Advice needed on a ground mineralisation issue

Hi, I'm so new at this and live in an area where there is no support so I'm teaching myself. I've searched the forum but can't find an answer to my specific problem....here goes. I have a GPX 5000 and am presently detecting on private property which was the site of a fine reef gold mine early last century. Terrain is steep, rocky and heavily vegetated. I was using a monocoil with factory settings two days ago and detected a target signal. When I tried to pinpoint, it seemed to move and after several attempts I assumed that it was a large hot rock underground. I went back yesterday with my double D coil on and used the "fixed" position because I'd read that when pinpointing, "tracking" can ground balance from the target whereas "fixed" stays ground balanced from benign. The detector was much more sensitive with the double D and I found quite a big area was responding. It screamed at me in fact. I get the feeling that's a sign of mineralised rock rather than gold. I kept ground balancing (though I'm still a little confused at the correct way of doing this, despite watching JP at work on his DVD). I would really appreciate your thoughts as to how I tackle this situation. Serious ones please!

If you are unsure of what the target sound is, just dig to the centre of the sound until you either reach the target or in the case of mineralised ground noise it dissappears...

Hi goldsal
If you were useing a smooth timing such as Fine gold or Enhance with a mono coil and getting a strong signal there is a chance it is a metalic target !
Sensitive Smooth has the best rejection of ground noises and hot rocks.
Make sure the timing switch is in "special" to select Fine Gold or Sens Smooth or Salt Gold etc
Jonathan porter and Bruce Candy dont recomend useing a DD coil with any of the smooth timings ( Fine , Enhance or Smooth )
If it is quiet in the Salt Gold timing it may be a salty conductive type response.
In the end , as Ismael said , when in doubt , dig it out !
Good luck !
DB

dryblower wrote:Hi goldsal
If you were useing a smooth timing such as Fine gold or Enhance with a mono coil and getting a strong signal there is a chance it is a metalic target !
Sensitive Smooth has the best rejection of ground noises and hot rocks.
Make sure the timing switch is in "special" to select Fine Gold or Sens Smooth or Salt Gold etc
Jonathan porter and Bruce Candy dont recomend useing a DD coil with any of the smooth timings ( Fine , Enhance or Smooth )
If it is quiet in the Salt Gold timing it may be a salty conductive type response.
In the end , as Ismael said , when in doubt , dig it out !
Good luck !
DB

Thanks for the responses - that's really helpful - I know it seems simplistic, but when you're just learning, the bleeding obvious can be the last thing to grasp. I will switch back to the mono coil and try again.

As someone said on another post in here,
there are no dumb questions.

Glad you are switching back to a mono and going over the ground again.
It will be interesting to see what you turn up.
Fingers crossed...

hey mate PM me the GPS mark for it and i can check for you if you like

as you dig down to the target and are still getting a signal GB on the dirt you have dug out, if the signal goes away prob is ground noise.

Also if you wave your coil over the hole at the same height as when you first picked it up (ie dont stick coil in hole) is the signal the same? if yes keep digging if not prob ground noise signal is getting less as you dig out and remove the conductive ground.

If it is a big signal that you canot pin point you can turn your gain right down untill you are only just picking up the target then try and pinpoint should be easier then.

they recon you should try and run in fixed GB and re-ballance often to avoid the chance of a target being "tracked" out by your machine

man i have dug some massive holes chasing ground noise but you just never know

good luck!!

Don't ground balance over a target, that just confuses the detector and you!

if you have dug a bit of dirt out, swing the coil over the dirt you have dug out. if you get a signal of the dirt pile and in the hole you have dug, then ground balance on the dirt pile and put the coil into the hole. if there's still a signal keep digging.
cheers
stoppsy

Now there's a tip if ever I heard one. Just make sure your pile of dirt is a couple of feet away from the hole!

whoops i for got to say that thanks someday.
cheers
stoppsy

Hi
It doesnt come up much and I might be stating the obvious but there is method in your initial response to a target.
1 If you are in tracking regroundbalance off the target and run coil back over (there should be a slight improvement in signal)
2 Now using the inside soul of your boot really scuff up the surface. (This changes the surface mineralisalion and will give further improvement of signal)
You should always be scuffing with your boot when you hear signals
3 Now take off 50 to 100mm and round off the edges of your hole (It should be shaped like a 500mm saucer ,deeper in the middle gradually rising up at the sides)Use the side of your pick to round the edges off.Sharp edges make mono coils noisier.Now swing your coil over the target.
Dont go straight for the kill and dig a deep hole you can only dip your coil in.By doing this fair enough youve broke the suface mineralisation but you havent improved your position much. If still in doubt take off more and round edges again.
With practise scuffing and first exploratory digs can be achieved very quickly.Anyway there should be no hurry in this to me the joy of gold is knowing your on it and gradually getting to it .Its better to dig one hole right than miss gold by doing ten wrong.You can tell by the holes who knows what hes doing and who doesnt.For those new to the game use this method and your skill has increased tenfold.
Cheers Dig scuffed ,100mm off with round edges.

I'm getting really good feedback from this question - thanks everyone for the tips....I've learned a lot and by the way, my target turned out to be a whole lot of discarded fencing! I don't mind though - I reckon I'm learning each time I hit any sort of target. One day it will be a good one!

hey goldsal, that's it mate you'll get hold of what to do with each target you find and dig. it all comes down to how much you get out there.. best off luck and hope you find that yellow soon.
cheers
stoppsy

Golsal,
Out of interest, try tipping some water on the area or in the hole. The signal may just disapear. We found we were digging signals north of mekatharra and after digging for an hour (ground was bloody hard) the signal would then just disapear. We found by accident that if target area was wet signal just disapeared and we could go back to that spot in two or even 5 days later there was still no signal. We called them phantom signals. We only used a cup full of water max as water was precious.
Just a thought to try.
Cheers travelergold