Placer Claim Mined Out?

[desertgolddigger]

I belong to a local club that owns a claim. This club has had this claim for many years, and acquired it after the old timers had mined it previously, and others after they commercial outfits closed up.
I walked quite a bit of the 160 acre claim, and noted that just about every wash had been worked. Most of the surface nuggets has also been detected by those with gold detectors. In other words, this place has been picked over and over and over.
But I m a stubborn type of person, and I figured, just watching how people ram their puffer and blower drywashers, that some gold was just being blown through them. maybe not much, but some small stuff that never got a chance to settle behind the riffles.
I know many of you would never go to the effort of digging for three to four hours through the tailings in these washes. Again, I'm a bit stubborn, and anyway, I just wanted to have some fun locally, instead of driving 300 miles roundtrip to something that gives a little more for less effort.
I've spent the last three weeks, digging a few times a week along about 30 yards of wash, and have recovered just about a gram of gold. That might not seem like much, but I have only dug up 5 grams, not counting this one gram in almost 20 years out here drywashing in the desert of southern California.
As you would know, things always seem to go wrong. My gas powered blower motor decided it was time for the repair shop, and haven't heard from the shop in two weeks. So I purchased a WORX WG521 corded electric leaf blower to use with my Royal Large drywasher. I'm using a portable generator to provide the power. And it actually is working better than with my old gas powered blower. I have to run the blower on the lowest speed, or I just blow everything through the riffles. Results are very good, as I am getting gold specks so small that I will have to use the Blue bowl in order to recover them.
I'm not only getting a little gold, I'm having some fun, and I am getting a good workout. I've lost 10 pounds since I started. So things are going well.
I'm still digging test holes around the old time hard rock mines in the hope I will find where the gold has drifted downhill below these mines. So far just a couple specks here and there. I figure I just have to move laterally one way or the other before I get something better Of course, I' don't really know if the old timers stripped the hillsides. Even if they have, they apparently aren't as thorough as I am. I hope that I may be lucky and find a larger piece of gold that the old timers, previous placer miners, and detectorists have missed.
Hope everyone is having as much fun as I have been having.

 

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[desertgolddigger]

Interesting. Was there any "Discovery" work done on say most of the 100 claims or was there work on just one of the claims?

I haven't found any more information other than what someone told me, and what little I could find browsing the internet, and off of "The Land Matters".

 

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[Assembler]

I haven't found any more information other than what someone told me, and what little I could find browsing the internet, and off of "The Land Matters".

Well a trip to the County records office should help fill in some blanks..

 

[southfork]

Based on what I've seen. back around 2012, this entity filed claims on what I was told were around 100 mines in this general area. The area I can get to in my basic 4x4 still contains dozens of their claims. I think they are some kind of venture group formed by a few college graduates back in the 1990's.

Not suggesting anything but my thought was who would stop someone from filling ruts with buckets of rocks. Out in the desert in the middle of nowhere I would just wave and keep on going. Seems like a lot of BLM public lands are out of reach or restricted from prospecting / mining by the average person. The big LLC investment groups are not worried about small scale prospecting. Or so I've been told.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Here's the short tour I promised.
1) My place I hammer rocks into submission
2) My new electrical outlets for the Chain Mill and Electric Sifter (both covered) I have a similar outlet on a post in the sluice shelter.
3) My shelter with sluice, other stuff, two water troughs, and new water piping. The water piping slopes down from the sluice, so retention of water won't happen. I set it up this way to prevent the pipes from bursting during a hard freeze.
4) My modified cement mixer with a pile of sand that needs milling. The mixer is quite small, only capable of handling one 60# bag of cement. I put in half a bucket of the sand, 20# of steel balls (3/4 to 1.5 inch diameter). and 2.5 gallons of water.

I discovered that these sand grains still contain ultra fine gold, and mixed in, slightly larger than 80 mesh gold, along with the typical lead, copper, and brass from shotguns.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Thought I'd be out on the club claim today placer mining. But the weather forecast hit me with 25mph winds, gusting to 40. So I stayed home, but will be out this weekend, as the weather is supposed to be wonderful through Tuesday.

Yet, the wind died down to a trickle, so I sluiced a little, and got a little. Nothing big, but a fair amount of the on the edge of visibility gold. Took a lot of tapping, and swirling to get this little stuff to settle in the edge of the pan.

I didn't get skunked, so I'm happy.

Hope I'll have good news about this weekends mining foray. There's always a little gold in the old drywasher tailing pies, but am hoping I get a few larger bits. I'm also going to dig up on the ledge above the wash. I've found gold up there, either from really old drywashing, that's completely leveled out, or possibly super old deposits when the wash wasn't so deep.

 

[russau]

Hoping the best for you in your quest for the gold !

