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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[Lanny in AB]

Well JW--you and I simul-posted. Get this:

E.D.:

Wow--now that is a great story. You had yourself the start of a little hard-rock mine right there at your fingertips. What an incredible shot of luck. If you still remember where it is, maybe you should file a hard-rock claim and see if it pinches out, or see if it widens into a major ore body.

I too remember my early days of dredging--I had read all kinds of books and didn't need anyone telling me what to do either. Because of that, I spent years missing some great gold that an experienced dredger had told me about many years earlier. I finally decided to do exactly what he'd told me to do all of those years ago (I tried it last summer), and guess what? Yup--some incredible gold right where he said I'd find it, but it seemed like it was far too easy.

Well, it was far easier than a lot of other heavy work I'd done dredging, and it produced more gold. Go figure. Now I listen far more than I talk. You know--two ears, one mouth--listen twice as much as you speak--that kind of thing. I realized last summer that I still have much more to learn.

Great story--thanks for posting, and if you've got any more--fire away!

All the best,

Lanny

 

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[EagleDown]

Hi there Eagledown. BEST YOU GO BACK & CHECK IT OUT. You never know, maybe no one else has come across it once it got covered up again. What are the chances?

JW

Hi Kiwi, Thanks for the suggestion, but at my age, I think it would be a little more than I would want to tackle.

The main problem, as I see it, is that the vein of quartz is in about 3 to 4 feet of water, in the river proper. And unfortunately, California has a "moritorium" on dredging and that would be the only way to find the start of the quartz/gold vein. (Or at least the part that I uncovered.)

Plus, they put in a dam down-river to form lake McClure. I would be willing to escort anyone interested to where I found the vein and let them do whatever they liked with it. I believe that it could be intersected by digging above the waterline. If so, it would be a "strike" that would really make the news.

Interestingly enough, this is in an area that was noted for its high-grade mines. Or, as we use to call it, "Picture Gold". It's also almost directly across the river from a "Lost Treasure" that I posted in the Treasure Legends - California forum in the thread: The Many Lost Treasures of Mariposa, CA.

I'd like everyone to understand that it occurred to me that I'm not getting any younger, so I thought that I'd share some of my years of accumulated knowledge before it's lost forever. I'm not really interested in fame or fortune, I gave that dream up years ago. I would just like to let people know that there are many "lost treasures", all over the world. Most of them had only one person that had knowledge of them, and that person is probably long gone from this earthly existance.
I mean; I personally know of about 2 dozen that I have had personal experience of, and I'm only one person.

Can you imagine getting a 1,000 people together and having each of them tell you about their little lost treasures, both large and small?? A life time wouldn't be long enough to search for all of them!! I remember that at the age of about 12 years, my foster brother and I buried a pint jar with several dollars in change in it.

We were better pirates than cartographers because we never found that jar again.

Hey Lanny,

I have a little more knowledge left to share. So, rest assured, I'll be back in to share it.

ED

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi Eagledown, A great post & thanks for sharing. I sort of thought that you wouldnt be a spring chicken & it is very kind of you to share your location. I am sure there will be many that will go look now that you have planted the seed.
There is certainly "Something In The Hills If You Are Willing To Look"

Take care

regards

JW

 

[lamar]

Dear group;
Here is something else that a person may see from time to time. When you are working bedrock, make sure that it's actually the real bedrock that you are working and not a *false* bedrock which is covering the true bedrock. Many times soils and sands may cover the actual bedrock and over time, along with immense pressures, form a sort of protective layer or *cap* over the bedrock. This type of covering material is generally a light sandstone sort of rock and is fairly easily removed with some diligent chipping and scraping. Also, be aware that the same sandstone may cover or actually *seal* the cracks in the true bedrock, thus making recovery of minerals more difficult.
Your friend;
LAMAR

 

[EagleDown]

Hi Eagledown, A great post & thanks for sharing. I sort of thought that you wouldnt be a spring chicken & it is very kind of you to share your location. I am sure there will be many that will go look now that you have planted the seed.
There is certainly "Something In The Hills If You Are Willing To Look"

Take care

regards

JW

Spring chicken Hey, I'm not even sure that I qualify for a "Fall chicken".
I don't even crow anymore, now I just sit on the fence and try to teach the "spring chickens" how to do it right (Sometimes they even listen.)

