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.

 

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[IronMike]

Bedrock and Gold: The mysteries...

Hey Lanny in AB, thanks for the tons of good reading. I have seen in several Hyd. pits areas of black, shist/shale patches and was wondering if maybe this is the black goo bed rock you are refering to? Also, what king of signal inhancer do you use with your SD? I hunt with an OLD PRO, we both have GP X's. when I run my 8" mono, he will run his 11" that I don't have and he is constantly spanking me. I have Koss 35's and been thinking about the Gray's.
HH
Micheal

 

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[Lanny in AB]

Signal enhancer and headphones

Hey there Michael,

Thanks, and the signal enhancer I use is a Super Sound signal enhancer, and I use Gray Ghost headphones--I can really here those tiny faint signals with this setup. I'm really impressed.

I'm not exactly sure what the black-goo bedrock is, but from all the graphite swirling up in the pan when we panned it out, it's a good bet it probably was. I've never tried to work with any messier stuff in my life!

All the best,

Lanny in AB

 

[Lanny in AB]

Here's a nice mess of sassy gold!!

All the best,

Lanny in AB

 

[Lanny in AB]

Don't know what happened, but here's one of the pictures that was supposed to appear, and I'll try to toss in another one as well.

All the best,

Lanny in AB

 

[Lanny in AB]

OOPS! Must have renamed the one file--I'll try again another day. Sorry, and please accept my apologies as I'm sure it's my fault. In fact, if not for failure, I'm sure I'd never had made any discoveries while prospecting.



All the best,

Lanny in AB

 

[Lanny in AB]

Move those rocks!!

Just thought I'd post this.

One of the greatest mistakes I see made in gold country by eager rookies, is the mistake of not wanting to move the rocks--the ones in the channel, or the ones high-and-dry out of the present channel. I'll see people pecking around the rocks, dipping the tip of their shovels between the rocks to get as much material as they can, but not using the elbow grease necessary to move those rocks!

Especially the rocks stacked on bedrock--the ones thrown up there by higher, faster moving water. Sure, there's often clay, and maybe roots, and other crap jammed in there, and it's most certainly tough digging, but that's the dance you need to step to to find the good stuff.

I you dig around in the sand and the loose stuff, you'll most often get a little fine gold, and those specks can be pretty, but the better stuff needs some serious moving of nastier material.

The bigger rocks travel with, and drop out with the nicer gold. Generally, so do the darker rocks (at least up here)--for some reason, many of the heavier rocks are darker. I know the old timers used to look for darker, stained rocks. Also, don't be afraid to get to the very bottom of any cracks or crevices you uncover. Trust me, the gold loves to get down there as far as it can--so you should too. Also, watch what's coming out of the crevice--there should be lots of little packed stones and often some clay too. Wash it all very carefully--break up any bits of clay--mush them around on the bottom of your pan until they dissolve. I've found some very nice gold trapped in clay in crevices!

So, don't be afraid to move those rocks, and be exhaustive in your efforts to clean out the cracks and crevices. Remember that specific gravity should be your guide--most of the time the nicer gold travels with the beefier rocks, and the pieces of steel, and the lead fishing weights. . .

All the best,

Lanny in AB

 

[Lanny in AB]

Story

Lost Drift-Mine Cache

A few summers back the miners of a large placer operation, one located deep in the darkly wooded hills of the far northern goldfields, shared a fascinating story with me. The area of the story is heavily wooded with pines, firs, balsams, birches, and aspens. It’s far enough north that blood-sucking bugs are your constant companions. It’s far enough north that in the mornings, even in summer, there can be ice on the fire bucket. The roads in are logging roads that are always dangerous and often frightening. The place abounds with wildlife: deer, moose, elk, wolverine, fisher or martin, cougar, grizzly and black bear, eagles, hawks, grouse, raven, humming birds, and a vast and changing variety of song birds. There are lakes aplenty, rushing torrents that sweep over bedrock, larger, lazy rivers, and slower moving streams choked with alders. Mountains loom in every direction. Huge deposits of boulder clay (solid, stubborn masses of clay and rock dumped by glaciers up to and sometimes over a hundred feet thick) overlay ancient streambeds that are rich in coarse placer.

These are the deposits that create the domain of the solitary drift miner and the setting for the story. This is the realm of the tough soul that finds a bedrock outcrop then tunnels in by hand drifting along (following the contours of) the bedrock, shoring up the mine constantly (with hand-cut timbers and lagging) to prevent cave-ins. It is brutal, backbreaking work, as the tunnel height is kept as low as possible for economy of labor. Boulders are often encountered, and if they’re too large, the drift-miner has to detour over, around, or under the blockage. If a deposit is encountered that is filthy rich, the miner “rooms out” a large area, backfilling tunnels as he goes along. It is lonely work consisting of long days, but as the work is contained underground, a constant temperature results allowing the work to continue all winter long, and the winters are indeed long in the northlands. In the spring when the freshets (spring runoff) start, the pile accumulated throughout the long winter’s labor is sluiced and the profits are placed in a poke, or a tobacco can, or in coffee cans if the take was rich.

The previous introduction provides the setting for the tale that follows.

Late one chilly northern evening, as we sat around a bright, warm campfire, the local placer miners we were working with told me how several years previous one of the more reclusive members of their tiny community hadn't reported in to the neighborhood log-built store for his weekly visit.

Moreover, the settlement is such a small community that every resident is in the habit of showing up on the same day (mail day) to collect his or her letters. The miners, loggers, and trappers take time to socialize somewhat and to catch up on the news. Furthermore, because the area is quite remote, anytime someone breaks a routine (like coming in for their mail), the locals head out to see what’s wrong.

