Gold in Sand and Gravel pits

[GoldReport]

Hi everyone!

Novice prospector here. I work for an aggregates mining company and have talked with the company geologist about gold in our s&g deposits. At my last site visits in Southern NY + NW PA I took my gold pan. I grabbed about a gallon of material from the sand screws and panned them. I would have done more material but was time limited. I did indeed find some glacial gold, really small stuff. What I am having a tough time figuring out is what processing this would look like. In my head I would set up a sluice box where the chute that feeds the sand screw is located. It would need to be something as low cost as possible and would not need to be cleaned out very often. Anyone have any pics of their setup they would be willing to share?

Still trying to determine the concentration in these deposits. If they could recover at least 0.01g per ton of sand, I think it could be profitable as an additional revenue stream.

 

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[Assembler]

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. The site is your typical aggregates plant with stackers for each of the product piles. If I sample these I will likely try to sample from the back side of the stockpile where the heavier material would fall. I could definitely get a loader in to move some material if needed

Well you will not stop the plant or process then to get your good test batches is my point. If you can have a staging area to work your high banker you should get good results and answers for each test batch you can get without stopping the plant. You will have to figure out water and where to put the tailings.
By renting a front loader for a day you should be able to make a number of test piles for you to work on later. If the plant has a small front loader maybe a number of test piles can be made?

 

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[DizzyDigger]

If I sample these I will likely try to sample from the back side of the stockpile where the heavier material would fall. I could definitely get a loader in to move some material if needed

My thoughts are kind of along the lines of what Assembler just posted. If you're looking to see how much gold is in "x" yards, then have them set aside a couple yards in a spot where you can run a bit of water. Set up a 4-stack Gold Cube and then be sure you're working with material that is no larger than 3/8-.

Get yourself a nice plastic scoop, and feed the whole pile through the GC, and cleaning off the mat (into a bucket) on the top unit every so often. Then you can at least say...."Boss, we got this from X yds. of random material.

Other things to consider the spot the sand/aggregate is coming from. Could very well be that there are more productive spots (gold wise) that the company will be excavating at a later date, meaning the potential (to mgt.) for an additional revenue source becomes more attractive.

 

[GoldReport]

My thoughts are kind of along the lines of what Assembler just posted. If you're looking to see how much gold is in "x" yards, then have them set aside a couple yards in a spot where you can run a bit of water. Set up a 4-stack Gold Cube and then be sure you're working with material that is no larger than 3/8-.

Get yourself a nice plastic scoop, and feed the whole pile through the GC, and cleaning off the mat (into a bucket) on the top unit every so often. Then you can at least say...."Boss, we got this from X yds. of random material.

Other things to consider the spot the sand/aggregate is coming from. Could very well be that there are more productive spots (gold wise) that the company will be excavating at a later date, meaning the potential (to mgt.) for an additional revenue source becomes more attractive.

Why a plastic scoop? I have a regular old garden trowel I use. Is there a reason to use plastic instead?

I agree with you that certain parts of their deposit will vary on gold concentration. They have some stockpiles of sand which date back from time immemorial which might be worth taking some samples from.

My reasoning with this project is that if there is even a small amount of recoverable gold, it could be worth the time. Adding a dollar a ton to the bottom line would make a significant impact. A dollar a ton is less than 0.02 g per ton of RECOVERABLE gold. The recoverable part is, of course, extremely important to the whole conversation.

The ultimate goal is to find an amount of gold that will wow the upper management and have the numbers to back it. Of course, the deposit needs to have that in the first place. This place processes around 200k tons of sand and gravel every year, there must be some economic gold in it?!

 

[DizzyDigger]

I use a plastic dog food scoop to feed my Gold Cube. It holds multiple times of material than a garden trowel..less scooping equals more feeding the cube.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has previously considered what you're putting your efforts into, but I never had a chance to work at a gravel pit.

 

[russau]

In my case and location , getting a Bob Cat into the location to allow the B.S. to dump into the Bob Cat bucket from the screw hopper wouldn't be physically possible BUT great idea ! there isn't enough room to get into there !

 

[Ohiogoldfever]

We have a bunch of plants all over the area I live. I think Martin Marietta is one of the larger outfits. I would love to find a lead into one to process the BS. Any info on making that a possibility would be greatly appreciated.

 

[GoldReport]

We have a bunch of plants all over the area I live. I think Martin Marietta is one of the larger outfits. I would love to find a lead into one to process the BS. Any info on making that a possibility would be greatly appreciated.

Do you have your MSHA cert? Do you have the proper safety gear: steel toes, hard hat, high vis, glasses, gloves?