 

[Lanny in AB]

Hey Lamar--thanks for that tip about the false bedrock--got a little story to go along with it? Maybe a gold tale teaser? Sounds very interesting.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[EagleDown]

Hello Lanny in AB, (And all others.)

I finally got around to reading ALL of the posts in this thread and figured I could add a little more knowledge to it. Specifically to the whys and wherefores of the old timers stacking rocks the way they were wont to do.

I got this information from a son of a 49er and for clarification, as unbelievable as it may sound, the streams, rivers and mountains of the Western U.S. and Canada were much much richer in gold than they are now. 3 to 5 pound nuggets were not all that uncommon. At one time, I had a 8X10" glossy photo, (taken in the 1920s,) of one "Fritz" Clark (a personal friend, now deceased,) standing in the portal of the Colorado Mine in Mariposa CA., holding a 58 pound chunk of gold. This picture also appeared in the Mariposa Gazette at that time. But, as you sometimes do, I digress. So, back to my main objective.

It seems that prior to the ratification of the 1872 mining laws, due to the richness of the areas, claims could be "split" into smaller parcels and sold or leased piecemeal. Some miners were known to take a fair amount of gold from a claim that was no more than 5 ft. square. Actually, not much more than a shaft going straight down to bedrock.

Anyway, one of the ways of preventing squabbles over who was encroaching on who's claim was to stop as much as 3 feet from an adjoining claim and stack your rocks on that 3 foot section. Now obviously, I'm talking about full claims here, not the little "parcels". So, if your neighbor was as polite to you, there would be a strip about 6 feet wide, running the length of the claims, that have never been worked. So, anytime a modern prospector spots a line of stacked rocks, it would be prudent for said prospector to either metal detect or remove and dig under where the boulders were.

Pretty much the same goes for those rocks stacked up in gulches and washes. They weren't stacked so much out of courtesy, as for convenience. It could be argued that for every ounce of gold you might find under a linear foot of those stacked rocks, the 49ers were finding 25+ ounces in a foot of the creek proper.

If any of you are ever passing through Mariposa, stop at the mining museum on the North end of town. They have letters posted throughout the exibits of a running correspondence of a 49er to back home. One of the letters refers to the amounts of gold he and his brother found in one shovel full (each) of materials.

It seems that he and his brother had a contest every evening to see who cooked and washed dishes. What they would do was, each would dig and pan a shovel full of materials from their claim. So, the first brother dug and panned his materials which contained about $89.00 worth of gold. Then the second brother (the author of the letters,) dug and panned his, even though he was sure he would be doing the chores. Imagine his elation when his gold was weighed and he had about $117.00 worth of gold. Now we're looking at $206.00 worth of gold, at $20.00 per oz. It doesn't take a physics professor to figure out that the diggings were incredibly rich by todays standards.

Hokay, a lot of writing just to tell you that the rock "walls" had a purpose and could have a whole bunch of gold under them.

Oh my, so many memories to download.

Happy Hunting

Eagle

 

[Lanny in AB]

Great post Eagle about a topic I've neglected--I've often wondered about the associated mysteries of all of those hand-stacked piles. In fact, I've had a few others let me know on the sly that they found incredible gold in those thin strips of virgin dirt under those piles.

I've moved some of those piles myself, by hand, but so far I've only hit bedrock that was already mined.

However, I do have two mining acquaintances that moved hand-stacked piles with bulldozers, and that way they then could more easily tell when there were strips of undisturbed paydirt underneath, vs. the mined-out bedrock I've previously referred to. They both said how exciting it was to mine out those little strips of rich paydirt! Plus I have a detecting friend that hit a little strip under rock stacks that was composed of virgin dirt, and they took hundreds of little nuggets out of that dirt.