Well, sure enough as the old boy was overdue, the searchers found the salty digger cold and dead in his cabin. On his table was a nice tub of rich concentrates he'd been panning, busily working them down from the night before. Coarse gold filled the bottom of the pan. Everything in the cabin was peaceful and in order. No foul play whatsoever, he’d just slipped off quietly in his sleep to the big nugget mine in the sky.

The mystery of this unfortunate gold-seeker is that as a dedicated drift-miner, he had been mining full-time for decades in a great spot. Yes, decades. His diggin's were located on good, coarse gold-producing ground and all the locals knew it as he paid for his supplies at the log store in gold (they still take gold as payment even today, and there’s a set of scales on the main counter of the store). However, as is the case with many of the permanent residents for that tiny community, many live alone, just as the dead miner did. The local recluses spend the years without the companionship of spouse or family. They seem to love the solitude.

On a side note, some of the more colorful, mysterious characters won't allow you to take their photograph (under any circumstances!), which hints that they are probably on the run. Which indeed as I was to discover, certain ones are. Some have even been hiding out since the Vietnam war, unaware that a pardon has been granted.

By the way, there’s no local bank to stash your prospecting gold in. Moreover, the nearest approved safe place is four to six hours away, depending on road conditions, for the route out is a temper-mental mistress indeed. Furthermore, heading to the city only suits those that WANT to get out; some never take the opportunity, as they prefer the solitude of isolation over any other preference.

But, I'm wandering again, so back to my story.

The deceased miner had found a nice ancient tertiary channel that plunged with stubborn determination under a steep cliff of heavy, stable, boulder-clay overburden. Many torturous summers and winters of unfathomable effort were spent tunneling along the bedrock, doggedly excavating back and forth to stay with the pay, all the while chasing the ever-fickle path of gold. The miner's eternal quest is an ever-challenging riddle that teases to be solved. The golden enigma beckons a solution, a mystery left eons ago by a smug, confident Mother Nature. However, every once in a while, someone does solve it, and this drift miner was one of the masters.

For those of you that have seen one-man drift-mine operations, you are familiar how the tunnel's low height forces the toiling prospector to work in a perpetual, stooped condition. That's why so many of the Old-timer's walk permanently hunched over--the human form was not designed for such work in such cramped spaces. The drift miner's work was backbreaking, formidable, and the rewards continually uncertain. Months of unimaginable toil might yield absolutely nothing, or they might yield a hidden bonanza!

On a different note, I've gazed into those still dripping, cold and musty tunnels, vainly trying to fathom how mind-numbing it would be to use only a pick and shovel to chip away at unyielding ancient river material, filled throughout with everything from obstinate cobbles and stubborn cemented material, to mammoth, defiant boulders. Furthermore, my weak attempt to decipher the constant, nagging fear of cave-ins can never do justice to the true horror of such events whatsoever.

As well, add to the aforementioned fears (and demands of heavy labor), the years of breathing the stale, bad air that permeates confining world of the tunnel. I really can't comprehend how people remain motivated to suffer such hardship. And, as I was too dumb to realize that people still mined using this old, manual method, I assumed it was abandoned decades ago. Nonetheless, other determined gold-seekers still chase the gold using this method, the same method used by the deceased protagonist.

As, you've probably guessed where this story’s headed I'll continue my tale.

The old Sourdough of that lonely mine used to pay for all of his grub and supplies at the local outfitter's with lustrous, heavy gold. Never once did he use cash. Nor did he use banks; he refused to make the trip out from the goldfield. Furthermore, he trusted no one, and he always kept the cards of his golden intake close to his vest.

In addition, he had no family that anyone had ever been aware of, so the eager locals declared a treasure hunt and decided to see if they could find his cache. They thoroughly searched every possible hiding place they could imagine of his then silent claim.

However, wherever he cached his numerous sacks or containers of heavy nuggets and coarse gold, his talent for hiding them was masterful, and its effect enduring. The locals were not able to locate a single gram of it.

As I pass through this long winter, the vision of those manifold years of constant mining, the clear knowledge of that lucrative bounty garnered from endless tunneling in rich placer ground haunts and entices me yet.

For somewhere deep in that primeval northern forest, cached in the secretive, cryptic earth, there resides a sublime treasure, one laboriously wrestled from Mother Nature, yet one now silently reclaimed, resting in her clever, timeless care once again.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Lonesome Nugget

A Lonesome Nugget Tale

Back in the summer of '99, I was swinging the SD2100 up in Northern British Columbia. We four-wheeled up an incredibly bad road to get to the site. The road was so bad in fact that one of the other mining operations working in the same valley had dropped a big four-wheeled military surplus unit in one of the bigger holes, one filled with muddy rain- water. The unit sunk up past the axles, stuck fast, and would not move. After fetching a Cat, they finally got it out. So, this was the same road we had to negotiate, with the same hole, and we moved very carefully until we finally made it up to where a small creek ran down out of the high mountains, where the road turned into a rough trail. It was very muddy, the truck started to slip off the road, and we had to stop.

I got rigged up, made a lot of noise to let the Grizzlies in the thick pines know that we were in the area, and then I set off up the trail to do some detecting. Off the side of the trail, there was a long stretch of exposed bedrock that the Old-timers had cleaned off in the 1800's, but all I was finding were all kinds of square nails, bits of old tin cans, and tiny pieces of wire. I spotted the remains of an old cabin further up the trail. I scouted around it and tried some detecting, but there was so much trash under the moss that I gave up after a short while. I marched over to the creek and was confronted with piles of rocks all over the place where the Old-timers had hand-mined the creek bed, but once again, all I found were pieces of tin, plus lead bits from the solder of old tins, and the ubiquitous square nails.