If you want to have a chance at getting direct access to their materials I would make sure you can answer yes to those questions. Mining is such a huge liability that when I was a quarry manager, I wouldn't let a person who wasn't all geared up out of the truck when on site. Just the liability of someone hurting their back shoveling was enough reason to keep people out. That being said, if you go to a pit and explain to the scale clerk what you're looking for they can probably help you out. At the very least they could call the site boss and they will help.

My other advice is go to a site that isn't owned by a massive corporation like Martin, less rules typically.

Lot of places won't be running after Thanksgiving so I would advise to stop in sooner rather than later before they do plant cleanups.

 

[Assembler]

Do you have your MSHA cert? Do you have the proper safety gear: steel toes, hard hat, high vis, glasses, gloves?

If you want to have a chance at getting direct access to their materials I would make sure you can answer yes to those questions. Mining is such a huge liability that when I was a quarry manager, I wouldn't let a person who wasn't all geared up out of the truck when on site. Just the liability of someone hurting their back shoveling was enough reason to keep people out. That being said, if you go to a pit and explain to the scale clerk what you're looking for they can probably help you out. At the very least they could call the site boss and they will help.

My other advice is go to a site that isn't owned by a massive corporation like Martin, less rules typically.

Lot of places won't be running after Thanksgiving so I would advise to stop in sooner rather than later before they do plant cleanups.

Excellent points there that a lot of people over look.

 

[Ohiogoldfever]

Do you have your MSHA cert? Do you have the proper safety gear: steel toes, hard hat, high vis, glasses, gloves?

If you want to have a chance at getting direct access to their materials I would make sure you can answer yes to those questions. Mining is such a huge liability that when I was a quarry manager, I wouldn't let a person who wasn't all geared up out of the truck when on site. Just the liability of someone hurting their back shoveling was enough reason to keep people out. That being said, if you go to a pit and explain to the scale clerk what you're looking for they can probably help you out. At the very least they could call the site boss and they will help.

My other advice is go to a site that isn't owned by a massive corporation like Martin, less rules typically.

Lot of places won't be running after Thanksgiving so I would advise to stop in sooner rather than later before they do plant cleanups.

Thank you for the info. I’ll look into satisfying these questions and reach out to a few places.

 

[Assembler]

Thank you for the info. I’ll look into satisfying these questions and reach out to a few places.

Interesting let us know what you find out.

 

[Salmoplacer]

Hi everyone! View attachment 2172642
Novice prospector here. I work for an aggregates mining company and have talked with the company geologist about gold in our s&g deposits. At my last site visits in Southern NY + NW PA I took my gold pan. I grabbed about a gallon of material from the sand screws and panned them. I would have done more material but was time limited. I did indeed find some glacial gold, really small stuff. What I am having a tough time figuring out is what processing this would look like. In my head I would set up a sluice box where the chute that feeds the sand screw is located. It would need to be something as low cost as possible and would not need to be cleaned out very often. Anyone have any pics of their setup they would be willing to share?

Still trying to determine the concentration in these deposits. If they could recover at least 0.01g per ton of sand, I think it could be profitable as an additional revenue stream.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. The site is your typical aggregates plant with stackers for each of the product piles. If I sample these I will likely try to sample from the back side of the stockpile where the heavier material would fall. I could definitely get a loader in to move some material if needed

 

[Salmoplacer]

I worked in aggregate related industries and around crushers.
Depending on the product being produced, there is an aggregate design specification.
In order to ensure that the crusher is staying within the specifications for the chosen product there will be a graph of the specs ranges sometimes called "the Banana".
The crusher operator has to perform the seive tests on regular schedule usually several times a day.
The operator (or designated tester)
runs seive tests in a shaker machine to detetmine the percentages per seive size with the lowest seive size being referred to as "the Pan" which is just the final dust.
Every seive size is retained on the specified seive so all of the classifying is already done in the test.
I would test pan "the Pan" first and since it is just the finest dust microscope it to look for gold particles.
Then test pan and microscope the next size up and on and on up until the coarsest seive.
The samples will be very small so you might want to wait until several rounds of testing have been done and save each seive sample until you have a sufficient size sample of each seive to experiment on.
That should give you all if the info you need i think. Pre-classified material without having to set up any equipment.
Now while the loader operator feeding the crusher is mixing and blending the bins of the crusher
he might be selecting a bucket from here and a bucket from there in the pit, it should be a good representation of the overall pit, but if you needed to select a certain area or corner of the pit just use the seive shaker and run it yourself for a several runs.
It is a dry seive shaker machine, but if you felt the need you could wet pan it after if you felt it was warranted. I would wet pan it just because.

