Anyone have an idea on what this pan dust is?

[Jack Hamilton]

I went to the San Jacinto river yesterday. It comes out of Idylwild in southern california. I took
my sluice a shovel and a pan. I dont have a metal detector. I worked a section of caliche and
ran about 4-5 buckets through my sluice. I brought home the sluice trappings and spent a good
hour or so panning out the light material. After my bulk and even black sand were washed out I
was left with this very sparkly silver powder. What appear to be larger grains in this pic are actually
sparkles. This powder seems to be really uniform, but not yellow like gold. Any ideas?

 

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[stefen]

Jack,

I happen to have a home in Idyllwild a few yards away from Strawberry Creek and see a lot of what might be mica flecks in the soil around the property...some of its apprears to be gold in color which may possibly indicate fools gold...although there is gold throughout that entire region...

Would be interested to see what your results are...

Are you working the wash near the Forestry station?

 

[Goodyguy]

I believe mica is to way to light to settle in the pan.
If it sparkles that probably leaves out platinum and silver.
And being such a uniform granule is interesting.


Is it metallic? It must be to have that much weight.
If it's platinum you have a rich strike


I'm stumped

GG~

 

[jb7487]

Have you tried a magnet on it yet?

 

[itmaiden]

Platinum ? Platinum is heavy, and if it is you better start doing some more panning and saving all of it.

itmaiden

I went to the San Jacinto river yesterday. It comes out of Idylwild in southern california. I took
my sluice a shovel and a pan. I dont have a metal detector. I worked a section of caliche and
ran about 4-5 buckets through my sluice. I brought home the sluice trappings and spent a good
hour or so panning out the light material. After my bulk and even black sand were washed out I
was left with this very sparkly silver powder. What appear to be larger grains in this pic are actually
sparkles. This powder seems to be really uniform, but not yellow like gold. Any ideas?

 

[curbdiggercarl57]

Magnetic?

 

[Ant]

It could consist of magnetite, garnet, scheelite, zircon, cassiterite, gold, and or platinum. But most likely you have magnetite and scheelite. The best way to get the precious metal out of fines like that is to use the mercury, or the aqua regia method. More than likely you’ll be wasting your time and money trying to fool around with it. That is unless you have a truckload of the stuff.

If you want to find a little color and maybe more, try the Ben Butler mine at the end of Valle Vista up in my parts. Here is the Google Maps gird quadrants (not Google Earth):
34.198570, -115.961573

Bring a pick and pry bar along with your other gear, and with some hard work you’ll find color. Let me know if and when you come up, I might bring my Dry Washer set up out. It’s getting hot up here, but the last few weeks it’s been perfect. But the morning might be best. This is BLM land and opened for recreational mining, it can't be claimed.

 

[itmaiden]

That area has a lot of Feldspar.

itmaiden

 

[Goodyguy]

Do you have a microscope? You could then see if the structure of the particles is crystalline in nature which would help begin to identify them.

 

[Jack Hamilton]

I did pull magnetics out of it after posting the pic. Mass reduced by about 50%. Sparkled even more. Not sure if gold flour can appear as a silver color but this stuff is awfully shiny. I am a noob to prospecting. I have heard of getting silver and platinum. Just trying to straighten out my learning curve.
I did sun dry the powder and saved in a vial. I will have to find someone who can identify it for me.

Now today, I went to an abandoned mine with no old claim nor a new one. I found some very nice small quarts crystal specimens and on my way down the trail came across this guy. I nudged him with a long stick and told him to move, the only way home is this path and you are in my way. Is this a king snake or a coral snake. I always forget if its "Red touches yellow, friend to fellow" or "Red touches yellow kill a fellow" I caused him no harm, simply made him mad enough to get off my trail.

 

[Jack Hamilton]

Are you working the wash near the Forestry station?

Yes, I was only a couple miles upriver from the forest dept. I saw signs of caliche and wanted to
take a shot in the field after watching matt mattsons videos. It seemed like a reasonable test
considering I have no detector yet. Tesoro ST soon to come I tried to stop by the station
to ask for knowledge and advice, as well as places that were ok to pan legally but nobody answered my
knock. So I just parked, put my adventure pass in the window and took a walk.

 

[Goodyguy]

Uh..........that looks like a hugerattlesnake to me. Maybe lost it's rattles.

Did it coil up at all? Must be a sick one.

GG~

 

[Jack Hamilton]

He was only about a foot an a half long. I grew up here in rattlesnake country...know em well enough. This is definitely a red and black snake with yellow seperating the two bands. I think it is a king but
not sure. I think corals have big fat bands of red yellow black. That being said I forget almost all of
the US is rattlesnake country

 

[Goodyguy]

He was only about a foot an a half long. I grew up here in rattlesnake country...know em well enough. This is definitely a red and black snake with yellow seperating the two bands. I think it is a king but
not sure. I think corals have big fat bands of red yellow black. That being said I forget almost all of
the US is rattlesnake country

Ok but the pic doesn't show the colors or the size well. Are you sure that's the right pic?
If yellow follows red you're dead.
Here is a Coral Snake with the colors you describe.


Below is a King Snake same colors.

 

[Jack Hamilton]

I'll jump on photoshop in a few, my nephew just came over. I'll see if I can zoom in and crop to get a better show on the colors. He was definitely only a foot an a half to two foot long. Little guy. I think
it was a king snake.

 

[Ant]

That’s a gopher snake. And for the other snake, we don’t have corals snakes in California. The saying is, " Red touches yellow, kill a fellow", you have a king snake.


If gold, silver, platinum and or other precious metals were that easy to find we would all be rich. The silver looking stuff is most likely lead. And as for feldspar, that was washed out in the begging of the panning process. When you get down to fines like that the only things left are heavy sands and other heavy minerals. You should clearly be able to see flower gold, it can float on top of the water and spin its way out of the pan. That’s because it’s doesn’t have enough weight to break the waters surface tension.

 

[packerbacker]

The snake in question appears to be a variety of Pine Snake. At first glance, they can scare the heck out of you if you stumble up on one at close quarters.

 

[deepskyal]

I've heard, "Red on black, friend of Jack...Red on yellow, you're a dead fellow"

But what do I know...main worry here is copperheads, look like water snakes...smell like cucumbers. Timber rattlers if I go up north a bit..but they are real easy to ID.

Al

 

[Ant]

Do we have pine snakes in California?

I think they are almost all the same, rat snake, pine snake, and gopher snake. We have gopher snakes in SoCal.

HH
Gopher Snake:

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Definetely NOT a coral snake. The red touch black poem is ONLY to tell the difference between the look-a-like bands of a Coral and a Scarlet King. It does NOT apply to any other snake or pattern. Goody posted pics.

Red touch Black, good for Jack (scarlet king) (red nose).

Red touch Yellow, kill the fellow (Coral) (black nose).


Of course you shouldnt kill any snake nowadays but you will want to remove it if a Coral is in your house. Like someone said, you dont need to worry about Corals in California.