We found a gold mine on our property

[Niner]

The tunnel goes right, then left, then right a few times until this

 

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[Niner]

I'm curious what you folks would do if you had something like this sitting on the backburner.

I'm open to suggestions. I have some ideas, but nothing definitive.

 

[robert2b]

Have you seen much mineralization in the ribs or spine? Any veins noticeable? Just curious as to what they left behind. If you find any good areas of mineralization you might want to take a few chunks and crush it up just to look for any free milling or you might pack some up and send it to an assayer and that would give you a good idea of what the old timers were chasing.

 

[Prospector70]

Did you pan any of it?
If it wasnt ever a gold mine, it is one now! LOL! Nice

 

[dustytrails123]

If i had that in my back yard id get some help from a real miner and go from there

 

[Niner]

"If i had that in my back yard id get some help from a real miner and go from there"

Hence the reason I posted this.

 

[dave wiseman]

Any mine tailings or signs of old equipment on the property?Is there any signs of an arrastre anywhere.?Does your property deed or other papers mention a mine?Do you have the mineral rights on your property?As robert2b mentions,Are there veins and/or stringers in the adit or nearby hillsides?

 

[Goldwasher]

You can go to the county Recorder and survey office. Make sure you have the map coordinates and they will help you find the parcel and you should be able to find the name of the mine. You can do more research from there. Even finding out about nearby mines will be helpful. Once you have a name you can research reports and try to find more information. Looks like it was worked last before the war, finding a mine that was shut down because of the war and never opened again can be a very good thing. Being inside of a mine that has a cave in already can be pretty sketchy....removing that water and moving around without putting in shoring could make any amount of flashlights batteries and air detectors pointless. Don't let excitement and curiosity overcome extreme caution.

 

[XDSA40]

"I'm curious what you folks would do if you had something like this sitting on the backburner."

My first thought was to make certain my property deed included mineral rights.

 

[Aufisher]

Looks like my old home town Magalia. Lots of hard rock and tertiary placers. Enjoy

 

[Clay Diggins]

Start with the mineral rights issue. If your warranty deed or title insurance doesn't specifically include the mineral rights you don't have any. No mineral rights = no right to explore for minerals.

Next step would be to figure out why the adit was dug. Not all holes were dug for the purpose of processing the material removed. Most of the material removed from a mine is not ore but just dross removed to get to the ore. Adits are dug for many reasons and not all adits lead to ore bearing deposits.

If there is ore available in the adit you will need to figure out what the mineral is. As I've pointed out, in your area there are at least as many chromite mines as there are gold mines. You probably aren't going to want to develop a chromite mine on your property.

It's obvious from your pictures that the adit was not dug on tertiary gold bearing gravels so if it is a gold bearing adit it will be a hardrock deposit. The question then will be whether the deposit is free milling. Even if the adit contains gold but it is not of a free milling type it will probably be impractical to continue.

If you have gotten to this point and have a free milling gold deposit you can then proceed to figure out how to safely and efficiently remove and market (or keep) your re-discovery. I would be very curious myself why a miner would abandon a free milling hardrock gold deposit after putting all that money and labor into developing such a well made adit. I suspect you will answer that question yourself in the process outlined above. In any case it will be an adventure. Enjoy and good luck!

 

[roadrunner]

Have you picked up any of the material on the floor of this?
Then pan it out to see what is in it.

 

[Niner]

We do have mineral and water rights to this property. There are some indications of mining activity just outside and a little downhill from the adit; twisted rails and what looks like some sort of metal brace (for rails? scaffolding?), other than that (and the pipes in the creek) the evidence is scant. There are many smaller hollows and dugouts further up the hill, and the area is virtually littered with chunks of white quartz.

There was no disclosure of a mine on the property in the title, and the previous owner knew nothing about it.

I spoke with an oldtimer who lives nearby, and he knew about it from years ago as a kid. He also said there's another mine on the property, but he didn't remember where it was.

 

[Niner]

We've panned a little down in the creek and also ran a little sluice box but all we found was a few little flakes of gold. Lots of silver looking material shows up as well.

At one point a crew (or one guy who must've been tough as nails) had hand-dug a good sized weir to divert water around a waterfall, and judging by the depth of the pool of water below the falls I suspect they mined that spot at some point

 

[Prospector70]

They couldnt have gotten it all sounds like a fun adventure you got on your hands. I'd grid the whole area and test pan it all. You never know what you will find, that you found gold on your property at all is very cool!

Keep us posted!

 

[rush]

View attachment 957789

look at all the hard green rock maybe Emerald and the dark stuff above your head and maybe gold looking stuff strait across from your right hand.

 

[Kingclean]

Lol, emerald? I believe the only emerald you'll find in Cali is the variety grown in the "emerald triangle", also, without even looking at the pic I can almost guarantee you are not seeing gold in the ribs. That tunnel was dug (presumably) for gold, whoever dug that would not expose a section of visible gold and then just leave it in the wall and keep digging.

 

[Goldwasher]

"Silvery stuff"....any pictures?

 

[loco oro]

if i was to have somthing like this,first gather as many samples to be assayed, then i would seal that tunnel,in reality that tunnel is a hazard and not an asset, and to make it an asset would be some consider investment of time and money,having said that ,i would like the notion at least of having a gold (reserve) , but i would focus most of my efforts on the placers,the old timers were obviously working placers there as well, so there old workings will point the way,so go get what they missed.perhaps your heirs could benifit from the hard rock assets in the future, right now it would be an enormous undertaking, and it is very unlikly you find a visible vien that would offer any get rich quik gold ,so my advice is to get samples see whats there,then seal it.

 

[Sheldon J]

They couldnt have gotten it all sounds like a fun adventure you got on your hands. I'd grid the whole area and test pan it all. You never know what you will find, that you found gold on your property at all is very cool! Keep us posted!

Very true and 100 years later the waterfall could have replenished