 

[Assembler]

Thought I'd be out on the club claim today placer mining. But the weather forecast hit me with 25mph winds, gusting to 40. So I stayed home, but will be out this weekend, as the weather is supposed to be wonderful through Tuesday.

Yet, the wind died down to a trickle, so I sluiced a little, and got a little. Nothing big, but a fair amount of the on the edge of visibility gold. Took a lot of tapping, and swirling to get this little stuff to settle in the edge of the pan.

This may sound silly however use the wind to your advantage when you use a leaf blower to help concentrate the material that is already there. Just saying.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Went out yesterday to the club claim, as the rest of the week might have rain.

I kept digging in the same hole I started this weekend. It is directly across from a very steep wash that has several surface digs with lots of quartz. The water coming down that very steep grade seems to have blasted a large hole in the main wash.

I'd dug across from something similar last year, and probably got 1/2 an ounce from that one.

This hole has a lot of brown sediment caking rocks together. I've managed to dig through six inches of it, It's very tough going. Still haven't found bedrock. This hole this is now three feet deep, and I'll have to dig a ramp in order to get down into the hole. On the opposite side of the hill is another wash, and in that one, no one has hit bedrock. Someone dug down 20 feet without finding bedrock. I just hope this hole doesn't need that much digging.

Yesterday I got another 8/100ths of a gram, basically the same as this pat weekend. It's not big gold, but the hole seems a consistent producer. Hopefully I'll get larger gold farther down, and into the bank I've been digging in.

If my memory serves me, about 20 years ago, this area was a very shallow part of the wash. Since then, it's seen a lot of digging/drywashing, but it seems no one has dug through this brown sediment caked area. Probably because it's very difficult digging.

I'm hoping my new location will keep me busy for quite some time, and will at least produce similar results each outing. I probably could get more gold, with digging more each session, but my body can't handle extended days of digging.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I had my weekly trip to the club claim to do some placer mining, and also lay more gavel on its access road.

As usual, I move a lot of material (30 five gallon buckets) for a tiny bit of gold (.064 gram).

But it was really nice to be out, and getting some good exercise. My lack of placer mining is probably the reason I gained nearly 10 pounds during the past year. I'd concentrated on hard rock stuff, which is hard work, but not as strenuous as placer mining.

four days of similar activity as today, has netted me only 3/10th gram of the yellow stuff. But it all adds up in the end.
Hopefully I'll end up with a gram by the end of the year

Still have to get my hard rock prospecting kit gathered, and go out sometime this week to sample an area. Now that I know about some of these township sections, I've got oodles of acres to explore. All of this is because Clay Diggins helped me with some of the nuances in "Land Matters". Thanks Clay

 

[russau]

EXCELLENT ! Good Luck D.G.D. in your adventure and THANK YOU My Land Matter's for being there for your guidance & expert advice !

 

[desertgolddigger]

EXCELLENT ! Good Luck D.G.D. in your adventure and THANK YOU My Land Matter's for being there for your guidance & expert advice !

Thanks so much for the encouragement. I got the truck loaded with what I need for running dirt samples, and also included my rock hammer and chisel, just in case.

I'll keep writing about my excursions, as they happen. I'm guessing that since the old timers, and the newer prospectors have probably gone over all this ground multiple times, it'll take a little luck, and a lot of tome to find something.

I'm not only looking for a hard rock source, but the possibility of a placer.

 

[russau]

yep KEEP LOOKING FOR EVERYTHING !! That's part of the adventure !

 

[desertgolddigger]

No luck today, as I discovered all the dirt roads only lead to either private, State or areas with lots of claims. My only option for 90 percent of the areas that Clay Diggins helped show me, are only accessible on foot. There are very few main dirt roads (roads the old timers established) in the sections I have available.

So next week I'll pick one of the sections that does have a bordering road, and do a lot of walking, and looking for signs of possible places.

From what I understand, discoloration (not from the Sun) in rocks is one sign. Also, quartz shards lying around by their lonesome may be another indicator. I guess a third might be heavy concentrations of black sand, though I've already found, that's not that good an indicator. Of the 10+ holes I've dug, none produced even one speck of gold.

So, from my experience looking today in those off limits areas, I will have to circle all outcrops of rock, looking for these indicators.

I also found a problem today on the few holes I did dig. I can't see anything with a small loupe when outdoors all that well. I do very well with my indoor table mounted, LED lighted 4 inch magnifying glass. I'll need to find a battery powered large diameter one that I can mount on my truck. Otherwise, I have to tote half buckets back home to use my normal equipment.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I think I'm going out tomorrow to prospect near the club claim. 15 years ago, when I wasn't a club member, I walked a canyon that's inaccessible by motor vehicle. At the time, all I did was placer mine, and knew nothing about hard rock mining.

I set up my drywasher, and ran about five buckets of material, and got just one fair sized speck.