I worked my way back down the trail to where the truck was parked. My buddy was slugging it out in the brush swinging his 2100, and he was really slugging it out with the bugs, and the bugs were winning!! Anyway, he came blitzing it back to the truck to spray up with the bug dope again, and off he went in a different direction. Sometimes he really is a man of few words. So, that left me standing by the truck. I'd already detected all the exposed bedrock I could find, but I'd noticed on the way up the trail that someone had dug a test hole and piled a big mound of muck by the road.

Since I had nothing else to do, and since my buddy was busy donating life and soul to the Northern Bug Blood Bank, I wandered down to the test hole. I detected all around the bottom of the hole and only found a few bits of tin, and two square nails. On the sides of the hole I found more nails, but these were round nails, so obviously this was an area that was worked in the 30's; in fact, there were more miners active in this particular goldfield in the 30's than there were in the 1800's during the original strike.

At the far end of the test hole, there was a large boulder. I went over and the whole thing was a hot rock! I'm no geologist, so I have no idea what kind of rock it was, but the 2100 constantly sounded off on it no matter how I configured it. Well, just to the side of it was a little dike of dirt, one pushed up from the test hole. I climbed up on top and started to detect it. The ground was very slippery, and the next thing I knew, it had caved off and down I rocketed right into the muck and water in the bottom of the test hole.

After this little adventure, I was ready to head back to the truck. I was muddy, wet, and tired. It had been a long unrewarding day, but that far north, it's still very light at eleven at night, so my stubborn streak kicked in, and I decided I'd claw my way back up to detect the top of that wall of dirt again. And that's the thing, it was dirt--no river run in it, just a bunch of black clay and goo. I walked along more carefully this time, came to the break in the dirt I'd made when I slipped off, and gingerly slid the coil across the gap. Almost instantly I got a nice sweet signal. This one was nice and smooth--no harsh growl like you get with a round nail. I worked my way across the breach and set up shop. I passed the coil over the signal again, approaching from a different direction. Still a nice smooth sound and very clear. It sounded like it had to be shallow. I dug down with my plastic scoop and scanned again. The hole was silent, but the scoop had a nice rich sound when I scanned it. I started to cut and split off the dirt in the scoop. I finally got to the last of the dirt, and the signal was still in the scoop. I dumped the dirt in my hand and passed it under the coil. The signal was definitely in my hand. I started to move the lumps of soil on the coil and then, thwack! The object hit the coil. All I could see was that black dirt. I moved the bits around and one of them squealed when I moved it. I picked it up and rubbed off the dirt, and sure enough, there was that unmistakable, unforgettable golden glow. After cleaning it off, I had a nice round northern nugget. It was a nice sassy five grammer.

I detected around the rest of the dirt, but no more luck. When my buddy came out of the bush and saw my nugget, he gave the detecting a go as well--no luck whatsoever. So, who knows why that lonesome nugget picked that spot, but it did.

All the best,

Lanny in AB

Author's note: since the big TNet meltdown--a bunch of the text has been messed up in these earlier posts--the dashes and apostrophes appear as question marks!? I'll fix them as I have time, as I've just fixed this post.

 

[Lanny in AB]

Metal Detecting Nuggets

(How do nuggets appear, from time to time, to know that we are hunting them so they can either avoid or humiliate us?)

Armed one fine day with the superb Minelab SD 2100, I set off to ferret out a nugget or two one balmy, late-summer weekend.

As a nugget shooter, I sometimes don't always appreciate the difficulties associated with hunting nuggets. I know that's hard to believe, but it's too often true.

In spite of the predictable difficulties, I calmly set off to work a spot where a tiny creek intersected a sassy, but secretive, gold-producing river.

The Oldtimers had worked this area heavily; their hand-mining stacks of cobbles and boulders were piled on a bench of highly fractured, ancient black slate bedrock. Dimly, I realized that to move all of those boulders, a lot of real work and genuine sweat were required; so, I chose instead to hike along the banks of the river proper to detect all of the lovely exposed bedrock that the lower water levels had left high and dry.

Square nails, blasting caps, a coin, lead fishing weights, 17 cal. lead pellets, bits and pieces of disfigured iron junk were my only rewards. As a side note, across the swiftly flowing river, two rookies staggered and stumbled about in the rocks, flailing the water to a white foam with their steel pans. But, they found no gold, whatsoever. (I wondered to myself if they'd have put dirt and rocks in their pans if that might have given them a better chance at finding gold? Just kidding . . . But, they really were awful, a lot like me when I first started out.)

Nonetheless, back to my story. I looked up the bank and stared at the washtub-sized boulders and melon-sized cobbles piled on the bench above me, realizing I'd have to tear them all down in order to detect the ancient cracks of the bedrock bedded beneath them. After all, those cracks might hide some elusive gold left by the Oldtimers as they raced to the next rush hoping to find easier gold in shallow diggin's.

Using a massive steel pry bar, gallons of elbow grease, and creating all sorts of convoluted body positions that would make a contortionist blush, I at last uncovered the bedrock.

However, this was all accomplished only after thoroughly terrifying the aforementioned gold-panning rookies across the river. (Something to do with my bursts of uncontrolled speed, while chucking cobbles in every direction, all accompanied by my colorful, explosive expressions.) In addition, the rookies were somewhat shaken by the thunder produced from my side of the canyon as I barred boulders down-slope toward them, even though they were clearly protected by no less than twenty feet of turbulent river!

In spite of their alarm and fear, I began to search the bedrock with my faithful detector. Nine targets were quickly identified. All turned out to be tiny bits of rusted tin can, AKA, can-slaw.

