saying is always at the back of my mind at the start of every season.