Gold on my property or not likely? In Georgia

[HobbyHuntress]

Hello! I’m very new here and I have a few questions - hope this is the right area to post this in. My property is within the Dahlonega Gold Belt and I'm surrounded by over a dozen old gold mines (5-10 mi radius) and I’ve heard that my property had a creek running through it at one time. I haven’t pulled the old plats to verify yet. I’d love to find a map of my area prior to the subdivision invasion.

Over the last week, I’ve wandered around my yard, kicking rocks and dragging in some rather interesting large rocks inside to “inspect” further. Neighbors probably think that I have lost my mind. I’ve found a few small chunks of iron pretty close to the surface of this nasty red GA clay. Separating this stuff is quite a challenge! I’ve scraped iron off of quartz rocks as well. I thought it was paint until my son put a magnet to it. I’ve found what I believe is pyrite, garnet (small), and kyanite (visible with my jeweler’s loupe and VERY good light only) on the quartz.

Do you think that my property may have gold in the old, non-existent stream considering what I am surrounded by? The depression is still there because when the lake or creek north of me floods, I have water that rushes through my yard. As a homeowner, it’s annoying, but if there’s gold there, it gets a pass!

Is it even possible to find gold in the “dry” areas of north-ish Georgia? I’ve panned streams before, but that was over 20 yrs ago at a few roadside panning places in N. GA. Forgive my lack of technical terminology, I’m a bit green.

I haven't really "panned" the dirt here, I haven't bought a pan yet. I played around with it in a pie pan (didn't work), but I wasn't about to scuff it up - so I'll head to Cabela's in the morning.

 

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[HobbyHuntress]

I didn't even think about the wet saw - that's been on my wish list for a long time now. I love a good excuse to buy another piece of equipment for my workshop! I have a garden weasel - I'll definitely use that next time. I used my mortar/grout mixer on my drill today to break it up in a 5 gallon bucket.

Yep - nada. No mineral rights. At least not in the last 100-ish yrs or so. If so, there's a closing attorney's office that didn't do their job. I wouldn't do too much to this property to raise an eyebrow. Unless I found a 4 pound gold nugget, I'm planning on keeping my findings to admire, which would most likely be dust. Even if I found said gold boulder, (1 in 7990454121477631411 chance), I would have my jeweler make a lot of jewelry for me.

Would Harbor Freight have anything useful? I haven't been in there in ages and I wouldn't even know what to look for online.

 

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[HobbyHuntress]

I panned in Marietta and found gold. Georgia had a huge gold boom back in the day. I brought a pan and shovel with me when I went fishing and found many pickers. Where I am now I feel I was spoiled in Georgia and didn't know it. However there is a little detail I learned. Most of Marietta was covered with dirt after the boom. Much of the landscape is not the same. I recall any concrete info where you are. Like mentioned above, sample your property. It's likely gold is in the clay.

After today, I feel like I should start a glitter distribution company! No gold so far, just unusually heavy mica...I think, but it's early! I may have had a bit of gold dust. I have not discarded the orangey, reddish-brown sludge. I need to dry it out and give dry panning a shot. There must be something here. The 14 gold mines weren't here for no reason! I will find something! I'll settle for a small golden flake right now for a morale boost though...

 

[kcm]

" Unless I found a 4 pound gold nugget..."
*hehe* THAT'S when you'd need to be a member of your local GPAA!! Plausible deniability!

I've sworn off Harbor Freight. They used to have decent air tools, but I've never gotten anything electrical from them that was worth a....oh, excuse me - there are ladies present. I'd look instead at one of the box stores like Home Depot or Lowe's. If anything goes wrong with the machine shortly after purchase, they'll normally swap it out for another one.

If you're a member of Amazon Prime, then you could get a better deal on there - and Amazon has been REAL good about keeping me happy.

 

[Peyton Manning]

Not at all mate, you have valid points. Being from Texas my self I sometimes forget that folks may not think of something so petty that can turn into something so major.