Almost, but not thoroughly demoralized, I sat down to re-ponder my efforts. Meanwhile, across the river, the rookies had abandoned their pans, and imitating my fruitless efforts, they were now attacking the bedrock on their side of the river with dedicated passion. Great slabs of slate were giving way under their relentless assault. Shortly thereafter, they scooped some creviced material, plopped it in their pans, and thrashed the water smartly once again, but still they captured no gold. (At least, it didn't appear they'd found any gold, because they repeatedly threw all of their pans' contents back into the river! But, perhaps they were simply members of that new environmentally friendly breed of "catch and release" panner.)

Regardless, already pondering my next move, I attempted to decipher where nature had moved the nuggets I couldn't seem to find.

So, I abandoned my diggings, waved a half-hearted goodbye to the rookies who'd suddenly realized they were trapped on the opposite side of the river by the deep, fast moving water, and left the Cheechakos there with no hope of crossing the stream in case they wanted to tag along. (After all, It wouldn't do to follow me anyway, what with all of my recent, stellar success.)

Nevertheless, moving on as nuggets prefer clever locations, I had a giant brainwave and drove a short distance to a previously scouted location to begin a crazy descent into what I realize now was a veritable abyss. At its bottom were a series of exposed bedrock outcroppings. Being not so foolish as to hunt such easy pickings (although the next day, a much wiser hunter took an eight gram nugget out of said bedrock #@$!*!), I chose instead a likely looking, much more challenging region of virgin bedrock covered with lots of cobbles and hefty boulders.

After a leisurely two hours of hot sweat and ragged pain, the area was sufficiently cleared to hunt. Many careful passes were made with the detector. At last a tiny whisper announced a golden presence as the coil gently scrubbed the sharp edges of the slate bedrock. After I'd chipped away the stone, the signal was somewhat louder but still difficult to pinpoint, as it was in a place where the mother rock rose sharply at a forty-five degree angle. Now close to my mental metal detecting limit, I turned the mono coil on its side and pinpointed the signal. Gingerly, I tapped around the signal with hammer and chisel and out popped a quarter-gram nugget. (Well, of course, back then pride [whose slave I sometimes am] dictated that I had to call it a nugget; I mean, after all of that work . . .)

With a calm and horrible creeping recognition, my dim brain was forced to accept that never, with the exception of a near-death trip down some slick boulder clay in a remote northern location, had I worked so hard in my life for far less than minimum wage!

However, to lift my spirits somewhat, the pleasant prospect of getting to pack sixty pounds of equipment up a mostly vertical, avalanche-prone scree covered slope was still mine to playfully savor . . .

All the best,

Lanny in AB

 

[Lanny in AB]

Tribute to sixteen nuggets

I wrote these verses in tribute to seventeen nuggets I found this summer while detecting.

Three times
Thrice tried
Three times and bare . . .

Glorious bedrock,
But fair nuggets?
No signatures of gold anywhere.

Once more
Climb on,
Once more again

Scanning the bedrock
The science of now,
The bedrock of ghostly men.

A whisper
Tiny, but defined.
A whisper that breathes the nugget's name.

Bright nuggets appear,
Riddles solved,
Ones left by the diggers of old.

Lanny in AB

 

[Lanny in AB]

Santa's Golden Boot

Santa's Golden Boot

Since it's getting close to Christmas, I thought I'd share this story about a very peculiar nugget I found up north one bug-infested summer.

In fact, it was the same summer that I had a close encounter with a bear and a moose--the bear was very aggressively hunting the moose, had the moose by the rump at one point--but that's another story--a fascinating story to be hammered out on a long winter's night . . . . So as not to delay this budding tale too long, here's one of my summer nugget stories.

My best-detecting-mining friend and I were out scouring and electronically pounding electronically super-heated bedrock with the Minelab SD 2100. The bedrock was that infamous black slate-schist-quartz-stringered super hot garbage that eats all VLF's for lunch, breakfast and even dinner! I had already been over said piece of bedrock earlier in the day. Moreover, the weather was hot and ugly, and let me tell you, your back sure starts to sweat under that little factory-issued Minelab backpack. (Thank heavens now for the little aftermarket backpack that rides on your lower back only.) (Update--thank heavens for the little ones that you clip to your pocket, or your belt, or to the side of your machine!!)

The black flies and mosquitoes were terrible, to shoot you the truth, the worst I'd ever seen (and brother--that's saying something!!), as there was an above average snow pack that created and left lots of puddles all over the forest for those blood-thristy-anethestizing-northern-devils to breed in--they were thick.

But, back to my story, we'd already hit this piece of bedrock earlier in the day and hadn't heard an electronic peep of anything promising, so we'd moved on. But, being the stubborn beast that I am, I returned to the same spot, and decided to go by the prospector's bible and hunt it real s-l-o-w; trust me on this: it always pays to go s-l-o-w in gold country. (Update--go slow and stay low--scrub the ground with your coil cover.)

Anyway--to return to my story--I got the merest speck of a signal, very weak, but constant. After cleaning the dirt from that black devil-slate-graphite-schist, all that was left was solid bedrock! The gold wasn't in the dirt; that was for sure. However, after passing back over the mother rock again the signal had grown, though barely louder, but it was consistently constant; in other words, it was a real signal. Taking a small sledge and a chisel, my buddy and I carefully chipped off about an inch of bedrock. Next, I slowly swept the area again. The signal was louder! And, remember, this was solid bedrock--we were shaving the rock off--but I could tell by looking at it (from what I had learned from previous outings) that this was an ancient crevice we were now exposing: one now cleverly camo-cemented, and on the hardness scale, every bit as hard as the surrounding bedrock. On adrenaline boost, I realized that now was the time for excitement! I knew it couldn't be junk as it was too deep in an old permanent crevice (no junk in dinosaur days), and I hoped it wasn't a piece of native iron, because we'd certainly dug about thirty pieces of that awful imposterous (and preposterous) garbage that day already.

