Gold Indicators

I recently noticed a small eroded hill with a cap of ironstone boulders near a known gold area. At least I think it was ironstone due to the rust colors on the rocks. Is this a place that I should be checking with my detector? It's quite eroded all around these rocks which come to a high peak ..

Any info would be appreciated.

Dicko..

lately we have detecting in very hot ground / lots of iron stone and quats . any gold found has been in the quats layer but it has been covered in iron stone. very hard to clean . but what you are talking about sounds cool i would try it because most people look at areas like that and say no good but you might find a hand full . i have found that we all knew where gold was there would not be any left for us . hope find heaps goodluck buck06

Hi Dicko, There is so much ironstone in Australia because the continent is so old and eroded. Its everywhere and gold is associated with it often. Much gold is often coated in ironstone, but alot of the time this has happened after the gold has laid free in the soil for ages and then been cemented with ironstone as iron leaches into the lower soil profile forming a concrete like layer.

Not knowing the situation...I say detect through it and down to any low flat points below it. If there are areas of quartz reef or quartz pieces on slopes nearby i would target them especially. More gold associated with quartz then ironstone generally.

If the ironstone is in the form of pebbles and lumps on the surface or in the soil its often a sign of an old weathered land surface which are good at collecting gold eroded out over the millenia.

cheers Tributer

We have all been told that we should look for this or that, Trees, ironstone, changes in the colour of the ground, bends in creeks, sides of hill, etc etc. Some of us are good at it, others are not and we can all learn from each other. I have heard a host of things and endeavour to put it all together when I go out.

What do you look for?

Nice subject Jef. I am sure many will learn as the answers come in.
Ill cut to the quick and tell you what gets me excited on a goldfield
and that is blue or green tinged quartz.
When I come across that I have found gold is never far away.

Most of my finds have been in gullies.(I,m working on the hills)
Inside bends get me excited.Straight gullies are boring!
Also tree roots or bedrock that runs across the gully.
You never know what can get trapped downstream.

Michael

Nice Post Jeff,
To me this is the most neglected area of Gold Website Posting.There is a lot of info on machines and coils (which is great) but in saying that,What draws you to detect an area is equally important.We are all different so I hope this post draws numerous replies.
For me I love looking for evidence Oldtimers diggings on the ridges.If the slope drops away quickly I move on.But if the slope drops away gradually then it has my full attention.Long gradual slopes around at10 Degrees are my favourite.Also the reverse side of the ridge.Gold is gravity for my thinking.On steeper slopes it has moved towards the deep ground long ago,unless something has impeded its progress.After working the area I like which takes many visits ,I then work the adjacent and corresponding slopes that may or may not show evidence of human intervention.When I get bored I just work the contours where the slopes flatten out great exercise and full of possibilities
Cheers Dig

This is one of those types of posts that can get a person in trouble. (I know from experience)
You can tell a bloke how to run his machine but the unwritten rule is don't tell him where to find it or how to.
I struggle with this as I have been persecuted for giving up to many tricks of the trade.
If this is to be an honestly helpful topic without the greed factor, then I am happy to contribute.
Hell, I have even posted video in the past to help people. (JP is better)
If video footage every becomes easy to add to this forum then I will post some and I am sure others will do the same. There is nothing like someone on the ground giving advise and if we can get a bit of that on video posted here then I'm pretty sure it will be the fast track to teaching and learning.
Brett.

Morning all,
Try as I may there has been no positive identification of unusual rock formations in the West Australian NE goldfields. These formations give off a broad signal across the full diameter of approx 2metres. The machine goes into overload. The rocks are relatively light however not magnetic and the most unusual observation is these rocks are not visible on surrounding ground.
Have seen at least two of these formations that have been dug out down to a depth approx 1 1/2 metres by curious prospectors in daysgone by. The signal is still present.
We found the first of these North of Leonora and gold was found near by. Subsequent finds have always resulted in gold near by. Never enough to call it a patch. The attached photos show what we now commonly refer to as volcanos. This mound was found adjacent to kaoline type ground which gave us 18 clean bright nuggets for a total of nearly 2 onces. There is sometimes a pipe in centre of formation so we feel this may be the result of when the earth was cooling. Have talked to geologists and the like and no one can give a logical explanation. One even suggested they were the result of pebble mice?
Gypsy found one explanation regarding pipes however that is now lost in the MSN archives.
Anyway needless to say there is always an increase in the heart rate when ever we stumble onto a new one, knowing damn well we will be going home with gold.