I want to re visit that canyon, with my new knowledge, and haul out a few quarter buckets of material, spaced about every 100 feet.

If I find gold, then I need to continue up wash, doing more of the same until I don't find anything. Then I will have an idea where to start climbing fairly steep slopes to hopefully find where the gold is coming from.

Based on the area, it's either very mineralized, or I'll find small shards of quarts. There was some quartz down wash. Those years ago, There was a little quartz I dug along with that speck of gold, so I'm guessing, if there is gold, it's associated with it.

 

[russau]

Man I wish I could still get out like you are doing ! I really miss going out dredging and meeting up with my friends that I've meet over the years ! So many friends and so many years have past , BUT I still have the great memories of all that I've met ! Thanks for your stories , they brought back LOT'S of very fond memories from long ago !

 

[southfork]

desertgolddigger I'm not too familiar with your area of prospecting but isn't there old hard rock mine waste piles? Around my part of the state when it comes to hard rock it's almost a sure thing to find a little color in the waste rock. I just pickup of float Quartz with a lot of iron steaking to crush small returns but still gold. My son uses metal detectors on mine waste and finds a couple of grams a day or more just small rocks with gold showing. The piece of quartz in my hand is what I look for and toss in the bucket just a little flour gold most of the time. I don't do much digging just surface finds that get uncovered by the weather or live stock. I call them ankle breakers that I normally toss along the fence lines now they go in the bucket too grind gold fever.

 

[Assembler]

Some form of iron is often your best indicator / friend as far as seeing some color.

 

[desertgolddigger]

desertgolddigger I'm not too familiar with your area of prospecting but isn't there old hard rock mine waste piles? Around my part of the state when it comes to hard rock it's almost a sure thing to find a little color in the waste rock. I just pickup of float Quartz with a lot of iron steaking to crush small returns but still gold. My son uses metal detectors on mine waste and finds a couple of grams a day or more just small rocks with gold showing. The piece of quartz in my hand is what I look for and toss in the bucket just a little flour gold most of the time. I don't do much digging just surface finds that get uncovered by the weather or live stock. I call them ankle breakers that I normally toss along the fence lines now they go in the bucket too grind gold fever.

Yes, that's where I'm finding most of my super ultra fine gold; the old timer waste piles.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I went out this morning to the valley I mentioned yesterday, near our club claim. It was a bust. Now that I know, in general, what to look for, the mentioned quartz wasn't from this valley, but near the entrance of it, just above a major wash. I spent 45 minutes traipsing around the hillsides of this valley, and for the most part it is covered in this fractured gray rock. I did find a little magnetite, and reddish mineralization in one spot, but there was nothing else.

I jumped in the truck, and toured around my original area of interest, finding an old area I drywashed some 15 years ago. I only found about 1/2 gram of super fine gold, and then had to quit, as someone posted stakes, and was using a front loader to scrape the whole area, and run it through a huge machine of some kind. Apparently he restored the area, when finished, as it is mostly very smooth. Some kind of commercial interest?

Anyway, I stopped in an area with old timer digs, and scooped a half bucket of the 1/32 mesh and finer material, and also plucked some mineralized rocks. I ran the fine dirt, and got a nice short thin line of the super ultra fine gold. Will run the rocks tomorrow.

I also dropped into a big sandy area that had loads of black sands. It's surrounded by higher, rocky ground. I ran this also, and again found super ultra fine gold. The old old timer digs, I determined are fine for me to glean material from. But I think this area of sand may be a Placer claim, even though it's not poster with any kind of markers or cairns. From what you gents have mentioned in this thread, hard rock mines don't require posting, but placers do. So I may just keep digging a few buckets in the sandy area, each time I'm out there. At least there's gold in that sand.

Still Need to wander around some more to try finding an actual hard rock source, but at least I'll come home with a smidgen of gold each time out from these two locations.

Thanks to southfork's help concerning sluices, I can now catch this barely visible gold.

EDITED: I did crush these reddish rocks from the old timer waste pile. They are the remains of iron or iron pyrites. There were about 30-40 specks of gold in 1/10th bucket.

The white rock that I thought I saw specks of gold in were impossible for me to break with a sledge hammer. They aren't quartz, though maybe something similar. This white stuff was tossed the furthest from this surface mine. I'll try to break a few small pieces, and hopefully the chain mill can pulverize them, so I can examine the remains for possible gold.

 

[Assembler]

It was a bust. Now that I know, in general, what to look for, the mentioned quartz wasn't from this valley, but near the entrance of it, just above a major wash. I spent 45 minutes traipsing around the hillsides of this valley, and for the most part it is covered in this fractured gray rock. I did find a little magnetite, and reddish mineralization in one spot, but there was nothing else.

Any visible colors / panned colors in the rocks around the reddish mineralization spot area?