We had a large sharpened steel bar with us (about two meters long) and I carefully took off another two inches of bedrock. As you may have surmised, the signal was getting louder, producing a tone nice and sharp in the center, with no breakup in signal on the edges. (It's important to remember this last tip, as zingy hot rocks will do this, as will extreme ground mineralization.)

My happy-place sonar was pinging--it was definitely sounding more like a nugget the deeper we went. I carefully took the small sledge and chipped a circular pattern well around the outside parameters of the signal (as determined by using the edge of the double d coil). I broke out a piece of bedrock (going another inch deeper) that was about the size of a small medicine bottle lid. (To keep the target from flying off into the Boreal wilderness, we used a plastic gold pan as a chipping shield, one stood on edge, placed directly in front of, and just downhill from the face of the bedrock we were breaking up. It works fine, stopping the chips of rock from rolling or flying down the hill, keeping them directly in front of the digger in case a nugget pops loose--saves a lot of time so you don't have to chase the sassy beauties down the hill if they organize a prison break to bust out and head for the hills). I scanned the hole, and it was deathly quiet--rather disconcerting that is at times (Has the nugget been launched into time and space--never to be recovered? Been there--done that!). But, I scanned the small piece of rock and got a nice brisk signal! I couldn't see anything, so I very carefully tapped on the piece of stone and ancient conglomerate until it broke open.

All at once, I could see a small beautiful golden edge. I took the piece of stone, with the peek-a-boo bit of gold, and scanned it once more. A positive signal! Then I scanned the other broken half, but it had gone completely dead.

Very carefully, I tapped on the rock, gently breaking the remaining vestiges away. Hit me in the face with a forty-pound frozen salmon if I wasn't rewarded with a pristine character nugget that looks just like one of Santa's boots! The resemblance is remarkable--uncanny actually. I've had it mounted and given it to my niece for a Christmas present. If she comes home for the holidays, she's living in Kentucky now, I'll snap a picture with the digital camera and post it--nature can sure craft some incredible golden sculptures, even ones that fit the season! (Update--she lost the boot in a move from one city in Kentucky to the next--the bail broke. And, she's just heartbroken--amazing how attached she was to that little treasure. But, they truly are one of a kind--never to be replicated--never to be duplicated. Now, I'll just have to find her something uniquely gorgeous as a substitute--there will never be a true replacement.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Christmas Gold.

Here is my golden tribute, all in fun, to
Major Henry Livingston Jr.'s (1748-1828) classic work,
(previously believed to have been created by Clement Clarke Moore).


T'was the night before Christmas, as I skulked through the hills,
All others were absent--no digging, no thrills.
(Their detectors were slung in their basements with care,
In the hopes that good weather soon would be there.)

All nuggets were nestled in snug riverbeds
While visions of flood-waters danced through their heads.
(Big ouncer's in slate, fat slugs in their traps,
Had just hunkered down for their long winter's naps.)

I hammered that bedrock with electronic clatter--
Those nuggets sprang up to see what was the matter!
From out of the cracks they flew like a flash,
Punched straight through the cobbles, the whole golden stash!

The moon, bathed in frostbite that nibbled my toe,
Threw a blanket of gold on that cover of snow.
Then what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a flying red sluice box, with eight Nugget-T deer,
(Nugget T? Saint Nug's brand--I guess . . . .)

With a little old picker, so saucy and smug,
I knew in a moment it must be Saint Nug!
More rapid than hot-rocks his Nuggie's they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, ROCKER! Now, DREDGER! Now, HOSER and CRUSHER!
On, GRIZZLY! On HEADER! On, SNIPER and SLUICER!
To the box on the sluice! To the riffle-bar wall!
Now pan away! Blast away! Wash it out all!"

As the dry washer's dust that puffs up to the eye,
When it meets with an updraft, curls off through the sky,
So up through the pine trees those gold nuggies flew,
With that sluice full of oro, and St. Nuggy too.

And then, in a twinkling, I saw like a goof
My detector and coil--my electronic proof!
As I gathered my hardware and was turning around,
Down the valley St. Nuggetus came with a bound.

He was dressed all in placer, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were afire with golden Kar-utt!
(You try rhyming that one!)
A bundle of nuggets were slung on his back,
And he looked like a Sourdough just opening his pack.

His eyes -- how they sparkled! His nose lit the ground!
His lips were six-ouncers, his chin weighed a pound!
His wire-gold mouth was drawn up like a bow,
His silvered-chin-whiskers matched almost the snow;

The stump of a probe he held tight in his teeth,
And gold flakes encircled his head like a wreath;
His face gave a good tone; and his round little tum
Was a sweet low-high-low, a rich golden hum!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old slug,
And I laughed when I saw him, that happy St. Nug;
I tuned out the ground noise to clear out my head,
A sweet sounding Zip-Zip gave nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
Cleaned all of those nuggets; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the channel he rose;

He burned a 360, way up in the air,
Then tossed me some nuggets with never a care.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he sluiced out of sight,
"GOLDEN CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT."

All the best this festive season!

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Arizona Gold Desert Tale

Hello again to all,

Where to begin this desert tale . . . Well, hunting for nuggets in the Arizona desert in February was a unique experience. For starters, I was way out of my natural element, that's for sure. (I mean, I left my home diggin's where the ground was still frozen stiff. I'm talking about not being able to dig a hole in that hardened northern soil even with the aid of a Nuke!) So, when I got to Arizona and the ground was all soft and warm, and the oranges were on the trees, and the grapefruits too--I'm sure I was suffering some kind of climatic prospector shock. But, it sure felt nice. Reflect on it a bit--what's a poor northern boy like me supposed to think all warmed up in a climate so absolutely foreign as that? Nevertheless, after a day of acclimatizing, and a bit of resting up from almost thirty hours of accumulated driving, I was truly ready to head for the hills.