By the way my combined acreage in South Texas is just over 120,000 acres, sadly when your land is too big the oil companies can not afford to buy our rights, they can only afford to lease them. I wish I could sell the rights and some of those ranches for what I Want For Them. LOL

you OWN 120k acres?
I imagine it will grow nothing? How much for a 50 acre plot? I would love to own more than my 6 acres in Indiana

 

[kcm]

After today, I feel like I should start a glitter distribution company! No gold so far, just unusually heavy mica...I think, but it's early! I may have had a bit of gold dust. I have not discarded the orangey, reddish-brown sludge. I need to dry it out and give dry panning a shot. There must be something here. The 14 gold mines weren't here for no reason! I will find something! I'll settle for a small golden flake right now for a morale boost though...

You can also mix a lot of sand and soil with any clay that you want to sample, mix well with your drill and a paint mixing attachment, then drain off excess water and pan out. Takes more panning, but with the clay so diluted, it should be much easier to see what you have, plus you can wet-pan.

I'd probably make the ratio about 2 parts sand/soil to 1 part clay. Start with the nicest sample you see in an area and test it. If nothing there, then dig deeper or change locations.

 

[kcm]

you OWN 120k acres?
I imagine it will grow nothing? How much for a 50 acre plot? I would love to own more than my 6 acres in Indiana

There's still nice, dry land for sale up here for $1,000 to $1,500 an acre, but prices are rising fast! Most of the larger areas are or have been bought up by people who then sell parcels - making a LOT of money! North Dakota was having a lot of farms go abandoned for a while just a few years ago - could pick them up for barely more than a song. But the economy has bounced back to where it's now more than pennies on the dollar.

 

[HobbyHuntress]

You can also mix a lot of sand and soil with any clay that you want to sample, mix well with your drill and a paint mixing attachment, then drain off excess water and pan out. Takes more panning, but with the clay so diluted, it should be much easier to see what you have, plus you can wet-pan.

I'd probably make the ratio about 2 parts sand/soil to 1 part clay. Start with the nicest sample you see in an area and test it. If nothing there, then dig deeper or change locations.

I'll try that - I have a few bags of sand I can bust open tomorrow.

I haven't bought anything electrical at HF, just sanding discs and drill bits. Trommels look like big bingo tumbler things...hmmm I wonder... I could build one of those.

 

[Goodyguy]

Excellent point - my husband brought up that as well. His dad built a house here when my husband was a kid and he (the husband) remembers where everything kind of was in the neighborhood prior to the total build out. I used to be in real estate law for about 10 yrs, so luckily I know my way around the record books and I'll be pulling every old plat I can put my hands own.

What do you mean by "pay streaks"? (excuse my total ignorance here)

I did find quite a few rounded stones, definitely river rocks - and they were not the ones you find at Home Depot! I want to cut them open, but I'm terrified of damaging my tools. Never worked with stone/rocks before in that manner.

If I could get my hands on a back hoe, my childhood dreams would be officially fulfilled. I'll settle for my workhorse, my husband until he protests.

I only have an acre. Not much, just enough to learn on.

What I meant by "pay streaks" is that gold in a stream is usually deposited in narrow bands where low pressure areas in the flow occur, such as along an inside bend in the creek, behind large boulders, where the flow widens out, etc. Gold also tends to find it's way down to bedrock where it gets trapped in cracks and crevices. That means that you could miss finding a pay streak of gold by as little as a mere inch or so or as much as many yards or more depending upon where you dig.

For crushing ore samples, you could easily make a portable crusher out of a length of iron pipe with a cap on the end and a shorter length of exhaust pipe to contain the particles, similar to the one featured in the video below.

[video=youtubeTnSzoa1EmE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=DTnSzoa1EmE[/video]

I'll try that - I have a few bags of sand I can bust open tomorrow.

* Note You may want to try panning out the sand from those bags first. Gold is often found in bags of sand

Also you may want to try adding vinegar to help break down the clay . I seldom find gold inside a layer of clay, usually the gold sits on top of it due to the clays density.

GG~

 

[HobbyHuntress]

What I meant by "pay streaks" is that gold in a stream is usually deposited in narrow bands where low pressure areas in the flow occur, such as along an inside bend in the creek, behind large boulders, where the flow widens out, etc. Gold also tends to find it's way down to bedrock where it gets trapped in cracks and crevices. That means that you could miss finding a pay streak of gold by as little as a mere inch or so or as much as many yards or more depending upon where you dig.

