A Beginner's Prospecting Adventure in San Diego County

[SDBanks]

I am going to start a journal because I'm likely going to be posting a lot about my journey until I find my first Au, and the journal section seems the best place to share frequent updates without spamming the forum.


Introduction
- I've had no prior mining or gold panning experience
- I have never taken a geology class (at least that I remember)
- I have been reading and researching (yes, youtube counts as research!) the past 4-5 weeks.
- I've been an avid hiker all over SD county, so I know the back country very well (mountains and desert)


I tend to go through series of obsessions, and for the last 4-5 weeks its been gold prospecting. I have been consuming as much information as possible since I knew I had a lot to learn. I am considering this journal my documented learning experience


My Research
Is there gold in San Diego county? Yes, it's not mother-lode country, but we definitely have gold.

Where is gold typically found in San Diego? Out east in the mountains and desert, Cleveland National Forest, Julian, Banner, Anza-Borrego etc.

How did you do your initial research?
Google is my library, I searched for "San Diego Gold History" to find out the areas and host rock where gold has been found. I found a surprising amount of old (late 1800's early 1900's) books, journals, and newspapers available online that described some of the old mines in the area in great detail, that combined with USGS reports have been helpful to narrow down my targets. Googling the names of old mines would bring up some old newspaper articles about the mine and reveal more secrets to where to look. Julian was the hot spot in the late 1800's and once the hard rock miners came in to town, they mainly found their gold in quartz veins running at a NNW direction. The gold was described as very rich, yielding 2.5 ounces per ton .

Anyone else looking to prospect in San Diego, I suggest you at least skim through all 41 pages of this report https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/286730651.pdf

Review geologic maps with locations of old mines and locate similar areas nearby.

Use mylandmatters.org and thediggins websites to locate claims and make sure I'm not claim-jumping.


My Goal
Locate and retrieve gold in the wilderness of San Diego county. Placer or lode.


What's Next?
Get out to different locations and prospect for potential Au discoveries.

So far I have tried creek panning and crevicing in one location, and have taken some small samples in the Pine Valley/Alpine district, and Mt Laguna district.

1. Purchase a rock crusher (need to crush up and pan those samples)
2. Get out and get more samples and/or pan.
3. Repeat step 2 until Au is found, or go somewhere else (further east into the desert, or further north towards Julian)

My next outing is this Saturday. I will post some updates.

Until next time, enjoy the view from the PCT looking down at Aqua Caliente and Anza-Borrego.

 

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[Goodyguy]

Welcome to the obsession. Aka Gold Fever
Get good at panning, it will serve you well.




Go for the Gold
GG~

 

[Mackaydon]

Prior to working in the ocean, I used the rule of thumb that 'one hour of research will save 10 hours trolling the seas".
Perhaps the same rule of thumb applies to land hunts. Good to read you are doing a lot of research.
Good luck !
Don......

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

Good luck.Julian is my hometown, if you can find some open areas down Banner grade, my friend found a 1 ounce nugget walking the dry river bed down there when he was out hiking and all the hills above that area are riddled with mines so would be a great area but water is an issue It might benefit you to get a gold detector and add it to your prospecting tools.

 

[SDBanks]

Good luck.Julian is my hometown, if you can find some open areas down Banner grade, my friend found a 1 ounce nugget walking the dry river bed down there when he was out hiking and all the hills above that area are riddled with mines so would be a great area but water is an issue It might benefit you to get a gold detector and add it to your prospecting tools.

Wow that would be amazing to find a nugget. I've heard some say that nuggets don't exist down here, only the fine stuff. I'd love for them to be wrong.


Well I went out last weekend as planned, grabbed 6 different ziploc bag samples home. No gold in any of my pans. No crushing yet so there still maybe some fines I will find after crushing.

Appears to be schist with some heavy iron staining and quartz veins. In Julian the unusually gold rich veins were traveling in quartz veins in schist rock.