I stayed with a friend of mine, an old prospecting buddy--a feisty fightin' rooster of a nugget hunter that partner surely is. He took me in and showed me how to scratch in the dirt when I was hardly more than an egg. But no matter, I digress in telling my tale, again.

So, I was staying at his place. He's got a nice fifth wheel, and I slept in my snug little tent on the desert floor beside it. (As an aside, I am living proof that even though it's warm in the desert day sun, it's cold enough at night to freeze the pipes in a boiler room!! Moreover, I really know what people mean when they say you can freeze to death in the desert! I have a whole new respect for places with thin air and no moisture.) Anyway, somewhat flummoxed after chipping a coating of ice off my forehead in the morning, I rousted out my Minelab SD, and all my other nugget hunting regalia. I then mounted up on my desert camel--a Suzuki quad--one fittingly equipped with a range of low and high gears for negotiating those steep hills and desert arroyos.

Then, off we (my partner and I) went through the Saguaro cactus, pric--kly pear, Palo Verde trees, Mesquite brush, patches of Creosote, and the jumping Cholla! That jumping cactus truly is nasty stuff!! Don't ever fight with it--you'll lose for sure.

Regardless, we cruised along quite nicely among the cactus and the brush--almost every living plant out there is armored and spiked and thorned! Lot's of painful lessons they had to teach me, I'll tell you. Nevertheless, we got down in to some dry washes and then we made pretty good time. (I had a little trouble relating to rivers of sand, instead of water, but they're called rivers down there, even without water in them. Moreover, for comfort and ease of travel, they sure beat bouncing over the cobbles higher up on those rough mountain, connecting valley, and brush trails.

Anyway, at last we topped out on a huge plateau, and my friend pointed to some mountains and let me know that the one in the middle was Rich Hill. Imagine that--here I was staring at a place I'd read about a hundred times. I'd dreamed of the nuggets so big you'd stub your toe on them. And yet, here I was staring away into the distance at the actual place I'd always tried so hard to imagine.

And let me tell you; it was something. (But, when I got up close and personal with the mountain later in the week, it was even more of a spell caster: there really is something about that mountain that grabs you and wants to hold you. Plus, there's so much history embraced there. In fact, you can still see some of the original buildings. Furthermore, old mines and workings are everywhere.) So, I couldn't believe I was finally really there in the desert, and that I would soon get a chance to go for some of that beautiful Arizona, desert gold.

A little farther up the trail we had to slow up to watch a herd of wild pigs go rooting and swaggering down a winding pig trail. My friend said we were lucky to see them, I guess they're not real social. Perhaps that is because other humans like to shoot them and roast them? Maybe . . . .

Furthermore, Javelinas are supposed to be right tasty, I've heard. So, we moseyed on up, and then down, and then over and around those trails a bit more, until my friend stopped and pointed to the ground and told me to tie up my 4-wheeled camel so we could get off and stretch our legs and commence to swingin' those detectors.

Man, I pounded that dusty ground all day, and I found old bullets, and bullet casings, and square nails, and horseshoe nails, and boot tacks, and bits of wire. But no sassy nuggets wanted to be found. Ominously, the sky was acquiring some darkness, so we got those gasoline-drinking desert ships fired up and headed to our lodgings for the night. My friend's Missus had a whopping good meal prepared for us, as she did every night for that entire week. (What a fine thing it is to come down from the mountains and out of the brush to a warm, delicious meal! I mean, I was totally spoiled at end of the week: I had to put more air in the tires as the week wore on just to keep up to the increasing burden from all of that good cooking.) Nevertheless, weight gain aside, each and every day we'd head out into the desert to look for the gold.

We went to a spot where the old-timers had dry-washed a powerful pile of dirt to find themselves some gold, so we did a little panning there in a gully, and we got some pretty specks and flakes too. However, I also nugget hunted around that arroyo and found more of the same odd assortment of the leavings of long-forgotten men, but no nuggets. Yet, the days were beautiful and warm, and the desert's haunting beauty magnificently grew on me.

(You know, I've never had a desire to go to the desert, I Mean, what's out there, right? Wrong! Dead wrong. That place is packed with plant and animal life--just different that's all. And it's got its own magnetic beauty; it really clinches your soul right to it.)

But, back to my story. We worked up the valley slope, just below Rich Hill, and pounded and probed the ground with our electronic waves, yet all we got for rewards were the never-changing reminders of the old sourdough's passing. But, no matter where we went, my buddy and his desert-resident-buddy kept saying how many fat and sassy nuggets they'd found every place they took me to. Moreover, they were taking me to their best honey holes, and they just couldn't calculate why we weren't findin' the gold. (In all honesty, I was enjoying myself so much, and I was so glad to be away from snow and ice and frozen ground, that I didn't have the heart to tell them that it was OK not to be hittin' the nuggets.)

We took a day off from swinging, scraping, and digging, and went up to Stanton, Arizona. The real town was located a bit farther up the gulch, but the re-established ghost town was fun to look at nonetheless. In addition, out of dumb blind luck, I met Chris Gholson of Arizonaoutback.com, and Jonathan Porter (an Aussie nugget hunter that's snagged many, many hundreds and hundreds of ounces of gold with his detector). So, that was an incredible, intriguing, informative experience.

(On a different vein, let me tell you something--that Rich Hill is tunneled into all over the place--I mean she's really been bored into, but I didn't have permission to hunt up Frenchman's gulch, or any of the other savory sounding spots that looked so tempting.)

