Lotus Geologist
Jr. Member
- Jan 6, 2014
- 91
- 209
- Detector(s) used
- MXT, TRX pinpointer
- Primary Interest:
- Prospecting
A day of results and personal insight from a non-expert…
Boy there are so many great tips on these forums, from so many different prospectors and miners!
Lanny in AB’s bedrock sniping tips are great reading… I totally buy into keeping a light pack so as to move fast, hit quick, then on to the next crack, filling a bag or bucket of hopefully high grade pay dirt through the day, so as to maintain productivity… then finishing off at the end of the day by panning the concentrates out.
ON THE OTHER HAND (this is a tip that may be especially helpful for newbies), if you are of limited experience, and/or are prospecting a new watershed or over a type of bedrock you are not familiar with, you may find it helpful to DECREASE production in the name of elucidating more on where and how gold may concentrate. That is, pan every prospected crack or feature out separately…
As most of us know… often there is zero rhyme or reason on where the gold is (except that it is ALWAYS where you find it)… on the other hand, often gold is concentrated in the bottom of deep cracks, but not always… often it’s better concentrated on the insides of bends, but not always… etc… some stretches of river or creek have a certain type of bedrock, with a certain fracture pattern, or strike/dip, that catches gold very effectively, sometimes where you least expect it, making it worthwhile to figure out the “why” so as to concentrate later on the “where”.
My point is, depending on the type of prospector a person is, you might fall into one of the following two camps…
Camp 1: move fast, hit quick, all pay dirt goes into a single bag or bucket for clean up at the end of the day. You prospect more cracks and material thus you should end each day with more gold… but you don't know if most of it came from a single crack or not.
Camp 2: move fast, hit quick, but pan each crack’s pay dirt down separately, in the hopes of elucidating some of the hydrodynamics of placer gold deposition for the particular area you are working in… you will produce less pay dirt than Camp 1, but after some unknown amount of time your insights may allow you to increase your daily yield by high grading the cracks you elect to prospect.
Perhaps this is common sense? I don’t know, as I came up with it myself through my own newfound experiences.
Here is a photo of about 1.5 grams collected yesterday on the South Fork American River… 0.9 grams came from a single shallow crack that I was CERTAIN had already been prospected by someone else (guess not)… the rest was fairly evenly distributed at 3-5 flakes (plus fly poop) per pan. You can bet I took a looong look at why the high-yield crack collected the gold it contained, and I will be looking for cracks morphologically and hydrodynamically similar in the future.
Heading back to the same spot on Monday where I hope all that I think I learned yesterday yields continued good results.
Cheers all!
L.G.
Boy there are so many great tips on these forums, from so many different prospectors and miners!
Lanny in AB’s bedrock sniping tips are great reading… I totally buy into keeping a light pack so as to move fast, hit quick, then on to the next crack, filling a bag or bucket of hopefully high grade pay dirt through the day, so as to maintain productivity… then finishing off at the end of the day by panning the concentrates out.
ON THE OTHER HAND (this is a tip that may be especially helpful for newbies), if you are of limited experience, and/or are prospecting a new watershed or over a type of bedrock you are not familiar with, you may find it helpful to DECREASE production in the name of elucidating more on where and how gold may concentrate. That is, pan every prospected crack or feature out separately…
As most of us know… often there is zero rhyme or reason on where the gold is (except that it is ALWAYS where you find it)… on the other hand, often gold is concentrated in the bottom of deep cracks, but not always… often it’s better concentrated on the insides of bends, but not always… etc… some stretches of river or creek have a certain type of bedrock, with a certain fracture pattern, or strike/dip, that catches gold very effectively, sometimes where you least expect it, making it worthwhile to figure out the “why” so as to concentrate later on the “where”.
My point is, depending on the type of prospector a person is, you might fall into one of the following two camps…
Camp 1: move fast, hit quick, all pay dirt goes into a single bag or bucket for clean up at the end of the day. You prospect more cracks and material thus you should end each day with more gold… but you don't know if most of it came from a single crack or not.
Camp 2: move fast, hit quick, but pan each crack’s pay dirt down separately, in the hopes of elucidating some of the hydrodynamics of placer gold deposition for the particular area you are working in… you will produce less pay dirt than Camp 1, but after some unknown amount of time your insights may allow you to increase your daily yield by high grading the cracks you elect to prospect.
Perhaps this is common sense? I don’t know, as I came up with it myself through my own newfound experiences.
Here is a photo of about 1.5 grams collected yesterday on the South Fork American River… 0.9 grams came from a single shallow crack that I was CERTAIN had already been prospected by someone else (guess not)… the rest was fairly evenly distributed at 3-5 flakes (plus fly poop) per pan. You can bet I took a looong look at why the high-yield crack collected the gold it contained, and I will be looking for cracks morphologically and hydrodynamically similar in the future.
Heading back to the same spot on Monday where I hope all that I think I learned yesterday yields continued good results.
Cheers all!
L.G.
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