Natural Gold Movement And Deposits

Most of us have an understanding of the natural path and how gold travels and being heavy works it’s way down to bedrock or clays and that’s were it’s held .
I have found two nuggets that to my way of thinking should not have been there and were located in the loose brown to light coloured topsoil on areas between diggings.
Both times I was just getting the detector up and running as I was heading out to where I would be seriously looking but found gold where I wouldn’t have thought it would be.
It would interesting to hear if others have found gold in unlikely areas, where by all accounts it shouldn’t have been there but was.
I’m at a bit of a loss myself except to think maybe it was dropped by someone moving wash dirt for processing and has started to work its way back down.
Is the path of gold always predictable and will follow a set path and when it’s found out of place the only reason is due to man made actions.
Mark

Hi all..
Similar thing, here at Dunolly... I parked the truck and intended going over a nearby gully and the slopes that feed the gully. I started walking along a track, when I was past the truck I turned on the detecter.. heading to this gully but not swinging just guiding the coil along the track when I got a signal at a location that I would not have thought likely.... thinking it was junk I nearly didnt dig it as it screamed... couldnt help myself so started to dig it and when I went down past the normal range for junk I thought this is interesting.

Out popped a 13 gram nugget located in old river wash down about 6 inches that really should not have been there... my detector had screamed. Why was it still there... who knows as it was right out in the open, on a track it should have been scooped up with a VLF machine years ago.

Ray

PS and no there were no brothers or sisters and yes I did grid the whole area and still go back there from time to time to try a new coil/maching

Gold often seems to pop up in unusual places and many of the old timers caution others to remember this. In you case, it's possible that the gold was picked up by someone and then dropped again. People have been here for over a hundred thousand years (I think) so it probably wouldn't take much more than curiosity for a native to pick up a nugget and deposit it nearby but in an unusual area. If it was found between diggings, it's often because material deposited on the surface by a miner allowed heavy material to slide down the heap... to be covered by the subsequent earth then deposited on the mulloch heaps.

Also worth noting that nuggets were regularly dropped by early miners and even the convicts would throw nuggets from the carts so that their recently liberated brothers could collect them. If the nugget is heavy enough, and the ground soft enough (eg. not gravelly or dense clay), then the nugget may then sink down a little each time rain or flood produces a suspension effect in the surrounding dirt. If the gold is found in a really unlikely location, you probably can only blame humans. But on occasion, gold will be deposited by geological action (ie. erosion) in very unlikely spots. The gold that I've found has generally been in typical locations. Except once when it was in an old, glass whiskey bottle and the small nuggets inside didn't seem to trigger my VLF detector at the time.

Cheers,

Marco

Parts of Australia were part of a very old sea-ocean bottom and this ancient salt water could have shifted gold around randomly.

And/or was Australia frozen maybe with glaciers that could have shifted gold around when it was attached to Antarctica at one point when it was part of Godwanda the super continent.

Gold was released from the different reefs/veins at different geological ages-times. Nuggets recently released from bedrock reef/vein will be closer to the source and nuggets released at a longer time back tend more scattered.

Or an Emu could have swallowed a nugget then crapped it out in their stool like they do to Quandong nuts(ever ate these nuts out of an Emu **** pile), hence an Emu dropping nugget.

Or an Abo threw it down years ago.

And also how come big and small smooth worn nuggets are totally cemented in calcrete like concrete which is super-very hard ground as hard as bedrock in WA (and maybe Victoria ?) ? What caused that to happen does anyone know ? If you find such a nugget how do you get it out ?

Hi All,
The way it was explained to me is that at one stage there was no sand at all, just rock!!,by erosion ,corosion whatever we end up with sand, Which makes what we see today have little to do with when the gold formed, so that the gully you are in was probably flat with gold spread around the ground, with the washing away of the hills to form gullies some of it washed down into the gullies and some stayed put just lowering down from its original position. Some hills formed at a later date, you can tell by the way the"grain " of the rocks in the hill have been pushed upwards, so there was a lot going on that we dont fathom to when we are out there prospecting.One particular place i have been there is a seam of conglomerate sticking vertical out of a hill, this would have formed while it was on a flat surface and then pushed upward, so you will find gold on the hilltop in the conglomerate which they mined but it came from somewhere,connected at some stage, you do the math!!
Regards Ron

I forgot to mention that in some areas (including where I visit), 'recent' mudflows and slow-moving lava has picked up rocks and nuggets from previous deposits eons before, and has redeposited them elsewhere. This will later break apart and release individual nuggets a long way from where they were originally brought top the surface or where it formed. Recent mudflows and massive flooding over tens of thousands of years will do the same.

It could be of interest!

On this web site below, you can download, free of charge a .pdf file "Introducing Victorian Geology".
I know it's a heavy read, but it will answer some, if not all of the questions that we as prospectors must have,
if we are serious about our hobby.
http://www.vic.gsa.org.au/Publications/IVG2.html

Happy reading.
See you up them thar hills.
Frank

A group of mines i've been researching were taking gold from an old riverbed from 18 to 60 feet deep. So the river dropped 40 feet in height along a 1k line. Side of a hill probably? Mining reports state that the origin of the gold was probably off to the west of the mines and had completely eroded away leaving no trace of the source at all. On top of this gold bearing wash was evidence of a swamp at a more recent time period.

I can imagine huge mountains that have eroded over thousands of years only to end up the bottom of a boggy marsh and now days it's almost dessert. Incredible.

Dicko..