By the way, at the bottom of Rich Hill, by the roadway, there are all kinds of boulders stacked on top of each other, and all kinds of Saguaro cactus growing up amongst them. It's quite an unforgettable sight. As well, there's all these old stone buildings, rock walls, yawning mine adits, waste dumps, and intriguing trails to the gold heading off into every nook and cranny in the hills. You can really see how parts of that legendary land were dug up, moved, re-routed, and then turned upside down to get at the gold.

In the gullies below the mountain there were all kinds of RV's and all sorts of fine people out nugget hunting and gold digging. Some were even gold washing with those re-circulating, self-contained gold machines. It was a busy magical tableau of energetic, adventurous humanity. All explored out, we made our way back to base-camp, to another fantastic meal.

On the last day of my golden desert adventure, we headed out to a promising spot we'd lightly hit earlier in the week. I toddled off down an old trail and commenced to slashing the air with my coil, down in the clutches of the rocks and vegetation of a steep arroyo. There were nests of boulders littered about all down that wash, and lots of exposed clay, so my hopes were high. I found some fine old bullets, some enigmatic casings with no manufacturing marks, but no gold. My friend came and hollered me out of there, calling me back up to the top. He opened his hand and full across the width of his palm there snoozed a beautiful, porked-out gold and quartz specimen, twice as big around as a candy bar it was!!

After I pulled the cactus spines out of my jaw, from where it had dropped in dumb amazement onto the desert floor, I asked him if I could see the spot of discovery. He took me to a flattened out area of reddish clay, one with all kinds of white quartz scattered throughout the ground. He showed me the honey-hole where he'd found it and motioned for me to put that beauty back into its desert nesting site. Then he told me to cover the specimen gold up, next to swing my coil over it so's I could hear what a sassy desert beauty really sounded like. Man, did that quartz-gold chunk ever make a sweet intoxicating growl in my headphones! If gold can have a voice, that one's voice could have put me in rehab!

Well, we were at the end of my last detecting day, and what a wonderful way it was to finish off. True, I got skunked in the nugget category, but I'm now rich with a warm love of the desert, and I'm rarin' to go back.

All the best,

Lanny

[Author's note--I did go back, and I met up with Bill Southern--he took me out in the desert for a day, but that's a story for another day.]

 

[Lanny in AB]

Gold plated nail head

Here's a little mystery for you. I was detecting on a big outcrop of bedrock, way up north, one day, and I rooted an old square nail out of a deep crevice. The head of that old square had a gold-plated spot on it. It wasn't a flake stuck to the nail--it was a superfine coating of gold.

Anyone else ever seen the like? Knew a guy from the Yukon that swore he found an entire gold-plated square nail once.

All the best,

Lanny in AB

 

[dozer]

the black coating is Manganese Dioxide

If you find quartz float with black film on a fracture plane, it's usually a good prospecting sign...

(not the 'black' you sometimes see on quartz from biota growing on it...hard to describe the difference, but once you've seen both kinds alot, you'll know the MnO2 when you see it)

 

[dozer]

Lanny,

Thanks much for all the great writing ! Enjoyed it a lot.

By the way, some times that graphite and graphitic-schist will contain gold itself. What I mean is that carbon is a powerful attractor of gold.

Colloidal gold and gold in solution will be adsorbed into the graphite matrix. This is exactly how they get gold out of the leach solutions, after leaching the ore.

You might want to bring home a bucket of it, and strip it the same way they strip the carbon in the heap-leach mills. Ya just might find that your "pain in the ass" graphite is carrying an oz/ton...

Or maybe not....since a miner's life is that way... <g>

 

[AU79]

Ok lets talk some Geology here, I would take a small core sample with a electric drill of that bed rock and identify its formation name type and age, then you would be able to beep those same outcropping through the structure for more gold.

 

[Lanny in AB]

One summer not long ago, it was hot—too hot in fact—as it was nothing but miserable to try nugget shooting during the best part of the day. So, early mornings and late evenings were the only comfortable times to detect.

Now, not being able to sniff out those sassy little nuggets, well, that's an awful shame. You see—the climate I exist in is generally plumb ornery and downright disobliging. It’s possessed of a cranky and foul-tempered nature. Moreover, it resembles winter for too much of the year.

As a matter of fact, even during our brief semi-polar summer, its too much like late Fall for too many days. (Anyway, that’s just life here in the land of the Chosen Frozen, or the Frozen Chosen—whichever way you look at it.) If you think on it, it's ironic to have winter end, only to have it so hot in the summer that it's too hot to detect!

But, regardless, the summer was powerful hot. So hot that the boulders, cobbles, and pebbles all scampered together under the trees to cool off in the shade! Well, all right, I’m exaggerating. Truth be told, only the boulders made it under the trees. They left no room for the smaller rocks.

However, heat aside, there was one place in that paradise of warmth with a frigid gold-producing environment. That location was the crystalline, icy depths of the river.

As a matter of northern fact, the water is glacier fed in that locale. So, it NEVER gets warm—not even close. (I tried bathing in it once, and the bar of bluish-purple soap I lathered up with froze hard to my leg. My partner saw it and thought I'd been bitten by one of the smaller wood ticks we have. . . . Just kidding! So, he charged into the river with two red-hot pokers to burn that blood-sucker off my leg. I can see him still, sprinting over the surface of the water—those blazing pokers ready to do the tick in. That vision truly motivated me. I had no idea I could run that fast across razor-sharp outcrops of black slate in my bare feet, the willows and rosebushes playfully stitching red welts all across my sky-clad body! . . . I'm still kidding!!)

