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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[Assembler]

Well unless I missed a post , If you haven't hit bedrock of false bedrock (clay layer) you haven't mined the claim out ! Maybe it's to the point that it isn't worth digging for what you are getting! But there is always something there that has some value !

It is possible that the false bedrock is made of other materials besides clay. Picks and chisels can help with a false bedrock.
Even a metal detector can help spot that there is iron sands below the false bedrock at times.

Each area is going to be different.

 

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[Assembler]

Bot you don’t get it, you contribute nothing to our conversations and piss everyone off in the process. She asked you to stop yet you keep going with that same message.

Just conversation about the point that russau made about false bedrock.

 

[desertgolddigger]

Just thought I'd report in on my venture back to placer mining at the club claim.

I've been at it for almost a month, usually just once or twice a week. I'm also back to repairing the access roads to repair the damage the massive flooding caused. For the roads, they're still passable, but 2 wheel vehicles wouldn't make it, though the patches I've put in the bad spots will change that eventually.

I did about a ton of material per outing. Everything that I process gets classified by a 1/4 inch screen. There's no point in using the larger 1/2 inch screen. Larger than 1/4 inch gold just doesn't exist in this wash anymore.

But I did get lucky a week ago, coming up with a .26 gram nugget, and a specimen with dozens of specks of gold imbedded. So far, since back at placer mining, 1.2 grams. I'm hoping for two grams by year end. I guess I'm averaging about 1/10th gram per outing, which keeps me coming back.

I'm also feeling more fit, as the activity definitely, requires heavy work.

Now I need to get back to processing hard rock material I've gathered on days I'm not placer mining to supplement my total. Takes a lot of the gold dust to make a gram.

 

[BoulderTroll]

But I did get lucky a week ago, coming up with a .26 gram nugget, and a specimen with dozens of specks of gold imbedded.

Nice finds! Glad you're getting rewarded for the efforts you're putting in.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I'd set a goal that before the end of December, I'd reach the two gram mark digging up placer gold at the club claim.

I reached that goal today, just passing the two gram mark.

What's a little odd is that for the most part, very little fine gold has been recovered, but I'm not getting large stuff either, except for that one nice nugget previously mentioned. I've been managing a couple mini nuggets, smaller than 1/8 inch, and two to four about half that size, with a smattering of 1/30 mesh gold. Total has been just over 1/10th gram per outing.

I have to move about 1500 pounds of of dirt and rock, but doing that has gotten me a lot stronger, and I'm feeling better than just a month ago. On top of the placer mining, I'm back at paving the access roads with the rock, and skinning rough areas on the roads with the drywasher tailings.

I have four more outings before year end, so maybe I can dig another 1/2 gram. What all this work amounts to is I've gotten almost a third of what took me 2 1/2 years of long hours collecting hard rock gold, in a month of placer mining. I'll continue with the hard rock, but only to supplement what I find placer mining.

I did come across some rock ore someone tossed by the side of the wash I've been digging in. Under magnification, These half dozen brownish, pocked pieces of rock showed very fine gold. Apparently the person tossing these didn't check with a loupe. I guess that if the metal detector doesn't sound off, it's a reject, and tossed. There were some very mineralized pieces of quartz, with streaks of it running through them. I just need to crack them with my sledge hammer, and check those streaks. Kind of nice having all these interesting looking rocks placed in a big pile for me to play with.

 

[russau]

CONGRATULATION'S DGD on your quest 'goal to find gold !

 

[desertgolddigger]

Happy New Year to All, and wishing the best gold finding year ever.

2024 wasn't great for me, but my December back to placer mining made me pretty happy. While I had to move about 1500 pounds of rock and material to get an average of between 1/10th and 1/5th of a gram, I did manage just shy of 2.5 grams. My last day out netted me the most, at a smidgen over 3/10ths of a gram.

It's hard to say where most of this gold is coming from. Earlier this year, we had probably the biggest flood hit our claim in the 20 years I've tried to pluck gold from the ground. But we also have those people who don't run their drywashers sensibly. Most of the gold I get is flake or wire gold with a smattering of chunky gold. But occasionally I find a pocket from these drywasher waste piles that nets me what I call mini chunkies. They're only about 1/16 inch diameter, but fat.

Now it's 2025, and I'll be back to my twice a week outings. But I seem to do fine working these old waste piles, and whatever Mother Nature has washed off the hillsides. While I don't expect 2.5 grams per month, maybe I'll get lucky with one gram or so. That'd get me to nearly 2 ounces for my mining career.

I'll not be able to post pictures until I discover why my new computer doesn't detect my old Fujifilm Finepix HS20EXR camera. It's possible I need to install an upgraded firmware version. Have to figure out how that's done. It's possible my current USB cable is bad. I used it with my video player, and the player wouldn't work, so I need to purchase another cable.

 

[desertgolddigger]

I've wanted to figure out how many particles of 500 mesh gold makes an ounce, but never found any reference online.

So I gave it a guesstimate using a base of 100 mesh, and for every step to next 100 mesh, multiplied the 100 mesh weight by a factor of 8. I'm just guessing a particle of 100 mesh gold is 8 times heavier than 200 mesh gold.

Anyway, using this method I came up with 1/2 billion particles of 500 mesh gold weighs one ounce. If this is even half right, that's a lot of gold particles.

No wonder it took me 2 1/2 years to collect 100 mesh and smaller gold to get just 6.5 grams. This type of hard rock gold gathering must be just for fun, and not considered a worthwhile endeavor for micro scale miners like myself. All it will do is eat a lot of time and money (it did), and add a tiny bit to your gold inventory. I figure my time and money was worth at least ten times the value of gold found.

This is one reason why I'm basically quitting the hard rock gold gathering, and back to placer mining. Placer mining, in one month, netted me almost 2.5 grams. And that is having to move about 1500 pounds of material in the wash, to get somewhere between 1/10th to 1/8th gram per outing. While it's hard work, and still doesn't pay expenses for time and money, it's a whole lot better than the hard rock frustration.

If I had gotten lucky, and found a new, natural deposit in the rock like a few people I've talked to, then I probably would be considering continuing my hard rock gold quest. But finding new lodes in an area prospected to the nth degree isn't easy, especially for someone with limited knowledge like myself. Maybe someday I might get lucky, while digging a new location, and find one. But I no longer am going out to try finding one.

I'll just keep digging test holes on the club claim looking for pockets of placer gold, and maybe get lucky someday with locating a lode deposit.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Cash out!

 

[desertgolddigger]

Cash out!

What does "Cash out" mean?

 

[bc5391]

After getting a smidgen over 2 grams from two large drywashing tailing piles, I moved on to the next pile. This time I almost got skunked, with only 25 very tiny pieces. This tells me that whomever was doing the drywashing must have set up the washer so that he/she was capturing almost everything. Guess my next outing will be sampling a few piles to see if I can find another one where the person was just blowing things through. Guess I just got lucky with my first two piles.

so for 5 days of work you made $175, or $34 a day. If you were homeless I would say that was good, but to pay bills, not so.

 

[russau]

so for 5 days of work you made $175, or $34 a day. If you were homeless I would say that was good, but to pay bills, not so.

I'll pass this along to my friends !