Just a couple notes about the rocks I posted above after reading some more on this thread. I wasn’t sure at the time when I chipping away at these what the smell was but I assume now after reading it was sulfur. As I was chipping away at the clay/Rock as a shovel did nothing to it, if I wacked a big piece it would smell in the hole I dug. Very strong smell for one decent hit on a rock so I do believe there’s a lot of sulfur in the area. Also, some of the rocks have been almost impossible to break as they look to be much more smooshed up. Very technical term.
This area is also a wooded area and in particular found where some trees used to be so a lot of roots run through and some seem to run right through the rocks and are why they have broken into more manageable sizes. There is no creek around to pan to help identify if there’s gold in the area unfortunately. There is a little area about 100 feet away that water runs down to and its created a sort of drainage ditch. It’s not “new” but I don’t know if it’s been around long enough to hold much gold. There is one area about 15 feet downstream from it where a tree had fallen over and there is a good 2-3 foot hole on the “bank” of this runoff area. I assume from when that tree fell which was at least several years ago. My thought was that if that little runoff area did have any gold, even if it was just loosened from the surrounding dirt, that digging that hole down to rock would probably be the best area? if I get down a foot or two and hit that same white clay, any loose gold that migrated to that area I assume would not go down very deep at all in to that clay correct?
The clay has a lot of silica in it. Once washed out and everything removed it’s almost like sand. I live in Union County and I know the Howie mine nearby had most of its gold in the same type of clay/dirt.
Lastly, in trying to figure out the rock layout of the area the best I can from the surface observations and hole I dug I am trying to see what other clues to look for. I’ve seen a lot on here about the mineralizations and sulfur and pyrite etc...so I definitely think the area has potential. But this isn’t an open rock face wall I can see the geology of and narrow down a smaller section to work. I’ve seen to look for vertically oriented rocks. I assume that’s from some sort of magma or whatever intrusion that pushed up into the existing rocks and imbedded the minerals? If these rocks are all underground, can i look for similar clues? Because while digging some of these are oriented parallel to the surface but are maybe 6 inches deep. But after going down a little deeper, more of the big rock was more perpendicular. Instead of hitting a big flat surface I could easily pry up, I’d hit the tip of a rock and have to dig all around and deeper to finally wiggle it out. Just wondering if that would be a similar sign of geologic processes to clue me into the better areas and rocks. Because the hole I dug was maybe 4 feet wide and 2-3 feet deep and I have gathered more than a wheel barrel full of rock ranging from golfball to football and bigger. So there’s no way for me to efficiently process what I’ve found so i want to find where to focus on and go from there.
Sorry for the long ramble. The more I read the more potential I think the area has and I want to try and answer as many questions about the area that you may have.
Thanks again for any input! I have learned more from this thread alone than everything else I’ve ever done, read, watched etc....all combined. I just wish you lived near me!