For crushing ore samples, you could easily make a portable crusher out of a length of iron pipe with a cap on the end and a shorter length of exhaust pipe to contain the particles, similar to the one featured in the video below.





* Note You may want to try panning out the sand from those bags first. Gold is often found in bags of sand

Also you may want to try adding vinegar to help break down the clay . I seldom find gold inside a layer of clay, usually the gold sits on top of it due to the clays density.

GG~

Ahhh, I see, I see... I need to sample more areas.

I may find more gold in the sand! I'm not doing too good here...things are not looking promising.

I accidentally crushed a stunning stone that looked like rhodolite garnet today with a hammer. It was so pretty :/ oops. I was smashing quartz and other random rocks I found. That rock crusher looks much easier than a hammer. I did have the rocks wrapped in scrap fabric to keep the pieces from going everywhere.

Well, if I don't have gold, at least I had a garnet or something similar.

 

[Dallasb84]

I think it may be wise to research your property and find out if you had water. Maybe you can map it out and drill some samples like mentioned above. If you had to you could always pull a permit for a pool and start diggin for a pool right? Nothing against the law if you started a new home project and prospected at the same time. Just kidding Lol.

I found smells in water and bedrock cracks. Good luck to you. Hope you find enough to keep you busy. Supposedly there was surface gold I. That area. I would imagine your property might have been well looked over but you never know. Do u know anyone that has a detector? That may help.

 

[ivan salis]

I put a link to the GA gold survey maps in a post in the Georgia State spot in the state links ...linked to the Georgia state Vertual Vault" site --historical maps ..along with directions on how to zoom in and print maps of your area of interest ..

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

The Dome on the capital building is made from gold, mined there in Dahlonega (sp?).
It was said, they only mined 20% of the believed gold, in the area.
I have a magazine somewhere, says if you want to know where gold may be in N Ga, get a map, place your left hand at the top of the left side of the state, with the state line (Ga/Al) between your thumb and first finger, fan your fingers out some, and anywhere your fingers are, are chances to find gold. So the whole top part of the state is covered (to some degree). A friend in N GA once found a giant slab of garnets in a creek bed (when he was little), said he never been able to find the spot again (or someone may have taken it, said it was big as a kitchen counter).
Kyanite in Ga? I never heard that, would make me wonder if your seeing possible sapphires or beryl (aquamarine).

Do be careful about your drain field. I too, operate on septic system (imho, better than paying my municipality an over priced rate for septic removal, lifelong draining of my wallet). Just don't kill your tank (with bleach, chemical, etc) whatever you do, LOL. and don't compromise your spillwell or drainfield (that's one job, one doesn't want to have to do, themselves, THAT"S for sure! lol).

I'd be wondering if there were any other streams and creeks in the area. I would probably head to them, try a little panning, see what I came up with. It would be GREAT if you got big gold boulders on your property, chances are..... well, you know how odds work. That (beige) clay we got all over the place (I grew up in SW Ga), we used to dig that stuff out from the creek sides and make stuffs, little bowls and figurines, that stuff is the WORST! Well, that and the red clay.
If you have carpeting and accidently track it in, best to leave it alone until it dries, then vacuum it up.

It's been great reading your adventure and everyones advice. I wish you a lot of luck!
That gold is there...... it just hides way too good.

 

[HobbyHuntress]

I think it may be wise to research your property and find out if you had water. Maybe you can map it out and drill some samples like mentioned above. If you had to you could always pull a permit for a pool and start diggin for a pool right? Nothing against the law if you started a new home project and prospected at the same time. Just kidding Lol.

I found smells in water and bedrock cracks. Good luck to you. Hope you find enough to keep you busy. Supposedly there was surface gold I. That area. I would imagine your property might have been well looked over but you never know. Do u know anyone that has a detector? That may help.

I wish I could put in a pool! It would have to be really far from the house unless I switched to the infiltrator system - I'd love to do that! I still haven't pulled the old plats, I need to do that asap.