Regards
Peter

Hi Peter,
strewth! that brings back memories!!!! I remember seeing heaps of these around Peak Hill, Mikhaburra, and even near Redcastle & Linden in days past. Yeah....they sound off and you cant help but wave the wand over 'em cause they look like scattered dryblowings. Most have very broad signals associated with them but now and then individual stones sound off. Only ever dug one until the noise faded....got to maybe 14".
Like you, I am at a loss to explain.....don't suppose we can get a geo interested in looking at 'em? Cheers, Dwt

After a pleasant PM.
As a show of respect to Jeff, ( forum owner )
I have amended my post above and deleted this post and re written it.
Lets get back to indicators.
My tip for today is: Hunt the western slopes and hit the virgin ground above the old workings and below the reef workings at the top.
Brett.

I look for Jp or Bob Buss and a few others wandering about...usually a good gold indicator

Howdy dwt,
Can't say I have seen "heaps" of them however they are certainly scattered through the areas you mention.
Did you also find gold near them?
One particular one I found near Siberia had been dug out to the depth I mentioned and had new growth in the hole. At first I thought it was the work of a mallee fowl then recognised the rocks. A swing with the coil confirmed it was a volcano. Not 5 metres away I found from memory a 5g nugget, deep. A further search uncovered nothing.
I gave several of the rocks to a member of a Rock Hound Group and they couldn't explain anything.
I sent the attached photos to Gypsy who in turn was going to give them to Dr Bob Fagan (APLA) because he was interested in this mystery.
To date the mystery still lays with ancient formation of the WA geology.
I suppose your advice would blend with mine, if you are roaming the WA Goldfields and come across formations like this it would be in any detectorists interest to stay a while and who knows what may turn up.

Cheers & beers
Peter

Gday Peter
How'd the birthday go? Out waving the wand I suppose?
I have seen many of these mounds while roaming the Murchison and not really taken any notice of them, having deemed them old mallee hen nests as you did. I still kind of think they may be, but they could be many thousands of years old. I'll have to have a closer look next time.
cheers
Brett

Hi Brett,
Can definitely rule out Mallee Fowl nests, dry blowing and Pebble Mice, the rocks that make up these formations are not found in surrounding ground.
No-one has come up with a logical explanation so tend to lean towards the "pipe" theory. You can see a faint indent in the centre of some of them and if you look closely at photo you can see the rocks have a clockwise swirl in the formation.
Not all formations can be clearly seen because they have been scattered over time, however recognition of the rocks alerts us to their presence.
Make sure you do a 360 around the next one you find, you maybe surprised what you find.

Cheers
Peter

Gday again Peter
I'll definitely be more curious about these formations next time I see one.
Nothing can surprise me anymore about where you find the yellow stuff, I've found it in some of the weirdest, most unlikely places over the decades.
What gets me going are those small creamy/brown coloured quartz stringers/leaders in ironstone/diorite/dolerite or granite country.
cheers Brett

I'm new to this forum, but not new to prospecting.
I have always relied on.......Where the ironstone meets the quartz and copper is in evidence, there is gold.
Believe it, I have, and I have gold.
Thanks.

Gday

There are of course text book conditions that would indicate gold bearing ground, but the longer you prospect you will discover that gold can be found in some areas that wouldnt rate a sideways glance, the type of place that you would drive through to get to another place.

I have found gold in all manner of rock types, some areas are known for the gold being in the quartz, sometimes in the ironstone, coffee rock, etc etc, although there are hard and fast geological laws in place for areas that the gold derives from there are certainly no hard and fast rules as to where the gold ends up millions of years later, you have to keep an open mind to this, and prospect accordingly.

Sometimes I feel that our experience can work against us and that the ground that has the "right look" can be just as devoid of gold than any other place, the only solution is to look at all ground types within a gold bearing
area, because the gold does not care what the ground looks like, it can be anywhere.

It is probably more important to read the terrain in these areas that to take much notice of the ground type or rock formations, try to imagine if the gold shed from a particular part of the formation where would you imagine it would eventually settle?, work from the edge of the formation and out, sometimes pieces and specimens will end up hundreds of meters away, sometimes they are right at the foot of the formation,so you need to cover all the bases.

cheers

stayyerAU

shaker wrote:I'm new to this forum, but not new to prospecting.
I have always relied on.......Where the ironstone meets the quartz and copper is in evidence, there is gold.
Believe it, I have, and I have gold.
Thanks.

G day shaker i was taught the same thing a long time ago so i hope you dont live near me
What stayyerAU says is right their are no hard and fast rules to were it ENDS UP though, an even better indicator would be to find stayyerAU in the bush and follow him, i've read a lot of his posts and he always gives honest and informative advice and i for one have learn't heaps from him.....
Brett

Gday Brett

Thanks for the kind words, I usually just tell it like I see it and from what I have experienced myself in the field over the years.

Not being a techo or a geologist I just try to explain it in terms that most people would understand, and basically as I see it, being self taught I had to learn from the time on the ground and by my mistakes, so I have many invested hours in the hobby, have trudged countless klms, and made many observations along the way.