 

[russau]

and what ever you do if your allowed to enter and sample some of their specific piles of sand ,WHAT EVER YOU DO DONT MIX SAND FROM ALREAY SCREENED SAND OR YOU WILL NEVER GET BACK IN TO PLAY !This was stressed to me and our group BEFORE we went in ! One of our group hauled material from there and that was probly the only reason we got in !

 

[GoldReport]

and what ever you do if your allowed to enter and sample some of their specific piles of sand ,WHAT EVER YOU DO DONT MIX SAND FROM ALREAY SCREENED SAND OR YOU WILL NEVER GET BACK IN TO PLAY !This was stressed to me and our group BEFORE we went in ! One of our group hauled material from there and that was probly the only reason we got in !

Went to my local sand and gravel pit today. Not affiliated with them, they are just 5 minutes down the road. I asked the scale lady if I could fill up some buckets with sand, told me I had to pay the 10 dollar minimum and that was it. No mason sand on the ground but did get some concrete sand and "overflow" which is basically pond fines. Will be testing out later

 

[Ohiogoldfever]

Went to my local sand and gravel pit today. Not affiliated with them, they are just 5 minutes down the road. I asked the scale lady if I could fill up some buckets with sand, told me I had to pay the 10 dollar minimum and that was it. No mason sand on the ground but did get some concrete sand and "overflow" which is basically pond fines. Will be testing out later

I am stoked to hear what you find.

 

[Salmoplacer]

I am stoked to hear what you find.

I wasnt into gold prospecting before i retired but we had about 15 to 20 pits that we would lease from the government if we had a need to produce a certain product in that locality such as paving aggregate, or 3/4 inch road crush, or chipseal agg or whatever.
We would bring in our crushers as and when required but probably into 7 or 8 pits every year and the crusher guys were great friends as well as reporting to me.
If i had been into gold hunting at the time i could have had them save every testing samples for me no problem, for me to pan out.
Lost opportunity because i dont know any of them anymore.
The pits are mostly rural unattended so i could go and get some buckets to play around with.
Some of the pits are in known gold hosting areas, both placer and hard rock. The hardrock fines might be interesting if i could find some waste fines piles.
I also know a couple of guys with private pits that i used to deal with
when still working. No problem getting access there.
Probably a waste of time but i might do some experimenting just for fun.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Went to my local sand and gravel pit today. Not affiliated with them, they are just 5 minutes down the road. I asked the scale lady if I could fill up some buckets with sand, told me I had to pay the 10 dollar minimum and that was it. No mason sand on the ground but did get some concrete sand and "overflow" which is basically pond fines. Will be testing out later

This thread has got my brain juices flowing....thinking of giving it a try myself.

As said, we're excited to hear how you do with those buckets. One thing you might consider is doing some research into the areas your pits are located in. Could very well be a history of gold mining in some of those areas, and that's where I'd concentrate on getting your material from.

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

A gravel and sand company here in the central valley, Fresno, Ca. has a set-up that only certain people have access to, so I would say the gold they get is substantial enough to make a go of it, but whatever your company lets you do would be great, but in the long run they will probably tell you it is their gold. They might buy your idea though. The lake that is impounded behind the gravel pits has a goldmine that was flooded to put in the lake and a lot of prospecting is done below the dam, real fine gold though.

 

[Salmoplacer]

A gravel and sand company here in the central valley, Fresno, Ca. has a set-up that only certain people have access to, so I would say the gold they get is substantial enough to make a go of it, but whatever your company lets you do would be great, but in the long run they will probably tell you it is their gold. They might buy your idea though. The lake that is impounded behind the gravel pits has a goldmine that was flooded to put in the lake and a lot of prospecting is done below the dam, real fine gold though.

Fine could be good though in a large source like a gravel pit.
Probably not so good for a recreational miner but sometimes is ok for a commercial venture.

 

[GoldReport]

A gravel and sand company here in the central valley, Fresno, Ca. has a set-up that only certain people have access to, so I would say the gold they get is substantial enough to make a go of it, but whatever your company lets you do would be great, but in the long run they will probably tell you it is their gold. They might buy your idea though. The lake that is impounded behind the gravel pits has a goldmine that was flooded to put in the lake and a lot of prospecting is done below the dam, real fine gold though.

Do you know what their setup looks like? Curious what people use... is it just a couple of parallel sluice boxes in between the wash screen and sand plant?

I was meaning to run my material last night but my pump decided it wanted to die. What I get for buying a 15 dollar bilge on Amazon. The main reason for using my homemade sluice at all is just to test out its functionality. I'll definitely save all the material and pan out material one bucket at a time if I don't feel like the sluice is catching all the cons.