Hmm, I've wandered just a tad from the truth of my story, for the tick was quite a bit bigger than the bar of soap, and I was fully clothed, but I'll get back to the truth so I can relay the essentials.

Anyway, I welcomed the chance to change my gold-seeking activities so I could escape the heat. As the detecting weather was a total bust, I looked forward (upon reflection, somewhat recklessly) to the chilly embrace of the river.

Moreover, now that I'm back to the truth, a note about the stream: dredging can only be carried on during a strictly regulated season. The regulations protect the spawning rituals of the various species of game fish that populate its sparkling waters. Quite frankly, as I'm an avid angler and want the fish to prosper, I applaud the measures.

As fishing relates to gold prospecting, I get a wondrous rush from catching a six-pound rainbow, much like I get a high-octane blast from retrieving a sassy six-gram nugget! However, I’d best return to gold tale.

My dredger's mate (it's the title I've given my trusty partner—a name not quite fitting for the person that performs such labor intensive, and often boring work). With his help, I lugged all the surface-suction essentials down to the river. (The trips back and forth to get the equipment on site are part of the mundane duties of dredging.) Eventually, we made it to the place we'd chosen the previous summer.

Now, that spot looked mighty intriguing. It was in a place where a hump of bedrock protruded from the edge of the far bank. The obtrusion jutted stubbornly into the river, forming a powerful back-eddy during Spring-flood, quite capable of creating a saucy little gold trap.

So, once we floated the system across and wrestled the Anaconda (the twenty feet of obnoxious suction hose that has turned me into a pro wrestler!) onto the jet tube in the strong current, we were ready to have at it.

The bedrock, as previously stated, was close to the surface, and after a couple of hours of systematic work, I was at the bottom of a v-shaped trough. There among the cracks, I could see visible gold poking from cracks and crevices—a dazzling contrast against the black. That beautiful sight of sharp contrast often immobilizes me.

Quite stilled and frozen in time, I watch it flashing there, magically winking in that most crystalline aquatic world. Something commands me to stop dredging, to stare and reflect deeply. All other thoughts evaporate. All work stops. Nothing goes up the nozzle—the ever-restless Anaconda tries to shift and root its snout, so I slap a flat rock across its mouth, but still I stare into that golden-rayed liquid microcosm of pristine aqueous time. There's nothing to match that dazzling instant when Nature illuminates the treasured metal it’s lovingly concealed for myriad millennia.

But, at some point, reality fetches me from the enchantment. The temperature of the water, in reality. It's just too cold, so I have to move again, before any more of me turns blue, or before my buddy runs at me again with those red-hot pokers. . . .

So, I had my dredger's mate hand me the forceps, long-nosed ones designed to reach into the bottom of stingy crevices. Consequently, with their help, I liberated a dozen golden beauties, then bore them all to surface to enjoy some warm, yellow sunshine. Metallic sunshine meeting its maker, so to speak.

My partner finally had the reward all dredger's mates wait for, the magical glimpse of long lost gold. His stunning instant of enjoyment that counterfeits my underwater impression in every way—yet bonds with it so perfectly.

Thanks for your time, and all the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

A few years back up in the far mountains of North-Western British Columbia, I came across some large-scale placer miners that were finishing up with a big open pit. In fact, in a couple of days they were going to back-fill it and reclaim it. So, I asked if I could detect it with the SD. They had a good laugh as they told me how none of those new-fangled beepers could work on their bedrock--it was just too hot.

Well, I'd already found some absolutely beautiful gold on a claim up the creek from their operation that had bedrock twice as hot as the spot they were mining. In fact, what intrigued me was what I could see in the bottom of the pit some very solid concreted material: so solid that it had remained in place even after the dozer and excavator had scraped and worked it.

When I mentioned I was more interested in detecting that cemented spot, rather than the rest of the bare bedrock in the pit, well, that got a charge out of them as well. Then, one of them told me how they'd never found gold in that cemented stuff--it was the wrong kind--too hard, wrong color. So, they told me to have at it!

Well, it only took me a few minutes to pop out two nice nuggets in the three gram range, and it was chisel and hammer work--I used one of those Estwing rock bars with the nice sharp tip, and a small hand sledge. Now, the sight of those chunky little nuggies made those fellows perk right up!

After another ten minutes I had two more--nothing bigger than three grams, but nice plump gold--no hammered stuff.
Suffice it to say, after my visit, they crushed all cemented material they could get out. But you know, it's way nicer to have a detector that can tell you if the gold's there before you go to all the trouble of crushing it up.

I had a couple of other great detecting outings on some of their other workings. You see, they were just dumbfounded that a detector could find gold in their awful bedrock that they gave me the run of sixteen miles of claims! And, that's a fact. Furthermore, they were leaving gold in other places too, but those are stories for another day.

All the best,

Lanny in AB

 

[Lanny in AB]

Here's a mystery of a totally different type.

And, it's a story that's no bull.

In a town, not far from here, a local butcher slaughtered a cow (not a bull), and I guess some of the slaughter-house types open the stomach of the bovine browsers just to see what's in there--I really don't know.

But you all know how heavy those steel cow magnets are. What's much heavier? You guessed it! In that stomach was a nice clutch of coarse gold.

They had it displayed in their shop window for years.

I've done some follow up on this story and the cow was grazing up in some hills North and West of the butcher's location. The theory is that the cow had come upon some kind of natural mineral lick that just happened to have coarse gold in the dirt as well.

And no, I haven't found it yet, but as is said in the classic gold hunting tale, The Mother Lode, "there's always one place you haven't looked". And, I know it's true, because I know of thousands of places I haven't looked yet, but I hit a few more every year. . . .

All the best,

Lanny in AB