Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries . . .

[Lanny in AB]

Do you love to chase the gold? Please join me--lots of gold hunting tips, stories of finds (successful and not), and prospecting poetry.

Nugget in the bedrock tip:

I had a visit with a mining buddy this past weekend, and he told me of an epic battle to get a nugget out of the bedrock, and of what he learned from the experience. I thought some of you might like to learn from his mistake.

While out detecting one day, he came across a large sheet of bare bedrock. The bedrock was exposed because the area had been blasted off with a water cannon (a monitor), by the old-timers! It was not fractured bedrock, in fact it was totally smooth.

He was not optimistic at all of the prospects of a nugget. But, for some reason (we've all been there) he decided to swing his detector over that bedrock. After a long time, just as he was about to give up on his crazy hunch, he got a signal, right out of that smooth bedrock.

There was no crevice, no sign of a crevice, nada! So, he had to go all the way back to camp to get a small sledge and a chisel. The signal in the rock intrigued him, but he still wasn't overly optimistic. For those of you that have chased signals in a similar situation, sometimes there's a patch of hot mineralization in the bedrock that sounds off, but this spot, according to him, was sharp and clear right in the middle of the signal, not just a general increase of the threshold like you get when you pass over a hot spot in the bedrock.

Anyway, he made it back to the spot and started to chisel his way into the bedrock. If any of you have tried this, it's an awful job, and you usually wind up with cut knuckles--at the least! Regardless, he kept fighting his way down, busting out chunks of bedrock. He kept checking the hole, and the signal remained very strong.

This only puzzled him all the more as he could clearly see that it was solid bedrock with no sign of any crevice. He finally quit at the end of the day, at a depth of about a foot, but still, nothing in the hole.

An experienced nugget shooting friend dropped by the next morning to see him, and asked him how the hunt was going. My buddy related his tale of the mysterious hole in the bedrock, and told the friend to go over and check it out, and see if he could solve the riddle.

Later in the day, the other nugget hunter returned. In his hand was a fine, fat, sassy nugget. It weighed in at about an ounce and a quarter! After my friend returned his eyeballs to their sockets and zapped his heart to start it again, he asked where the nugget had come from.

Imagine his surprise when he heard it came from the mystery hole!! He asked how deep the other guy had gone into the bedrock to get it. "Well, no deeper" was his reply.

So, here's the rest of the story as to what happened. When the successful nugget hunter got to the bedrock, he scanned the surface got the same strong signal as my buddy. He widened out the hole and scanned again. Still a solid tone. He widened the hole some more so he could get his coil in, and here's the key and the lesson in this story, he got a strong signal off the side of the hole, about six inches down, but set back another inch into the side of the bedrock!!

My unlucky friend, the true discoverer of the gorgeous nugget's resting place had gone deep past the signal while digging his hole!!

Now, of course, a good pinpointer would easily solve this problem. The problem was, my buddy didn't have one, so why would he widen the hole, right? Well, the other guy was the one with more experience, and that's why he did. It was a lot more work, but what a payoff!

So, my buddy's butt is still black and blue from where he kicked himself for the next week or so for having lost such an incredible prize.

Some nugget hunting lessons are harder than others to learn. . . .

All the best,

Lanny


P.S. When in gold country--check the bedrock, regardless of whether it looks likely or not! Mother Nature likes to play games sometimes.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

DR.ÖTEK Metal Detector, Waterproof Gold Detector, Pinpoint & Terrain Modes, Professional Metal Detector - Grab it through Amazon!

[Lanny in AB]

looks like a nice pile of gold.
really like the storys

Leadnugget, thanks for dropping in to leave a note and a compliment. I really appreciate it.

All the best,

Lanny

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Family Maps of Hinds County, Mississippi, Deluxe Edition - Grab it through Amazon!

[crashbandicoot]

This interesting as heck!I love reading about gold hunting and it,s whims.Around here the bedrock is around 1000,s of feet deep!That,s S.E.Arkansas,delta land.

 

[Lanny in AB]

This interesting as heck!I love reading about gold hunting and it,s whims.Around here the bedrock is around 1000,s of feet deep!That,s S.E.Arkansas,delta land.

Thanks for the compliment, glad you enjoyed the stories.

As for deep bedrock in your area, that's deep all right!

The recent digs I've been around for the last seven years or so have been about sixty feet max to virgin bedrock in ancient channels that the dinosaurs used to wade through.