Sadly, no one I know has a detector. My son did, but he decided to use it for parts for something else. It wasn't an expensive one, thank goodness!

 

[HobbyHuntress]

The Dome on the capital building is made from gold, mined there in Dahlonega (sp?).
It was said, they only mined 20% of the believed gold, in the area.
I have a magazine somewhere, says if you want to know where gold may be in N Ga, get a map, place your left hand at the top of the left side of the state, with the state line (Ga/Al) between your thumb and first finger, fan your fingers out some, and anywhere your fingers are, are chances to find gold. So the whole top part of the state is covered (to some degree). A friend in N GA once found a giant slab of garnets in a creek bed (when he was little), said he never been able to find the spot again (or someone may have taken it, said it was big as a kitchen counter).
Kyanite in Ga? I never heard that, would make me wonder if your seeing possible sapphires or beryl (aquamarine).

Do be careful about your drain field. I too, operate on septic system (imho, better than paying my municipality an over priced rate for septic removal, lifelong draining of my wallet). Just don't kill your tank (with bleach, chemical, etc) whatever you do, LOL. and don't compromise your spillwell or drainfield (that's one job, one doesn't want to have to do, themselves, THAT"S for sure! lol).

I'd be wondering if there were any other streams and creeks in the area. I would probably head to them, try a little panning, see what I came up with. It would be GREAT if you got big gold boulders on your property, chances are..... well, you know how odds work. That (beige) clay we got all over the place (I grew up in SW Ga), we used to dig that stuff out from the creek sides and make stuffs, little bowls and figurines, that stuff is the WORST! Well, that and the red clay.
If you have carpeting and accidently track it in, best to leave it alone until it dries, then vacuum it up.

It's been great reading your adventure and everyones advice. I wish you a lot of luck!
That gold is there...... it just hides way too good.

Yep - kyanite. It was very, very small! I found this: kyanite in Georgia It doesn't look like sapphire or aqua. If I found sapphire, you would not be able to drag me away from it. I'd move to the backyard!

Hardwood floors only - big dog equals big mess and a lot of fur. I'd die with carpeting in here when he blows his winter coat (akita mix).

Today was much more eventful than the last few days, much, much more black sand. I must be getting close to something...right??

 

[kcm]

"Hardwood floors only - big dog equals big mess and a lot of fur. I'd die with carpeting in here when he blows his winter coat (akita mix)."

This comes to mind:

 

[ivan salis]

pay streaks are areas of slower water flow in a river where gold being heavy in nature will naturally settle out at -- places like behind a large current breaking rock and other such "slack water" areas ...when he gold will drop out (settle)because the water flow is not strong enough to move it along anymore ....folks often sample the river going up stream until they find no flakes ..then they know they found the "original" wash in place where the gold vein is washing into the stream at from the nearby area aka "the mother lode"...source of the gold

 

[goldenIrishman]

You can go to the USGS web site ( The USGS Store - One stop shop for all your maps, world, United States, state, wall decor, historic, planetary, topographic, trail, hiking, foreign, satellite, digital ) and download maps of your area including the older ones. I just checked the listing of maps for the Stone Mountain Quadrangle and they have them all the way back to 1888. The maps are in PDF format and you can download them for free. (Our favorite price!) By getting different editions/copies of the same area you can often see huge changes over time. There are several different scales (sizes) and detail levels available and the newer ones include the aerial view as a layer that can be turned on and off.

When you're ready to actually start digging in that (Start sarcasm font) "LOVELY" (End Font) Georgia red clay let us know. We've got some super secret tricks for dealing with clays. Even that Georgia stuff. I used to live just south of Macon so I know that stuff well! (old clothes that you don't care if they get ruined are a must!)

 

[HobbyHuntress]

You can go to the USGS web site ( The USGS Store - One stop shop for all your maps, world, United States, state, wall decor, historic, planetary, topographic, trail, hiking, foreign, satellite, digital ) and download maps of your area including the older ones. I just checked the listing of maps for the Stone Mountain Quadrangle and they have them all the way back to 1888. The maps are in PDF format and you can download them for free. (Our favorite price!) By getting different editions/copies of the same area you can often see huge changes over time. There are several different scales (sizes) and detail levels available and the newer ones include the aerial view as a layer that can be turned on and off.