Thanks again Eagle, and keep sharing!! This thread is dedicated to enriching the mining experience of all who chase the noble metal, so thanks again.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi there Eagledown, Hows this for some rows of stacked tailings.

All this ground has been worked & the rocks were stacked on worked out bedrock as Lanny has stated. But I am sure there are cases like you mention about stacks being on virgin ground but I think here in NZ that is unlikely. In New Zealand all old tailing piles have a heritage protection order on them & cant be disturbed.

Happy hunting

JW

 

[EagleDown]

Hi there Eagledown, Hows this for some rows of stacked tailings.

All this ground has been worked & the rocks were stacked on worked out bedrock as Lanny has stated. But I am sure there are cases like you mention about stacks being on virgin ground but I think here in NZ that is unlikely. In New Zealand all old tailing piles have a heritage protection order on them & cant be disturbed.

Happy hunting

JW

Holy Mackeral!!! And here I thought that only the Chinese were that industrious.

Isn't it amazing the lengths that man will go to, to gather a metal that isn't really all that rare??

Thanks for the picts, they put a whole new meaning to the phrase; "Stacked Rocks".

 

[EagleDown]

Thank you for your comment Lanny in AB.

About you moving stacked boulders and not finding virgin ground under them, how would you like spending a few days dredging through 6 to 8 ft of "hard pack" overburden, (the overburden had been there so long that I could take 6" granite rocks and crumble them with my bare hands, and even the bedrock was rotten for about the top 2",) but finding that the bedrock was barren.

The only reason that I dredged the "hard pack" was because of the nuggets I found on top of it. I should have known where I was headed when I didn't find anything IN THE "HARD PACK". But, it's all about learning, isn't it??

Eagle

 

[Lanny in AB]

Eagle--been there many times--I'm referring to moving all kinds of overburden only to find that the gold was higher up. I remember a classic example of this. I was working a placer, getting nuggets one gram plus in a band of pay about six inches deep about three feet above the bedrock. But, of course I figured that the best gold had to be on bedrock. Well, that bedrock was protected by big boulders. I about killed myself getting them out of the hole I built to get to the bedrock. And, as you've probably guessed, the bedrock was absolutely barren of gold. Big pyrite nuggets everywhere, but not a sniff of gold. The gold was back up in that previously mentioned three feet of overburden, only in that six inch layer of pay, but lots of it. Lessons learned the hard way really do stick with you. I learned that where the gold is running great is where you should invest your energies--a glacier had pushed out a big dam somewhere and blew gold out in that six inch pay layer over the top of everything, and there was nothing underneath that layer of pay.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[EagleDown]

Here's one that kinda dips into the realm of lost treasures. It will also give an idea about how lackadaisical I was about the gold I found. (To me, it was just another form of money.)

I was dredging behind a couple of auto size boulders, right in the middle of the river. Though they were sitting on an expanse of bare bedrock, I had noticed a pile of small boulders and gravel behind the lower one, so I decided to see what was under that pile of alluvial.

I don't know how much I found initally, as I violated one of the no-no's of the experienced dredger. Instead of taking a plastic bottle down with me, (10ft of water,) I had to have a 10oz vial made of glass, so that I could see the beauties once they were in it.

Big mistake, for when I uncovered bedrock, it was litterally covered with nuggets. I started picking and grinning while dropping them in the glass vial. I had the vial almost half full when the dredge ran out of gas.

No big deal, with the reserve tank, I had about a minute or so of air, so I carefully put the cap back on the vial, then jumped up and caught the edge of the dredge floats. I stood the vial on the float, next to the sluice and climbed on, went forward, switched tanks, (5 gallon jerry cans,) and fired the dredge back up. After determining that it was running smoothly and hadn't lost suction, I turned to go back in the water. I was back on the bottom and had picked up several nuggets when I realized that I had left the vial on the dredge float.

