Finding the Source

Question regarding finding the source of where the gold is sheding from.

Quick rundown on the setting. There is a series of mullock heaps up the side of a hill. This hill has a series of holes ranging from 1 - 1.5m. There was also a mine running into the side of this hill, but appears to have been blown closed.

The pieces of gold found in the nearby creek are jaggered and the piece i picked up today from a mullock heap definately indicates that the source is very close by.

We were planning on digging a few holes near the current mullock heaps in an attempt to either locate the source or get an indication of how much gold is in this hill.

We have one advantage the old timers didn't have.. GPX5000.

Has anyone done this before, and does this idea seam like a waste of time or a good idea?

The old miners didnt get every scrap of gold,and many good nuggets have been found on old mullock heaps
Cheers

byronbinalong wrote:The old miners didnt get every scrap of gold,and many good nuggets have been found on old mullock heaps
Cheers

thats obvious, but it didn't answer my questions.

Hi Goldbait
It sounds as though the source has already been found being the mine going into the side of the hill.People came from all over the world for the gold rushes and among these were many miners that were brilliant at what they did.They were skilled at finding the source.
In saying that you could still really work the slope between the diggings and the mine,but if its steep gravity will have won
Cheers Dig

hi Goldbait, sounds like the least you will do is clean up some nice stuff they left behind. You havent indicated if the area has seen a detector or two before now.? As the previous post indicated the source was probably located where the old mine is but pockets of gold must still remain in the leader and on the mullok heaps as im sure you would know. If it was me who was lucky enough to be in your position i would have a dig and detect above the mine shaft to see if the lead continued. Best of luck to you.

the old mine shaft is actually situated inline with the bottom mullock heap where i found the little nugget yesterday.. there are plenty more mullock heaps deeper and further up the slope.

i was thinking that the old claim may have been worked, but not excessively. my thinking is they never obtained enough gold out of the area to really put the hard yards in.

I was thinking if they got gold out of the mullock heaps they did dig, and i found a piece that has been missed by the old timers, then surely 2 metres to the left/right/up/down the slope there should be more gold yet to be discovered.... i just have to put the hard yards in to find it.

Wednesday looks like our hole digging day so we'll see what happens then.

oh yeah. the piece i found was only 3 - 4 inches below the surface covered by a hot rock. i'm thinking it is because of this hot rock is the reason i found it and other people didn't.

Hi Goldbait,

Here's a link from another forum about finding the source, it's a very good read.

Finding The Source

I am thinking about doing the same thing in a few areas... 100 or 150 years ago, there may have been 5 foot more soil in the area, totally covering a seam. No way in the world did the old timers find every reef. I am sure they left a few .... Thats my dream to swing over a target in an area full of pot holes and find a nice quartz seam smiling at me a few feet from where the old diggers gave up, or dropped a shaft close but not on target....
Good luck with it, dont give up if your chasing one, you will find one... If you dont look you never will.
I have an area with maybe 200 pot holes all about 1m to 1,5 m deep and a mine was never sunk.. So obviously they never found the source...

I say go for it, what have you got to loose, maybe some skin off the knuckles and some blisters and if you find something the gold will be worth alot more to you than just than just the dollar value, it will have a great story to go along with it,
the only thing I would suggest that if you do go through with it is do some research of how to properly construct the ground support for the shaft/drive if you go that deep say over 2 metres and always work in pairs just in case something happens.

how far down are you allowed to go there?

technically we are allowed to go 2 metres deep. i doubt i'd be going anywhere near that depth, but we'll see what happens.

the plan is to pull out about 6 - 12 inches at a time, detecting the tailings, then detect the hole. repeat until desired depth.

Goldbait wrote:technically we are allowed to go 2 metres deep. i doubt i'd be going anywhere near that depth, but we'll see what happens.

the plan is to pull out about 6 - 12 inches at a time, detecting the tailings, then detect the hole. repeat until desired depth.

good luck and may the gold gods be with you especially where i think u are.

cheers...reg

Hi Goldbait, can't comment on your exact location because there are so many variables. Do you have any info on the country rock and the type of quartz veins? Is it one reef or is the quartz disseminated in many small veins. Is there any EL reports on the area?