When you're ready to actually start digging in that (Start sarcasm font) "LOVELY" (End Font) Georgia red clay let us know. We've got some super secret tricks for dealing with clays. Even that Georgia stuff. I used to live just south of Macon so I know that stuff well! (old clothes that you don't care if they get ruined are a must!)

I live in clothes covered in paint and the like - oh the joys of being an artist! Red clay is nothing LAs Totally Awesome from the Dollar Store gets it out should I get this vile stuff on anything decent (like my Chuck Taylor's).

Do tell the secrets - I feel like I have the cleanest red clay in all of Georgia! Totally disinfected with hydrogen peroxide (to loosen) and squeaky clean thanks to Dawn dish soap (to break any surface tension in place of jet dry).

 

[Craigwac]

We've got that red clay absolutely everywhere here in SC. I hate it. But clay can make a false bedrock, meaning the gold will stop higher in the ground and you won't have to dig as far to get it.

Gold sinks, so the deeper you dig, the more likely you are to find gold. It stops when it encounters bedrock or clay or something similar it can't pass through. You won't find much gold in the top layers unless you've had a recent flood. So dig deep when you sample. Down to bedrock or the false bedrock clay layer, if you can. That's where most all of the gold will be.

A pay streak is a line that gold follows because of the water current. Because it's the densest material, it follows as straight a line as it can down the creek. As the creek curves, the water flows in a helical vortex. Gold is swept down and collects as it hits rocks and stuff underwater. So it collects in a thin line down the creek bed. In a very general sense, it goes from inside bend to inside bend. It collects where the stream widens out and the water slows.

Gold is mainly moved by floods, not by the normal flow of the creek. So creeks that only have water in them when it floods can still collect good gold. The old creek bed shouldn't be too hard to visualize since you said water still collects in it. Try to figure out what would have been a good inside bend (that's the concave side of the stream, where the land makes a 'point' out into the creek. Make test holes from the lowest point on up in a line perpendicular to the stream bed. All the way up to the highest point water could have passed through during the biggest floods in the past. Keep the samples separate and labeled. Pan them separately. If there's gold, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out where your line of holes crossed the pay streak because of how much you find in each test hole. The holes on or near the streak will have far more gold than the others, which may not have any.

So if you dug 10 holes, and the number of colors in each pan went something like: 0, 0, 2, 3, 4, 8, 5, 3, 1, 0, then the hole with 8 would be right about where the streak is. Of course real life results won't be textbook perfect.

I would also research the mines near you. Learn what kind of gold they found, what has historically been found in your area. Lode gold (gold still trapped in hard rock) will often have streams around it with placer gold in it (placer gold is what you are looking for - gold that has been eroded from the original source and spread throughout the dirt). If the mines are placer mines, that's very good. It means there is enough gold being spread around by creeks and rivers that it's worth mining. If that's the case, there should be gold in other rivers and streams nearby. If they are doing heap-leach mining, they are recovering microscopic gold - which is probably the worst case scenario since you can't really get that with regular gravity based mining (sluices, panning). But even then, they may still be larger gold in the area.

I wouldn't worry about crushing rocks yet. It's much easier to look for placer gold. Quartz is everywhere, and most has no significant gold. With placer mining, nature has already done the work of separating it out, making it far easier to find.

If you post a picture of your land, we may be able to point you to a good area to prospect. Finding the places it collects in an existing creek is easier, but there are some very experienced prospectors here who could likely give you tips on reading the old stream bed, since you said it's still low enough to collect water when it rains.

Here's a good series of videos explaining how gold moves in a river/creek/wash. I think it illustrates well how gold concentrates in a pay streak, and why it's so important to sample across (perpendicular to the course of the river) on inside bends. Gold collects in other areas due to obstructions and changes in water flow, but inside bends are kind of a staple of prospecting because gold collects there consistently if it's present.

 

[russau]

"Hardwood floors only - big dog equals big mess and a lot of fur. I'd die with carpeting in here when he blows his winter coat (akita mix)."

This comes to mind:
Hey I got one just like that ! maybe I can be of use??