I'm still able to find shallow bedrock in streams as well as in out-of-the-way areas where there are old workings that were abandoned many, many years ago.

It's getting harder to find good spots, but thankfully they're still out there, and new opportunities keep turning up to work with existing placer miners on new sites as well, so that keeps things interesting.

Looking forward to the end of CO-Vid madness and hoping the world will get back as close to normal as is possible as soon as possible. Too much good gold out there still to be found.***

All the best, and thanks for dropping in,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Gold in the bedrock tip:

When working in friable rock (I believe this is how Chris Ralph describes the bedrock I'll refer to), bedrock which has lots of standing/largely perpendicular plates or sheets, the flake gold and pickers (and, every once in a while, nuggets too) are generally found in the first several inches of that unstable rock (unless the plates are measured in feet). The gold will usually bottom out on a solid bottom that the plates or sheets rest on.

However, the vast majority of the gold where the plates are small is in the relatively shallow surface materials, because below those few top inches of standing plates, the bedrock is solid underneath and the friable aspect disappears.

This is important, for as you dig deeper, the little river stones and coarser sand will now be gone from the cracks and crevices that remain. This lets you know the finer silts were being deposited, but not the gold. Moreover, the material that usually remains is a very sticky clay and any crevices that remain are few and far between as compared to the surface traps.

Furthermore, the heavy clay that remains in those random crevices is horrible stuff to wash, exceptionally sticky and noncooperative, and it takes a ton of time to process and the results are almost always a disappointment.

However, the exception (as far as crevices/deeper crevices go) to this, of course, is when a deep crack or crevice beneath a cap of friable rock has sticky clay, yet it also has lots of little river stones and coarser sand accompanying that gooey clay. Any material you find like this, be sure to pan it.

To unpack this information, at some time in the dim past, the crack was opened wide enough for coarser material to drop, and this also allowed sassy gold to drop. In crevices like the aforementioned, I have found some beautiful flake gold, pickers and nuggets. However, they are a rare find in the conditions I've described. (So as not to confuse you, I'm not talking about a generic river crevice that is jammed with rocks at its surface, and is summarily packed with progressively smaller stones as the crack narrows to depth at its bottom. I'm speaking of a closed crevice that resides beneath the movable cap of friable rock--a crevice that is located much deeper down in the bedrock substructure far below that cap of friable rock.)

I hope this helps someone find some nice, sassy gold--either in the little perpendicular plates and sheets on the surface, or if you're lucky enough, in a tightly closed crevice that was once open for business. I also hope that it will help you save some time by not working barren clay deposits.

***I just remembered something. Always carefully examine the surface of any gooey, clay-jammed crevice material because if there's little stones and coarse sand jammed in that surface material, there's a good chance of gold as well.

Cut the material down to where there's no more granular particles stuck in it (you can tell by squishing the material between your fingers). Go through the hassle of liquifying it (it's going to take a bunch of time--but, just stick with it), and then pan it very carefully. As well, be sure to wash everything off in clear water so you know what you're looking at before you discard anything. Clay is not only a master of disguise, but if there's enough of it surrounding any particle of gold, you can lose the gold. In addition, sufficient clay will also grab and roll gold out right over your pan's riffles!

So, to be safe, squish and smear everything around under the water in your pan until it's well liquified, then run in clear water to float off the clouds of clay so you can see what's happening.

All the best, and good luck,

Lanny

 

[russau]

I agree Lanny ! Years back I helped a friend build a 5 inch dredge that he was/did ship to Alaska .We looked around Misery farm lands for a clear ,gravel bottomed stream. We finnaly setted just on getting it into the water. All we found close to his home was country rock bottomed streams BUT at least it had clear water ....Well we dragged it over to get into the water and watched how the water flowed in the sluice and how the dredge floated with flowing water....By then it was getting dark and I decided I needed to get going home. My friend wanted to stay and run some more and return the next day. we had got down about 3 foot deep and run into a clay layer. I thought , that's it ! We are done anyway!! but he kept at it that day and the next. When I got back to him he said he had gone through 3 clay layer's and was down about 10 feet. I'm thinking WHY DIDD HE GO THROUGH ALL THAT CLAY well he thought WHY NOT SEE HOW THIS ACTS A LITTLE DEEPER...He found small piece's of fine gold ... Not enough to keep at it BUT he did find some gold ! So that just goes to show you- you never know untill you get there and see for yourself ! I could just imagine seeing his boots sticking straight up in the air ... It was fun testing his dredge and doing the minor adjustment's he needed. Good memories anyway!