Here's a few seconds of video showing what I found:
https://s7.gifyu.com/images/20200718_074855_1.gif Link

Wish I could have carried more samples so I only took one from the above. I like the way it looks so I think I will go back with my detector and get more samples from this area.

 

[SDBanks]

I'm excited to get back out this weekend. Temperatures will be a bit cooler, should be able to cover more ground. I'm also going to bring my metal detector to possibly narrow down which areas to sample.


Appears to be a basalt dike intrusion

 

[SDBanks]

Last weekend was a bust. Brought a bike with me so I could go further faster, but I realized a bike is too fast. For example, I went right by a big vein that I visited last time, I had to go slow to find it again. Also uphill on a bike is much more difficult than hiking uphill. Anyways, I brought minelab profind 35 to help narrow down locations to sample, turns out it just helped me find a bunch of old bullets and one chunk of iron.

I've heard both the key is persistence and also to try new places. I'm trying to balance that out, revisit places enough time to give them a chance, but eventually I need to move to richer areas.

 

[Hard Prospector]

Most Julian gold was lode, surface diggins where values became less with depth. What little placer there was got hit hard in the 30's and late 70's. Your time would be better spent just driving the 3 hours out to the desert and drywashing; Pot Holes, Tumco, Coolgardie, Randsberg, Virginia Dale etc.

Know of a guy who has done ok drywashing around Pine Valley, Deer Park and Buckman Springs.......always an exception. Hint, get a drywasher and preferable a puffer as they catch the fines best.

Lots of nasty sulfides/arsenic in those viens......mask up

 

[SDBanks]

Using geologic maps my exploration target today brought me to an area described in USGS reports as:

JTRm Metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks (Jurassic and Triassic)–Screens in the Cuyamaca and Laguna Mountains are composed of upper amphibolite-facies metasedimentary rocks interlayered with minor amounts of amphibolite (the Julian Schist of Hudson, 1922)

It was really hot today so I didn't go far but I did get to explore a "road to nowhere" I spotted from satellite photos. Picked up some float of what could have been waste rock but I didn't see a mine nearby.

I really like this one:

Video:https://i.imgur.com/Xm5Z4f5.mp4
Looks like Biotite Mica Schist with quartz inclusions and some sulfides.

Also like this purple one, I think it is brecciated rose quartz and mica?



Crushed up a few of these guys (while wearing a mask), panned it out and no luck today. I didn't crush the one above, but I did crush his smaller cousins. I'm finding that I like a lot of these specimens too much to want to crush them, maybe that's just because I'm new and still enjoy all these rocks I'm finding.

EDIT: Thanks for the tips Hard Prospector. Yes I think you are right that I'll need to travel to do decent, but I was still thinking/hoping I could find a speck or two just by propsecting, crush (if needed), and pan it out. I'd like to find something before having to invest in a drywasher. Wouldn't some of the fines show in my pan (with a drop of dish soap) or do I need a drywasher if I want to find any at all within SD county?

 

[SDBanks]

Cantaloupe size honk of a quartz vein and inclusion of some metamorphic(?) with some rod like minerals/crystals, not sure what the black mineral/rock is at all, any ideas? According to geologic maps I was on Julian Schist but also a contact zone where it changes to (Kc)Cuyamaca Gabbro.

View attachment 1853514

Video: https://imgur.com/a/F3Gncrp


EDIT: After researching the area further turns out there was a Tungsten occurrence where I was. Pretty sure that's the rod shapes I'm seeing.

 

[SDBanks]

Visited an old inactive claim today and came across a shaft right off an old truck trail. Stayed clear of that so I'm not sure how deep it was, but found some nice samples in the surrounding area. Found some large rough quartz with heavy red iron staining (hematite?), and some smaller rounded quartz with vugs from leached minerals. It was too hot today to want to crush in the mortar and pan, so maybe tomorrow morning I'll take some pictures and pan out my samples.

