Mariposa county / Maxwell creek private land

[Jbarsk8]

Hi all-

Lurked for a long time around here but finally decided to see what my property has to offer. I'm in the coulterville area on my private ranch. I have numerous drainages on my property that eventually end up in Maxwell creek. These drainages are thousands of feet long, and start at an elevation of about 3000-3500 feet in elevation and drop to roughly 2k feet in elevation before entering my neighbors ranch where Maxwell runs through. The neighbors have been there since the 49r days so gold is obviously there and they have a couple hard rock tunnel mines on their land that they haven't worked in at least 50-75 years. There are numerous tailing type piles on my land, although I have yet to find a tunnel. There are roads that you can see carved into the sides of the hills on my ranch going to some precarious places which are now completely overgrown. I can only imagine if these roads or trails are in these areas, they must be for very good reason because it is not easy travels to say the least. I also have two of the best springs in the area that run year round even in the worst of droughts. I'm telling you all this just to paint a brief history and of my thought process as I'm certainly new to this.

Anyways, I bought a little yellow jacket 36" sluice and figured I'd look on my property to see if there was any type of placer in my drainages. First spot I went to was the spring. I dug a decent hole behind a nice "knob" of bedrock in the spring area and found a few nice specs and some decent flour gold. This wasn't even a proper hole down to bedrock. I'll have to go back. I know there is gold eroding from somewhere above this drainage point now, so I decided to go to the drainage behind my cabin which looks much more mild, less steep and doesn't flow nearly the water, only flows a few times a year during rainiest times. I found a nice little spot where the bedrock drops a foot or two into a "hole" of bedrock. I cleaned it out decently, certainly not as precise or in depth as I could have gone and I again, got some nice colors but also got a little picker that I saw sitting in the sluice before panning! I can't tell you how excited I was. The reason I'm writing this isn't to boast or brag, the fact is the number value is small. What I'm most excited about is that the gold is on my ranch. Because my ranch is a big hill (80 acres) and flows into Maxwell, does this mean that this gold has to be eroding from a vein somewhere above me on my land? These drainages pretty much start on my property at the peak of the hill. Because gold can't travel up stream my understanding is it must be from somewhere on the face of my property? Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not in a hurry to find the gold as it isn't going anywhere and I'm never selling this place, but what would you folks do? I have a lot of free time for the next few months which happens to be when the water is flowing. I feel like a newbie at this and if I found this little gold in 2 days with minimal effort and knowledge my thinking is there has to be some nice deposits here. With the best springs in the area on my land, all the gold activity in this area back in the day, and even all the hand forged tools I've found on my land (axes, rock hammers, etc....) I figure there must be a lot here that was missed ? Maybe I'm being naive I don't know, but please if you have any thoughts or suggestions share them. I'll try to put up a picture of the "picker!" Thank you for reading.

 

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[Jbarsk8]

Hoser john
Thank you so much I can not thank you enough. Isn't it funny how that works? Of course it's the last box! That map is going to be exciting to say the least.

 

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[Kenmitch]

Nice! Looks like your adventures are paying off! If your in it for the money, or just the adventure you need to remember one thing....Specimen gold trumps all other forms. Very few nuggets can hold a candle to a nice specimen. Specimens are nature's artwork, the flakes and nuggets are it's riches in the end.

 

[Jbarsk8]

Kenmitch
Thank you for that reminder. I'm really in it for the adventure, it's just a ton of fun and given my close proximity to these areas it seems to just make sense. I'm still not sure of the value of something like these specimens.

 

[Goldfleks]

Crush em up and pan them out. You could photograph and label the rocks pre crushed so you have a visual of what the ore looks like. And then if you find gold you can record how much you go based on the size/weight of the ore sample. Might give you a good idea on what ore to look for on a second trip to crush and verify your results. If the results are consistent you'll have a rough assesment on the amount of gold per ton of that material and if it's worth mining more.

 

[Jbarsk8]

Great idea goldfleks and thank you. Would that have an effect on the specimen value though? At that point wouldn't it just be the weight of the gold ? Thanks again

 

[Kenmitch]

Great idea goldfleks and thank you. Would that have an effect on the specimen value though? At that point wouldn't it just be the weight of the gold ? Thanks again

You'll have to decider which ones have a nice specimens look to you. You can always whack the nondesirable ones with a hammer and see if they become desirable. White or white/black quartz are most desirable to me at least.

 

[Jeff95531]

YAHOO looks like you've hit the ground running. After many hours and 1,000s of maps I finally found my old 77 map in the last box--always without fail the bloody last. Anyhow my copy is torn,sweat, rain and blood stained so you get the new one as soon as it shows up. I had forgot it's 3' x 4' with 1,000s of test sites and complete analysis(and complete geological report also) so you can track any kind of mineral, dike, contact zone etc etc etc. Now I remember why I covet so much. Anyhow pm please a address to send to-yours, friends, po box whatever as not trying to stalk or get your info to highgrade as never done that. NEVER post any info as to locations/names or you will get many MANY visitors as proven here and many other forum 100s of times. Stay warm as here come a trifecta of storms-John

Very very nice John. BTW, I already gave him a character reference for ya.