It sounds like alot of work. I would do as much research on the occurrence of gold in the location before deciding on doing test trenches etc.
Many reefs were rich at the surface with gold released from erosion accumulating over hundreds of thousands of years. When they mined many of the reefs the concentration of gold in the quartz reef at any depth was often very low or patchy.

If you are going to dig test pits the best method is to dig thin trenches across the line of strike of the vein (Costeans) to give yourself the best chance of hitting a vein.

You may be better spending more days methodically using a big coil to target the foot of the slopes or any benches or the top of any hill or tracking down the gully to where gold may have stopped. Maybe try walking a km or so with your detecting zig zagging and following an alignment off each end of the line of diggings, paying attention to any small gullies cutting across or falling off the line of lode

cheers Tributer

grass is too long to use any coil bigger than my 8x6.

good luck. Sounds exciting..

Dicko..

Having a dig is never a waste of time, Goldbait. Even if it only shows how much overburden you are trying to punch through to get to richer layers. I would look for some obvious depression below the old drive, on unbroken ground and dig a few small test holes down the slope to see what the depth and structure is like. I found a small vertical trench cut into the side of hill that ended in a small pit at the top. It appears the old timer had found a shallow leader and he was tracing it back to the source but it pinched out. I dug into the pit a bit deeper but didn't pick anything up, however I did pick up two big nuggets, deep and just off the sides of the trench. I expect these had shed from the leader eons before the old boy found it.

I know there is heavy grass cover up here at the moment (and only going to get worse now the wet has started again), but if the unbroken ground appears to be a detectable depth, it may pay to remove a bit of the surface as you suggest and run a big coil over it very slowly. Good luck.

technically we are allowed to go 2 metres deep. i doubt i'd be going anywhere near that depth

Excuse my ignorance, but are we allowed to "surface" an area to the 2 metre mark without any particular paperwork????

"i'm digging a hole"

CostaDee, i know what your saying and honestly the old timers did a lot worse that us prospectors can ever do. back then it was legal.

I think by the sound of it the mine they were working was a hard rock mine (Reefers). And they probably looking for the source themselves hence the small holes everywhere. My Guess is they either found the source, and mined it, or found the ore body not rich enough, so they abandoned it. Personally I would look for recent evidence of anybody digging the creek, or close to the spot. In summer months people go to places like this with dry blowers, and concentrated your efforts there. Also water will be your friend, and save you the effort of digging just to run your detector over it, if you dont use other methods like dryblower, panning etc.
I found my last nugget in a place similar to what you describe, and I picked it up on a dry blowing pile on the side of a creek which was running down a big hill. On top of this hill there had been a lot of what appeared to be reef mining, but I think now the old timers had been looking for the source.
The only problem with place like this is all the broken bits of tin, and other metal rubbish left behind by the old timers that finds its way in the creek when using your detector. This is where you digging a fresh hole might help locate small nuggets left behind, rather than you chasing the source. It depends on how much time you have a suppose.
A diagram might help these people give you better advice.
Good Luck

from reading this could or should i re look at a place .many years ago around a area that produced nuggets i had found a few small bits nice n smooth about .7 to 1.5 grams with a 8mono on a 2100 ,tried a 18mono no good but to noisy, about 200mtrs away a tree had been ripped and the ground graded for about 40mtrs as a small road was there to removed i pressume the disused railway then ripped over,in the area is a few shallow shafts no more than 2mtrs deep .i did a quick search on ripped ground with the 8 mono which was hard as ground furrowed by ripper picked up a bit about 6grams very sharp and jagged .the area nearby has no fresh overburden and ironstone quartz with the shafts going into orange/white ground.the ripping seemed to move the top foot which was dirt under this was simular ground as nearby diggings.its not been touched since as i went past couple yrs ago on way to other ground.i only spent 15mins in area as was very hard on ankles in ripper area...do i need to go bak and search with my 4500..i still hav nugget as no sellable for very jagged and miss shaped. i hava ph that sends pic but not to my computor if that helps....

Ahh fellas,in order to find the "Source",you must first seek out and find the "Charmed Ones"   

Cheers Kon.