50-50 black sand/ regular sand

bluveinthrobber

bluveinthrobber

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May 24, 2017
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Sumter south carolina
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Ive googled and sesrched this site and still cant find exactly what im looking for but who knows maybe im not looking for the right info. Here it goes. When i have been panning some sand i have been getting it classified down to 1/16 of an inch as i am on the hunt for fine gold. When i am panning it off and it gets down to the last bit i am having trouble refining the last bit down to just black sand and cant pan any further without losing some of the possible good stuff, so then i am unable to tell if there is any color in my pan at all. What are some things i may be over looking? I have youtubed, googled, and even searched here without finding much on this topic
 

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I recommend a blue pan. The blue is as close to opposite of yellow as you can get if you look at a color wheel. Also, i have seen blond sand or even super small quartz get caught up in the black sands before. It just depends on the make up of whats in it i reckon. Panning is an art form, its something that takes practice. Once you learn to pan, you can do it out of anything. Ive used one of my daughters toy bowls before lol. There is another method to try but it takes some constructing. Its pieces of round steel put into a tumbler (rock tumbler or homemade) and you stack them in the tumbler and run it with the material. The gold will flatten out and the rest will be pulverized to dust.
 

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Thats interesting. Never even though of blue being the opposite but it definitely would be the closest. I defonitely couldnt hurt having an extra pan. Thanks for the advice bud
 

What strikes me is the complete absence of black sand in your pictures. While gold is not always found with black sand, more often than not it is. If what you panned had black sand in the mix then that is what would be in your picture rather than what you show*....the stuff you show would have mostly exited the pan. Sorry but I think what you have is just sand. When you actually find some gold you will never forget what it looks like and how it acts in a pan. You might consider buying some paydirt to pan to see what I am talking about.

Good luck.

*Black sand particles of about the same size as sand particles is somewhere around 1 1/2 time as heavy so they pretty much stay in place while sand washes away.
 

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O there most definitely was black sand just not in the pictures. I guess thats why i was so confused was because i got it down to probably 85% black sand. Then very slowly and carefuly panned the black sand off and what was left after panning off of all the black sand is what is pictured. For 1 small pan (10 inch pan) of material classified down to 1/8th of an inch there was atleast 3 maybe 4 table spoons of black sand...ill try and pan some more material tomorrow and possibly get a video and maybe you guys could critique or adjust my technique.
 

That paints a different picture for me then and what you have may be gold. A visual test for gold works for me. Gold will retain it's yellow color in full and shaded light. Almost every thing else changes color and is usually darker. Try that test. If you are still not sure may I suggest an unconventional, and on this forum controversial, but very simple home test? Gold is oleophilic...has an affinity for/sticks to oil, grease etc. Sprinkle a small sacrificial pinch of the grains onto a patch of thinly smeared petroleum jelly/vaseline. Hold the plate or what ever you use under water while doing this. Do a little light panning action including swirling and dipping, take it out and inspect it. If some or all of that stuff sticks then it is probably gold. If they don't stick then what washed off is likely sand. I hope they stick. Don't do this to any of the rest of what you have if the test particles stick. Just assume they are the same....probably gold.

Oils are usually a bane in gold panning but were/are(?) extensively used in mined production gold mills as a flotation agent that concentrates gold on the surface of water and other chemicals while the waste settles and is flushed to the dump. The gold impregnated oil solution is now high grade gold concentrate. Oil is a bane to panners, etc. since it floats and washes out of the pan first and if it has contacted some gold it may take that gold with it.

Good luck.
 

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Pics are always difficult to see what is going on. If you are panned down through the black sand stage you should not have any junk in the pan. Try a pic against a different color or without flash. Here are a few pics that were panned down to black sand at waters edge. As you can see very little junk material left.

IMG_4095 - Copy.JPG IMG_3960 - Copy.JPG




IMG_7287 - Copy.JPG IMG_7061 - Copy.JPG
 

bluveinthrobber said:
Wow thats cool man. Im wondering if theres any here on the east coast beaches like that.
Click to expand...

Yes there is! Numerous beaches in SC have fine gold. Some have significant amounts. We use to use a magnetic locator to find thick deposits of black sands that had significant amounts of gold.
 

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Don't know about where you are but there's gold on the Lake Superior beaches.....


<br>
 

arizau said:
If you are still not sure may I suggest an unconventional, and on this forum controversial, but very simple home test? Gold is oleophilic...has an affinity for/sticks to oil, grease etc. Sprinkle a small sacrificial pinch of the grains onto a patch of thinly smeared petroleum jelly/vaseline. Hold the plate or what ever you use under water while doing this. Do a little light panning action including swirling and dipping, take it out and inspect it. If some or all of that stuff sticks then it is probably gold. If they don't stick then what washed off is likely sand.

.
Click to expand...

Instead of slowly panning down to the gold use the Vaseline to quickly capture all the gold. It even captures gold so tiny that you can't see it without magnification!

Put water in the greased pan before adding the black sands!

To remove the gold use hot hot water with a couple drops of dish soap, mix it up and pour it thru a coffee filter. Try it on the black sands that you already processed to see if you missed any gold!
 

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If you would like to read an article about fine gold recovery using oleophillic adhesion you can get a back issue of
ICMJ's Prospecting and Mining Journal.

Volume 83, Number 8
April 2014

Hopefully this will also put an end to the bickering about oleophillic adhesion for gold separation.

The article is written by Alex Dolbeare.
Or if you have an online subscription you can read it here............
Recovering Fine Gold with Oleophilic Adhesion - April 2014 (Vol. 83, No. 8) - ICMJ's Prospecting and Mining Journal
 

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Sounds like you need to have some finer classifying screens and pan each screening separately and defiantly use a magnet to remove the magnetics before panning!
 

Well I see a lot of good advice with the assumption that there is gold in the material however I learned a lot from an old time and he would say. "You will always find black sand with gold but you won't always find gold with black sand." He would also say " you find gold where it is " when I was younger I didn't know what that ment. However when I got old I figured that just because gold wasn't found there before doesn't mean the gold wasn't there
 

Per the O.P.s title of the Thread, he indicates he has 50/50 Black Sand and Regular Sand which is likely not the case and which is part of the reason he is having difficulty separating any Gold from the sands (Black and/or other). What he believes is Regular Sand, is likely other heavy metals and this is especially so if they seem to stay under the Black Sand and prevent the separation of any Gold from the mix. I often have the same problem when Gold prospecting in North Carolina, Georgia and Southeast Tennessee as there seems to be a lot of heavy metals in the creeks and streams where Gold is found. It is hard to say what the heavy metals are but Silver could be one of them as Silver has nearly twice the specific gravity of Black Sand but other heavy metals that present themselves as white or whitish in color in the raw are the possibilities.


Frank
 

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Yes, there can be a number of heavies that can be clear in appearance and will not separate easily.
 

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