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lake Placers, Finale:

To recap the Lake Placer gold stories, after chiseling over two dozen of those sassy gold nuggets from that red hot bedrock the day before, we worked our way upward on the claim. The increased elevation allowed us to see all the way to the end of the stream-fed lake, and the sky above it was a faultless blue. In the far distance, the hills and mountains rolled away into a majestic oneness to form an unblemished horizon.

Bordering the waters of the lake were twisted ranks of Aspen and taller columns of birch. Supervising them, and standing guard on the higher slopes, were stalwart battalions of ramrod-straight pine.

Our hike upslope of the water had taken us where a breeze off the lake kept the bugs away. This silenced the unnatural screeching noises from the day before as my partner was allowed to explore the claim unmolested by flying pests.

The area we explored saw the bedrock rise in steps until it dove underneath the forest floor. Where the two areas met, a bedrock drain ran along its margin. The drain held some standing water, but it revealed areas that were dry as well. The bedrock was shot through with quartz stringers in a grey-black schist which was so folded and twisted that frequent “S” curves snaked down its entire length! Moreover, there was so much graphite in the bedrock that a grey scum floated on the surface of the water like oil, quite a rare sight.

I detected that thirty-foot length of bedrock drain and recovered slivers of machinery blade and track, as well as bits from rusted cans and rotted wire, along with the heads and tips of square nails. It was curious how bits from the modern miners were mixed with those of the Old-Timers, yet this also indicates what a good idea it is to look for gold where it was found long ago.

Detecting upslope past the bedrock drain, I found the remains of some old cabins, and I hit the mother lode of trash! Using a PI detector with no discrimination, I soon left.

I headed back downslope to some test piles I’d passed on the way up. The stacks were six to seven feet high, ones formed of ancient rust-colored river-run excavated from the bench channel that bordered the lake. The miners told me I could detect the outside of the piles, but not to knock them flat as they might get back to run them through a wash-plant at a future date. (At that time, they were breaking their equipment down so they could move it up a canyon, over a mountain, and down onto a promising river claim located in a steep bedrock canyon.)

The three piles of dirt were spaced about ten feet apart, and I fired up the detector and started to scan their sides. Almost at once I got a screamer that almost blew the headphones off. With the target sound so loud, I thought it had to be steel or iron. Regardless, I dug into the pile anyway (I dig all targets), and not long afterwards, I pulled out a length of rusted, twisted strap-iron.

Now, if you’ve ever scanned hillsides or piles before, you know that it’s painful compared to scrubbing the coil along the ground, as different muscles are used to keep the coil vertical. Along with the awkward coil movements, the day was getting hotter. Rivulets of sweat were running down my neck from the headphones. To be honest, I was getting a bit cranky, so I took a break and quit detecting. (Always a smart move.)

I left my detecting gear and wandered downhill to a settling pond, sat on a cream-colored boulder beside it and relaxed. I’ve found through the years there’s no better way to regain your detecting focus than to throw your mind out of gear to let your brain’s engine idle for a while. After a rest, the mind clears and you’re much more efficient when you pick that detector up again.

During my break I wandered to the lake’s edge and watched the rainbow trout rise for flies. As well, male hummingbirds (the tiny, brightly colored helicopters of the Boreal Forests) engaged in loud, territorial battles.

Well rested, I returned to detecting and was able to make slow vertical and horizontal sweeps of the test piles. As a reward, I received a faint tone in the headphones. I scraped away several inches of river-run. I scanned the hole, maintaining the same distance from the target as before, and the signal was much clearer now.

I poked the leading edge of the coil into the hole. Louder still. A nice rich signal. I scooped out more dirt and widened the hole. The signal sharp and crisp now. I missed the target several times with my plastic scoop. At last, I had the target!

I started to sift the material onto the coil head until I heard a “whap!” and a scream. On the coil was a chunky, beautiful 3.2-gram nugget. The gold had some tiny pockets of that tightly packed black matrix (referred to earlier) on its surface, a condition quite typical of the gold from that ancient channel.


My detecting now assisted by adrenaline, I hammered the remaining piles with the detector and teased out two more nuggets, one weighing 2.8 grams, and the other 2.3 grams. Not a bad haul for only being able to detect the outside of those test piles.

It does make me wonder though what I could have found if I’d been able to flatten those piles.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Places I'd Like To Visit Again (with new technology):

Quite a few years back, I visited a goldfield a long way off from where I live. The trip in to the site is an adventure all on its own, and the distance is a real drawback as well. However, the gold is still there because of that.

