Secrets of Red Clay hidden under the remains of a Fractured Bedded Vein

[tinpan]

Hi all, This week i have hunting the remains of saddle quartz reef just below the tailing of a gold mine .The Garden Gully United -Ground first worked in 1857 Soon abandonded. In 1861 Latham's Reef at 175 feet.A public company was formed.The results were disappointed but was when leased to a tribute company.The tribute company struck gold in 1873 and in 1874 the lease expired and the parent company took over., 61,000oz's was won with some yeilds 10 oz,s per ton of rock .Prominent mine in the 1880's, 1890,s to 1900. Best gold -Latham reef 173 feet to 209 feet and from 600 feet to 2239 feet. Total gold yeild 444,337 ozs. Paid shareholders of the time $2,101,898 in dividends.

I started just below the main tails dump which is about half way up the hill and tailings is over 100 feet high.Since the mine closed in 1919 the annual rain has washed the ground beneath the bottom of the dump away. Revealing the fractured remains of a surfacing saddle reef. Run of slate and sedimentry rock ,large pieces of broken quartz . all nealy packed in red clay. I started slowly and picked a couple of pieces of gold out of the clay and then another piece. Ok time to go a back over the line of the reef again . Time to go deeper. Brought the gain up from 8 to max 15 . Go a bit noisey brought frq. down 5 to 99 . That did the trick. Nothing for a bout 40 feet and then a gentle sound as i passed the coil over this large piece of visable quartz .I knew the signal was not coming from the quartz or i would have got the it the first time. Drove the pick into the hard clay and pulling out 5 pound pieces .The 6th piece of clay light up and the GPX was on over load. Left that piece and drove in one more time and hit the solid rock pan. Ran the coil over the hole ,left no more targets. Either i had a nugget or neat little deposit missed by the first miners . After breaking up the lump i had a small hand full of gold pieces. Slightly worn so it was pocket of Colluvial or hill wash gold.

tinpan

 

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[tinpan]

One this old postcard which i used to get idea where the different mines were in 1904. The Red line the present location i have been working. Slowing working my way North. All saddle quartz reefs in the area run south to North . 31 main Reefs some over 25 miles long.Note the tailing dump halfway up the hill.

tinpan

 

[rj35pj]

As much as I like to coinshoot, if I lived in an area where finding gold was possible, that's what I would be doing! Nice pictures and keep digging.
Bob

 

[Doc Arey]

Wow, it just there, "You just gotta git it out of the ground"

 

[jf504mp]

Way to go Tinpan, you hit it again! I would hang out there and go for the gold, the coins will always be available.........John

 

[Tuberale]

Nice gold!!!!! And the history leading to the discovery was every bit as interesting as the Au itself.

It has been said that over 50% of the gold in the West was never recovered: too small, too dispersed, never found. Maybe.

I'm much more curious about the "red clay" though. From your photos, it looks like there was either a fire in the taililngs pile recently, or there is substantial mercury in the tailings pile, which had killed a lot of vegetation. That really doesn't make much sense to me, as mercury would have value when recovered. Maybe your gold came from rotten quartz? If so, you may have uncovered or detected an off-shoot to a main vein. An exciting possibility!

 

[saftgeek]

Thank you for the great post. You are living the dream, aren't you Mr. Pan?
Saftgeek-

 

[kuger]

Nice gold!!!!! And the history leading to the discovery was every bit as interesting as the Au itself.

It has been said that over 50% of the gold in the West was never recovered: too small, too dispersed, never found. Maybe.

I'm much more curious about the "red clay" though. From your photos, it looks like there was either a fire in the taililngs pile recently, or there is substantial mercury in the tailings pile, which had killed a lot of vegetation. That really doesn't make much sense to me, as mercury would have value when recovered. Maybe your gold came from rotten quartz? If so, you may have uncovered or detected an off-shoot to a main vein. An exciting possibility!

"VEGETATION",DOES not grow in tailing piles....no dirt!If Merc,was to escape into the tailings(which is impossible,given the methods used....never anywhere near the tailings)It doesnt stay there ,but travels to the lowest point.
The whole area Tinpan is working did recently burn,or was set fire to prevent future wildfire as he has stated before

 

[Gonehunting]

Wow.. that awesome...

 

[BosnMate]

I love your posts. Just keep finding more and posting those great finds.

 

[birdman]

Tinpan ,you are the king of high adventure gold finding! I have been enjoying your post for severl years now.Keep em coming.

 

[Tuberale]

"VEGETATION",DOES not grow in tailing piles....no dirt!If Merc,was to escape into the tailings(which is impossible,given the methods used....never anywhere near the tailings)It doesnt stay there ,but travels to the lowest point.
The whole area Tinpan is working did recently burn,or was set fire to prevent future wildfire as he has stated before

If the area was recently burnt as you suggest, vegetation DOES grow in tailing piles. Look at the photos again. Anyone can see several burnt stems still in the tailing pile.

While Gifford Pinchot in 1892 did state that air, water, soil and light were necessary for plant survival, his experiments were carried out in greenhouses. Greenhouses do not replicate any natural sites I am aware of, since they provide water.

Water availability is more more crucial for plant survival than dirt. In a greenhouse, water is provided. In nature, it is not.

Soil is not required on some sites in nature. But without sufficient water, plant life dies. This is called desertification, and is a major reason for growth of deserts around the world.