I have found gold both at its source and where it has ended up, what many detecorists dont do is follow up their finds, what I am trying to say is that if you are finding nuggets then they have come from somewhere, sometimes the source is not obvious and has completely broken down, or deeply buried, or sometimes the source is reasonably obvious so its worth investigating as there are often greater prizes to be had if you take the time to look.

Sometimes the gold is still contained in the original formation, such as deposit of supergene gold, sometimes the gold will be in the original quartz or other type of host rock, and sometimes it will be coming from another source in which it was trapped millions of years ago after being released from its original source, this you might call a secondry deposit which is now weathering down and releasing the gold once again.

One time I heard of an old prospector saying that he hated detectorists because he said that when they find a patch they will clean it out and move on, by doing this they take away the only indicator to the possibility of a deposit being in the area, he knew like I do that there are instances where the deposit if still in place could be many many times richer that the pieces that were found in the patch itself, but by taking away the indicators the chance of finding the source has been lost.

Anyway the point is that a little time spent looking around could be well worth your while, very careful detecting about the area could produce the answer, broken specimen nuggets and coarse sharp gold are usually indicators of being in the zone, further to this some experience in loaming is an advantage too, there is a good little handbook available called "Loaming for Gold" by S J Cash available, it is now available as a reprint at the detector shop so dont get stung by paying too much for a original, in the old days the method was used to find hidden sources such as pipes and buried reefs and was one of the reasons that you see shafts dug in ground that does not appear to be any good, they didnt just decide to dig a hole any old place but through loaming they pinpointed what they believed to be the most likely position of the source.

cheers

stayyerAU

I just spent a large portion of Sunday detecting an old mine site that had (apparently) never had a detector over it. It certainly appeared as though no detector holes had been dug and the age of the trash I was getting from around the shafts indicated the same. I was very excited but I came away from the place empty handed. I noticed that there was no quartz at all surrounding any of the 34 shafts that I found. There's more shafts but I didn't find them. There was only the slate. There was some small quarts stones over the ridges but none of them near any apparent diggings. Looking at the quartz veins in the shafts it appeared that the quarts veins were no more than an inch thick but were repeated every foot or so.

I thought my best hope of finding some gold was from quartz ridden tailings around the shafts. But with none there. Where should I start looking after that? After 12.5ks I was beat for the day and decided that I wouldn't ever go back there. If the gold was all really fine stuff in thin layers of quartz, is it likely that there'd be nuggets on the slopes surrounding? There's shafts on the top of hills and shafts all the way down to near the creek bed. Now I don't know where to start. Should I persist or start looking for somewhere else to go? Any advise would be appreciated.

Dicko..

Gday Dicko

Some areas were not known for their alluvial gold and were worked for the fine gold in the host rock, some workings were on deep leads and the shafts were sunk to the level of the gravels and the gravel deposits were worked for the gold contained in them.

A scout about the area looking for signs of other types of workings, such as dryblowing, puddling, or knapping of the local rock formations could give you some more clues, dont worry the old timers would have given the area a thorough going over so you should find something.

I would suggest that you start to work the slopes and target flattish spots on the slopes and the areas around the creeks,pay particular attention to low spots where gold may have been trapped, then continue over the creek and out on to the flats and surrounding country, try to get a feel for the depth of the ground, as if you are using a small coil and the ground is deep you may not be able to reach any gold that is there so you may need to have a bit of a dig to get some idea of the depth, so you know what coil will do the job, also work with a small coil in the rocky or rubbly areas of the slopes as well that way if there are any small pieces there you may also pick up some of them., what you are after is that first indicator piece to confirm that the gold is there, then you have to work methodically to determine the direction of the run so that you can best recognise the area that needs the most attention.

The amount of activity in the area would indicate to me that they were definately on the something, further research through mines department records might further carry evidence of the type of deposits worked and if any alluvial was reported from the site, if the area appears untouched and ignored then this would indicate that others have most likely worked about the place and found nothing, but I would still put a little time in to the exercise.

I know of one area that was not known for any alluvial gold and there were no mine department records that indicated that any was found there, by chance an old couple who were travelling through the area stopped for a break and decided to have a walk about, as some of the country appeared prospective and there were workings and mines in the area, they of course decided to have a bit of a detect, on the side of a likely looking hill they found some small nuggets, from that time on the area was visited by a few lucky individuals that did very well for themselves with many multi ounce nuggets and 35 ounce piece and a 40 ounce patch that I know of, many of the nuggets found were on the down slopes of the dozen or so mines dotted about the area, the gold bearing area only covered about 20 sq klms at best.

As I said before it was one of the areas that was driven through to get to somewhere else so it was basically just overlooked and neglected, the area you are talking of could very well be the same.

good luck

cheers

stayyerAU

Thanks,

I might give that place one more day after all and work some slopes.

I'll let you know If I get lucky.


Dicko..