I vividly remember visiting a spot where someone had set up tin cans (with small rocks inside) stretched all around the perimeter of their set-up on long strings of baler twine; this acted as an early warning system when a bear strolled into their area.

I hiked up the mountainside directly behind this interesting campsite, and I could see where the miners had been digging along bedrock ledges, then shooting the material down a series of wooden troughs to their processing site below.

What was so interesting about this area they were mining is that there were still pickers jammed in the bedrock where they'd been working! (I found them by scraping the area for material to pan.)

I did not have a detector with me at the time that would handle the ground mineralization, but now that I have several, I'd love to head back there sometime to detect that entire draw/gulch on the mountainside.

I know with the technology I've got now that I'd have a great time gathering up some of that near-the-surface sassy gold.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[OwenT]

Hopefully you make it back there before someone else does! Sometimes it seems like you know where to fond more gold than you know what to do with!

 

[Jeff95531]

I envision it like picking wild strawberries.

 

[delnorter]

Hey Jeff, great to see you writing. Getting the itch again?

Mike

 

[Clay Diggins]

Hi Jeff, good to see you posting again!

Heavy Pans

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hopefully you make it back there before someone else does! Sometimes it seems like you know where to fond more gold than you know what to do with!

Thanks for the note Owen.

I wish I had the problem of knowing where there was too much gold. The issue isn't not knowing where the gold is, but the long trip in to get it in some cases is the real problem.

I'm still chasing the gold much closer to home these days, and I enjoy that a lot.

Nice to hear from you, and all the best as you chase that sassy gold,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

I envision it like picking wild strawberries.

Jeff, great to hear from you again!

I hope you're getting a chance or two to get out there and chase some gold. You live in a great part of the country for finding it.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[63bkpkr]

Hello Lanny, good to see you are still on here! I've finally lifted my head from the grindstone I put it on at work here in Florida however all the effort and prayers have put us on a successful path as we now have our first actual order for $$ not just samples.

In July/August of 2020 I did manage one last trip into MY NFAR country and even managed a small adventure as I located an old section of forest behind a wall of Manzanita and brush. Some of the Manz was 4" in diameter so I doubt anyone has been in there for a long time. I did very little in the way of hiking as I needed to take care of the left knee as I would need it for the job in Florida where I am being payed a good salary.

I suspect I will be here for more than the planned one year as with the first order the project has only just begun.

Good Luck to you this season! By the way, has your book been published yet? Herb

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hi Herb,

Thanks for the update and good to know your business is successful. You certainly work hard for your success, so congratulations on making it.

As for my book, I have lots of material, but I decided to renovate a home in the last little while, and that has stopped the process yet once again. One day I'll get it to a priority #1 status and get 'er done.

I haven't been able to chase the gold in a while due to the ongoing co-vid restrictions, but things are looking up, and hopefully July will provide a golden opportunity?

All the best to you buddy,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Well, July turned into a bust, no gold chasing was allowed, but hopefully the world will be a bit more normal next year?

I really want to get back in the saddle, but government is a giant burr under my saddle right now with the current restrictions.

Here's to next season!

All the best to those of you still able to chase the gold,

Lanny

 

[Terry Soloman]

Better days ahead!

 

[oneguy]

That sucks Lanny.... Hope things up there open up. Sure you're well aware our days up north are numbered.....snow starting to show higher up already.....it won't be long.

 

[Lanny in AB]

That sucks Lanny.... Hope things up there open up. Sure you're well aware our days up north are numbered.....snow starting to show higher up already.....it won't be long.

I'm sure happy for you that you were able to get out and get some nice gold this summer. Looking forward to the day when I can drive across the border again; maybe I'll get a chance to see you in person!

And yes, you're right, Old Man Winter is frosting the tops of the mountains already and soon he'll seal shut the doors of the golden goodies until next season.

All the best to you buddy,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Truly a disaster, the massive flooding going on in British Columbia right now, and very sad to see all of the news reports of the devastation in the province where I love to chase the gold. (British Columbia has been hammered by massive forest fires for the last few years, and this year again as well, and yet the rain they so desperately wanted to kill the fires was far too much too fast. The rain has caused human casualties, destroyed many homes, generated huge mudslides, destroyed highways and bridges, torn out railway beds and even reestablished a lake that was drained for farming in the 1920's.)

Sad news indeed, praying and hoping for better days ahead for all those affected,

Lanny