According to mining records from previous mines in this area: The ore deposits consist of narrow north-striking gold-quartz veins in shear zones in mica schist, gneiss, and quartz diorite.


Hammered off this guy from a boulder.

 

[Hard Prospector]

In this area, quartz with schist is best bet to likely to have values, gold may not be in the quartz but could be in the schist part of the oar body.. "Flakey" vertical schist foliation would be ideal as opposed to horazontal. Not out of the question to have values in between these thin layers of schist. Take a crack hammer, bucket and -1/8 screen and break open the schist layers over the classifier. Drywash, pan, sluice or whatever the contents....... i have seen this work.

Lots of iron stained quartz veins and outcroppings in the area, most all totally barren of values and not worth even a peck. If any were, they would have been drifted into over 100 years ago as they have been prospected hard; late 1800's, 1930's and again 1970's.

Process all you can in the field. Actually, dry panning down to a cup of material and running the Falcon through could save a lot of work hauling value less crap out of the hills. For that kind of prospecting, the Falcon could save a lot of work and takes up minimal space in the pack.

 

[SDBanks]

"Flakey" vertical schist foliation would be ideal as opposed to horazontal.

Thanks, great info I appreciate the guidance and tips! I have some heavy foliated muscovite mica schist with quartz inclusions and after crushing and panning it today I found my first fine gold in hard rock in this small sample!



I brought back many samples and have crushed and panned 4 different types so far.

I just finished panning the three heavy foliated mica schist in the above picture.


Through the classifier


Panned it down and found a some fines!


My samples:


These samples were near a contact zone and according to USGS geological maps Julian Schist: Metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks (Jurassic and Triassic)–Screens in the Cuyamaca and Laguna Mountains are composed of upper amphibolite-facies metasedimentary rocks interlayered with minor amounts of amphibolite (the Julian Schist of Hudson, 1922)

 

[Hard Prospector]

Thanks, great info I appreciate the guidance and tips! I have some heavy foliated muscovite mica schist with quartz inclusions and after crushing and panning it today I found my first fine gold in hard rock in this small sample!

View attachment 1856865

I brought back many samples and have crushed and panned 4 different types so far.

I just finished panning the three heavy foliated mica schist in the above picture.

View attachment 1856866
Through the classifier

View attachment 1856867
Panned it down and found a some fines!


My samples:
View attachment 1856869

These samples were near a contact zone and according to USGS geological maps Julian Schist: Metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks (Jurassic and Triassic)–Screens in the Cuyamaca and Laguna Mountains are composed of upper amphibolite-facies metasedimentary rocks interlayered with minor amounts of amphibolite (the Julian Schist of Hudson, 1922)

Congrats!

 

[SDBanks]

Went out over the weekend found a huge quartz vein about 2ft wide cutting NW thru Julian Schist. I could tell there had been prior diggers but still a lot of the vein remains.
Initially I saw very little in terms of mineralization but that changed once I started with my rock hammer on a sawtooth like jagged area ofnthe vein showing a dark purple or maroon iron staining. I moved on and looked for some float.
Once I got home I started sorting the samples and saw some copper staining on some of my samples.


I stumbled across a small piece with visible gold! I only have a 4x loupe, but have a better one on the way.

 

[SDBanks]

Got my belomo 15x and been looking through my samples up close. Amazing what you can see under a loupe versus what you see with just the naked eye. Here's a small sample with visible gold in the quartz under a 15x loupe.

https://i.imgur.com/AAnAC0h.mp4

 

[Hard Prospector]

Now you know why the old timers used the Hell out of mercury....... Good vid by the way

 

[SDBanks]

Went back to my spot where I'm finding nice samples over the weekend and located my first silver ore in the wild! I hammered this guy off of a quartz vein. Also appears to have some fine gold speckles and copper.

My favorite sample of the bunch:


Same sample but under a 15x loupe