theblade
Greenie
I live in the slate belt in NC around ALOT of gold mines and grew up panning for gold with my dad. We never found more than sand size pieces of gold and it was always more of a father son thing to do.
Those memories have never left me and even though I haven’t panned in years I always pickup interesting rocks and things. Recently I found an area with rocks not as typical around. There’s obviously a lot of slate and clay in these areas as well but this area seems to be a melting pot of every rock and geologic formation that exists in these parts. The deeper I dig the bigger and more interesting the rocks get. I could only get so many and did not have a lot of time but the clay(?) I think is what it is, that these are trapped in is almost like rock itself. It’s littered with Little Rock’s and is mineral stained. The bigger rocks are maybe softball to football size and probably weigh between 5 and 15 lbs. I’m sure if I had a day and better tools I could really get down to what is below but I hoped to get some more answers before I really got into it.
These are only a tiny sampling of what I’ve found. I’ve included a picture of the clay or whatever it is for help with what that is in hopes it could help point to if this area is worth further digging. Then I have two rocks which I’ve cracked open. These were separate rocks not the same and a small representation of the broad range of rocks there. The dark rock I think is maybe schist? Based on the dark bands that are easily seen and break off at those areas. The other more quartz like rock has lots of veins of some mineral. I’m very skeptical to think any of it’s gold but even with a jewelers magnifier it’s hard to tell. It doesn’t easily flake and doesn’t look blocky under magnification. But it seems to be fairly thin so I can’t get it to dent or anything like gold would. I also tried to take the picture in the shade to give a more accurate representation as it doesn’t glitter like pyrite either. Some of it’s also surrounded by some very dark blue or purple not sure I’m color blind
mineral which I’ve never seen. Even if it’s not gold I wondered if it’s worth spending more time digging around and investing time and money in to it further.
Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!
Those memories have never left me and even though I haven’t panned in years I always pickup interesting rocks and things. Recently I found an area with rocks not as typical around. There’s obviously a lot of slate and clay in these areas as well but this area seems to be a melting pot of every rock and geologic formation that exists in these parts. The deeper I dig the bigger and more interesting the rocks get. I could only get so many and did not have a lot of time but the clay(?) I think is what it is, that these are trapped in is almost like rock itself. It’s littered with Little Rock’s and is mineral stained. The bigger rocks are maybe softball to football size and probably weigh between 5 and 15 lbs. I’m sure if I had a day and better tools I could really get down to what is below but I hoped to get some more answers before I really got into it.
These are only a tiny sampling of what I’ve found. I’ve included a picture of the clay or whatever it is for help with what that is in hopes it could help point to if this area is worth further digging. Then I have two rocks which I’ve cracked open. These were separate rocks not the same and a small representation of the broad range of rocks there. The dark rock I think is maybe schist? Based on the dark bands that are easily seen and break off at those areas. The other more quartz like rock has lots of veins of some mineral. I’m very skeptical to think any of it’s gold but even with a jewelers magnifier it’s hard to tell. It doesn’t easily flake and doesn’t look blocky under magnification. But it seems to be fairly thin so I can’t get it to dent or anything like gold would. I also tried to take the picture in the shade to give a more accurate representation as it doesn’t glitter like pyrite either. Some of it’s also surrounded by some very dark blue or purple not sure I’m color blind
mineral which I’ve never seen. Even if it’s not gold I wondered if it’s worth spending more time digging around and investing time and money in to it further. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!
