Dig under nuggets?

Howdy!

I came across one of those infuriating finds recently - a 4 gram nugget popped up for me on a plot of virgin ground. Since then I was back there for three days in total, and got nothing else.
During the last trip I got a bit desperate and filled a few bags with soil. The soil came from the nugget hole, just a bit deeper and wider. In total I brought back ~ 50 pounds of mud and rocks (20 kg).

The nugget was shallow, but in deep ground, so I have not reached the bottom yet. There are some old-timer holes below me, downhill. They are maybe 3-4 foot deep.
Now, it is a real pain to grade and pan material in confines of a small Melbourne apartment. I panned about 1 kilo from the deepest sample so far (1-1.5 feet). Found no color.

My enthusiasm for panning is quickly waning. Question is, should I keep going until i hit the bedrock and pan the bottom layer? Or am I wasting time? Do any of you bother to take soil samples from your patches to see if there is fine gold at the bottom?

THanks for any tips or views!

Rtanweb wrote:Howdy!

I came across one of those infuriating finds recently - a 4 gram nugget popped up for me on a plot of virgin ground. Since then I was back there for three days in total, and got nothing else.
During the last trip I got a bit desperate and filled a few bags with soil. The soil came from the nugget hole, just a bit deeper and wider. In total I brought back ~ 50 pounds of mud and rocks (20 kg).

The nugget was shallow, but in deep ground, so I have not reached the bottom yet. There are some old-timer holes below me, downhill. They are maybe 3-4 foot deep.
Now, it is a real pain to grade and pan material in confines of a small Melbourne apartment. I panned about 1 kilo from the deepest sample so far (1-1.5 feet). Found no color.

My enthusiasm for panning is quickly waning. Question is, should I keep going until i hit the bedrock and pan the bottom layer? Or am I wasting time? Do any of you bother to take soil samples from your patches to see if there is fine gold at the bottom?

THanks for any tips or views!

You should do this panning in the field and ONLY then bring back the CONCENTRATE MINERALS back home as per Miners right It is illegal to remove soil from crown land so im assuming that this was on private land and the land owner gave you permission to do what you did!!

The nugget could have been dropped there by an animal? or is just a floater? many many holes were dug in the old days and a lot of them were duffers!

.

Have a good look at the lay of the land to see if your lucky nugget could have been moved by water from higher ground,"Higher" may only mean 10 meters/100/1000???
Murachu is spot on with the animal scenario, Over in WA, Ravensthorpe gold district was discovered, when a farmer cleaned a couple of chooks for dinner, there stomach content was full of gold! So no doubt there are other critters that say hay, that looks tasty! A big enough piece would block them up and they die, 10 billion flies and a week later, you have a mysterious gold nugget? Food for thought Ha Ha.
Cheers~Chris.

G'day rtanweb

Not sure exactly the location you found the nugget in but over here in WA there are
a good few blokes who have found nuggets inside of emu poop, it seems that they,
like bowerbirds are attractad to glittery things and they also pick up pebbles to help
grind their food in their crops like Cassowary's do also...

There is also the fact that tribemen could have carried it around for many a mile as a
trading object and lost it on their many walkabouts....

Just a thought




Pete in WA

G'day Rtanweb.

Here in Vic the old timers would bottom there holes down to the wash layer (usually clay pan).Considering there were 3 to 4 foot holes further down the slope,by examining the toss out or mullok around the holes should give you a reasonably clear idea of what the wash layer consisted of and at what depth they bottomed up on.Also considering that your nugget was a one off slug,found a couple of inches from the surface,further up the slope,if it were water warn (smooth & rounded) that tells me that it was either dropped by someone or animal or its traveled down from somewhere higher up the slope.If the nugget were coarse and jaggered,it most likely shed from a reef near by.Difficult to form a pattern when slugs of gold found are a one off occurrence in a localized area.I never bother taking soil samples from patches where i find detectable gold on to see if there's finer gold there,but one things for certain,if you don't bottom your hole to clay or bedrock,you've got little chance of finding gold of any size.

Cheers kon61.

Thanks guys, good to get some educated opinions.

Must agree with Kon61, the answer is at the bottom of the hole. Just got to bring myself up to digging it.