I’m not a hard rock expert. I would expect the ore was found in the contact zone with at least one side being granite. Likely there was gold in the quartz at some concentration, but many times the gangue? material located between the quartz and the granite might have a higher concentration of gold. Perhaps we might get an education if someone more educated should respond.
I talked to a buddy who’s been involved in a couple mines around there and he said it’s usually on the hanging wall between the quartz and granite so it sounds like you were right.
Does the term “pocket gold” get tossed around in that area? If so, I’d get a gold detector and detect the area below the mine for surface “float gold” if it’s pocket gold country…and there is a relatively narrow dry drainage directly below the audit, I’d try to dig to bedrock. Many times there are coarse nuggets laying just 3’ down on bedrock. Thousands of years of erosion. Nothing the old timers would chase due to the lack of water and the small volume of “pay gravel”. Just my theory based on my area in far Northern California. Maybe based on experience. They would chase it up the hill to the source and focus what they could easily get out of the heart of the watermelon. Usually limited to the oxidized bedrock layer. That’s usually shallow for granite, usually deeper for the material opposite of the hanging wall.
Can't. Someone else's placer claim. Huge tailings piles, but from what I've read they been gone through countless times anyway.
The part about golf ball size nuggets is interesting.
That’s great! They may have encountered coarse gold while placer mining and moved up the hill to the source. Not unheard of. My post above was edited a couple times.
That area has been worked 50x over. From what I’ve read about the history it may have been the other way around. Some mines were abandoned after they saw the placer potential and went on to bucket dredging.
Well it really depends on the era. Hard rock mining around here became popular in the late 1860’s 1870’s after the easy placer was mined out. It peaked in the late 1890’s. The bucket dredging occurred during the 1930’s gold rush. There was a decent gap between the two eras due to WW1.
I take it that there is no mill site nearby to look at the tailings?
No. By the way its set up it looks like he was taking it elsewhere to process. There's a ramp that goes down below where the ore cart rails end.
A lot of rust and no gold.