The fifth requirement for plant life outside of greenhouses is mycorrhizal fungi. Gifford Pinchot knew of mycorrhizal fungi, but barely. The term had just been coined in 1892. These mostly symbiotic fungi gather water and leach nutrients from rock. So mycorrhizal fungi are arguably more important than soil to growing plants.

Mycorrhizal fungi are important in the reclamation of tailing piles and toxic mining sites. Some mycorrhizal fungi concentrate toxic metals such as mercury, cadmium, strontium, cesium, lead, and others; and shunt them away from their host plants. Other fungi are known to break-down toxins poisonous to plants, such as dioxins, DDT, polybiphenols (PBPs), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's), and others. Mycorrhizal fungi show promise in reclamation of heavily polluted areas, including open pit mining areas and streams contaminated by mercury during the gold rush days. A scant few mycorrhizal fungi concentrate toxic heavy metal radioactive isotopes. BTW, at least one fungus is known to concentrate gold, which can then be removed.

The use of fungi to detoxify the environment is called bioremediation. A quick search on the web should show a few thousand hits with toxic wastes such as those already named. Just search for *bioremediation*, *fungi*, and *mercury*, for example. I just did and got 284,000 *hits*.

 

[kuger]

Use all the big words and quote all the studies you want,I live and have grown up in the heaviest mined area in the U.S...........vegetation does not grow on hard rock mine tailing piles

 

[Tuberale]

Sounds like denial. Still ... the first of many steps.

 

[kuger]

Sounds like denial. Still ... the first of many steps.
[/quote

Nope,its called real world experience and not out of some book .....you should try it

 

[tinpan]

"VEGETATION",DOES not grow in tailing piles....no dirt!If Merc,was to escape into the tailings(which is impossible,given the methods used....never anywhere near the tailings)It doesnt stay there ,but travels to the lowest point.
The whole area Tinpan is working did recently burn,or was set fire to prevent future wildfire as he has stated before

If the area was recently burnt as you suggest, vegetation DOES grow in tailing piles. Look at the photos again. Anyone can see several burnt stems still in the tailing pile.

While Gifford Pinchot in 1892 did state that air, water, soil and light were necessary for plant survival, his experiments were carried out in greenhouses. Greenhouses do not replicate any natural sites I am aware of, since they provide water.

Water availability is more more crucial for plant survival than dirt. In a greenhouse, water is provided. In nature, it is not.

Soil is not required on some sites in nature. But without sufficient water, plant life dies. This is called desertification, and is a major reason for growth of deserts around the world.

The fifth requirement for plant life outside of greenhouses is mycorrhizal fungi. Gifford Pinchot knew of mycorrhizal fungi, but barely. The term had just been coined in 1892. These mostly symbiotic fungi gather water and leach nutrients from rock. So mycorrhizal fungi are arguably more important than soil to growing plants.

Mycorrhizal fungi are important in the reclamation of tailing piles and toxic mining sites. Some mycorrhizal fungi concentrate toxic metals such as mercury, cadmium, strontium, cesium, lead, and others; and shunt them away from their host plants. Other fungi are known to break-down toxins poisonous to plants, such as dioxins, DDT, polybiphenols (PBPs), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's), and others. Mycorrhizal fungi show promise in reclamation of heavily polluted areas, including open pit mining areas and streams contaminated by mercury during the gold rush days. A scant few mycorrhizal fungi concentrate toxic heavy metal radioactive isotopes. BTW, at least one fungus is known to concentrate gold, which can then be removed.

The use of fungi to detoxify the environment is called bioremediation. A quick search on the web should show a few thousand hits with toxic wastes such as those already named. Just search for *bioremediation*, *fungi*, and *mercury*, for example. I just did and got 284,000 *hits*.

Hi a simple observation would have saved you a lot time and effort .This tailing dump clearly shows the sedimentry grey stone is in small to large pieces which means the ore never got too the final crushing process to fine grit for mercury to used. Saddle quartz reefs repeat at depth which means the a lot of useless sedementry rock between the reefs. They graded all ore and the ore grades were stockpile in several locations on merrit. Only the best ore was processed. better yeids of ore were as low as i/4 of oz to over 10 ozs per ton. based on mining records less than 1/5 of all ore was ever brought to the surface and even less made it to the final process. often dumped on ground with in the mine lease . The ground under and around the lease sites holds natural ground . So the existance of patches and pockets of secondary gold deposits . The hard rock mines were for primary deposits.Today we look for those small untouched areas missed by the first rush which included Eluvial, Colluvial and Aulluvial. Hard rock mining came after. Gold mining a process by order. Nature deposites gold one way, we mine gold backwards from this process.Deep rock on top and surface ground on the bottom.

For some time in my posts i have clearly stated that the whole area i have been hunting has been subject to controlled burn -offs .Fire harzard reduction before this you couldn,t even walk threw this area let alone use a md. here a link to this effect
http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au...al/dse-active-with-bendigo-burns/2347626.aspx

Your info is based on science that was used over a hundred years ago. Pictures say a different story

In reguard to the colour of the clay. Most of these pics were take by me at about 8.30 pm in limited light yesterday. i took few pics today at 5.30pm this afternoon.

Theres also some better pics of sedimentry rock and major quartz deposit Bedded vein or saddle quartz reef. Well most of the reef was what was mine in the creek below.' Part of' i said.

thank you i hope this statement and pictures may help

tinpan

 

[tinpan]

pics

 

[tinpan]

pics

 

[tinpan]

pics

 

[tinpan]

managed to do a bit of hunting with a mate while taking these extra pics

tinpan