I immediatly returned to the dredge, only to find that the vial had vibrated off and dropped back into the river, right into the pile of boulders that I had stacked up behind me. And though I found a couple of shards of broken glass, I couldn't spot the first glimpse of the gold. Anyway, I had another vial (plastic) in the tool box that was bolted to the dredge, so I got it and went back to picking up nuggets and putting them into it.

When I had rescued all of the nuggets in the immediate area, I noticed that the bedrock tapered down gently to the hardpack that I had dredged in earlier.

From the top of the hardpack down to the bedrock appeared to be about 7ft and at the base of the hardpack was about a foot of materials that had come loose and fallen off of the hardpack. I cleaned about 3ft of the loose materials away, and what a glorious sight!! A 3ft "chain" of nuggets, end to end along the entire length that I had uncovered. The strangest thing was; I had hit the only part of the "bedrock versus hardpack" where the nuggets had come to rest. But, all in all, I came out of the river with almost 8oz of nice chunky nuggets.

And the broken vial?? At $35 an oz, I didn't have the ambition to move that pile of rocks again, so they're probably still there awaiting my return.

 

[Lanny in AB]

What a great story--I'm off to start dredging tomorrow--getting pretty anxious to be out of here. Thanks for posting your story--I felt like I was right there with you--well done.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[EagleDown]

Good luck on the dredging. Bring us back more of those great picts.

While writing the above story, I had a flash!! I believe I've thought of a way to go behind those boulders again and pick up another several ounces of gold. (Without a dredge.) I'll be looking for someone who wants to work with me on it for a split of whatever we get.

If I can find that person, I'll let you know what happens.

Eagle

 

[Lanny in AB]

Thanks Eagle--definitely let me know what happens.

Got back mid-week--found a pretty good dredge spot--got some nice gold. I'll have to post some pics later and maybe write up a bit about it.

Off again, all the best,

Lanny

 

[kiwi jw]

Hi Lanny, I cant wait for the pics & the yarn. Good luck.

Happy hunting

JW

 

[EagleDown]

Thanks Eagle--definitely let me know what happens.

Got back mid-week--found a pretty good dredge spot--got some nice gold. I'll have to post some pics later and maybe write up a bit about it.

Off again, all the best,

Lanny

Hokay, I've managed to juggle my finances around a bit. I plan on going to the river on or about the third of August. More of a exploratory run, to make sure the boulders are still there, and there's still "drop-out" materials behind them.

If everything appears to be in place, I'll return with some pictures and then........., it will be about finding some one in this area that has a wet-suit, mask and compressor who would like to join with me for a 50/50 split of any recoveries. Of course, I'll be relying on them to do the work, and trusting them to show (and split) ALL of the gold. I honestly feel that my knowledge is worth that much. Unfortunately, I've met a lot of unscrupulous people over the years, so, I am not quite as trusting as I once was. (lol)

If everything comes together like I hope, it should only take a few hours, (3 to 5 hours) to clean it up.

I'll definately keep everyone informed. I'll also be posting pictures in my thread; The many lost treasures of Mariposa, CA, to emphasize the story I'm telling there.

Keep it coming!!

Eagle

 

[Lanny in AB]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v709/Lannyinab/Dredge gold 2010/IMG_0937.jpg

Here's a shot of some of the nice, chunky gold I got last week--1/2 ounce in this shot. Most of this gold was tight on the bedrock. I always know I'm in a good spot when I get to see the gold before it goes up the nozzle. Most of the time, you're running material up the suction hose and you only get to see if there's any gold when you shut down and get a chance to check the header of the sluice. I'll see if I can round up some shots of the header.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Lanny in AB]

Eagle--if I lived in your area I'd go with you in a heartbeat--hope you find someone reliable. I hear you on being able to find someone that has scruples; however, they are still out there--good luck in your search, for the gold, and for the right person.

All the best--looking forward to seeing your pictures,

Lanny