 

[Goldfleks]

Great idea goldfleks and thank you. Would that have an effect on the specimen value though? At that point wouldn't it just be the weight of the gold ? Thanks again

Do you even know if it's really gold? Photos make it hard to tell it just looks yellow and brown to me. Also how available is this ore? Do you have a vein or piles of it? Or are those samples all there is?

 

[Hoser John]

Sulfides, sulfites and vapor deposition gold abounds in that area ALL OVER as chemical analysis proven and sample locations shown in complete detail. Plenty of water as that storm left over 2" here in less than 24hours. 2 more atmospheric rivers a coming up here. Stay warm ya'all-John

 

[Hoser John]

Fantastic post on finding the pt group metals under detecting forum with multiple links to assist you. Merced River drainages , according to many state bulletins, has been the largest producer in kalif history and for rhodium-the ugly step child-the only commercial producer. Still waiting for delivery as the post office closed down our separation center so all our mail is done in sacramento , takes days more time and much less accurate-John

 

[delnorter]

Straight up of you John for your help to Jbarsk8.

Mike

 

[Hoser John]

It came yesterday-opened and added a copy of the 1:250,000 geology map and how to read along with a complete state geo map sent to me free. Enjoy Jbar and thanks much for your kind words Mike. When you can't seem to be able to get out of a fix(NO DREDGING/HIBANKING) help out someone else and sure makes a big difference to see others succeed. Give freely and help others and good comes to you as given 10s a 1,000s a hand over these long years and feels righteous in spite of the insidious trolls. John

 

[Jbarsk8]

Howdy folks! I wanted to revive this thread. Thank you John for the maps! They are awesome resources and your kindness is very much appreciated. Life has been hectic, seasons are changing, my first baby is on the way. It is very exciting and scary at the same time, but I can't wait.

Although I haven't been posting I've definitely been learning as much as I can and finding gold too! I'm learning more and more that this area is rich with gold, it's very exciting.

I also want to extend a thank you to Goldwasher. He drove down a few hour drive to my place and stayed for a few days. I basically asked him to come out and provide a crash course in everything gold. The way I see it, the more knowledge I'm able to acquire, the more efficient I will be in my hunting for gold and the less time I will waste. It was an awesome time with him learning a bunch and I'm very glad I had him come out and give me some golden education. He is a great person as well! Thank you sir!

I've found gold at my ranch, found gold down in Maxwell, gold in bull creek and gold in mocassin. Actually, gold seems to always be on my brain. I certainly have not gotten rich but the turtle wins the race! This will be a lifetime of learning, fun and adventure!

 

[Jbarsk8]

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

I have found similar looking mineralized deposits as the ones you posted above. It's always a thin coating between cracks in the rock.
I have never been able to get any free gold from it. I think it's a hyrdothermal deposit?
Come to find out that there are several minerals that are gold in color. That's about the only property they have in common.
Did you crush any of it up and pan it out? Otherwise it would be a good prop to set up next to an old ore cart.

There can be a lot of gold in the small gullys/draws, many times bedrock is only 3' deep.

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Goldwasher
Thank you sir for taking the time.you obviously are a knowledgeable person. I am located on serpentine, I know that for a fact. There are many parts of the land where bedrock is on the surface or very close. Any yes, those are all digger pines. I'm not educated enough in rocks to be able to determine the amount of slate. When I think of slate I think of thin sheets of easily breakable rock. The stuff I see is dark and very hard and seems to have a large amount of metallic content, very dense and heavy. I can't think off the top of my head where quartz meets a green rock (mariposite maybe) but there is a tremendous amount of quartz everywhere, from veins feet thick to little stringers of rotten degraded looking quartz.
Sorry for my ignorance but what are highgraders? I know mining was done here back in the day. One of my large ravines even appears to have been hydraulic mined back in the day just based on old satellite pics and the barren look of the drainage. In these areas the ground just looks very odd to me. Lots of mini little gullys or pits that seem very out of place but are now grown back in. When I go into the drainage(s), which there are 3 or 4 major ones on my ranch, there are some areas that seem to have minimal rock ( where I found the picker) and other areas with large rocks and boulders. It's very hard for me to tell if this was due to erosion or moved there, as some area very large. Given the seasonality of the rains like you said, I think it would take a tremendous amount of rain to move these things. I can't thank you enough for your knowledge. I just want to approach this in an efficient manner and hopefully avoid walking around like a chicken with my head cut off. Your pics were incredible and that gold is gorgeous. What methods do you use to find it?

Perhaps hydraulic'ed or ground sluiced if there was water readily available?

 

[GoldpannerDave]

Hoser john
That is incredibly kind of you and I would do my best to share it with everyone. Heck, you could even come down and hang out for a bit while we do some exploring. We could use my ranch as a home base! I found a book written in 1917 about Maxwell creek gold, but I only see it located in the Berkeley library, trying to figure out how to get my hands on it!

Interlibrary loan!!