Where to find gold in this Creek (Group participation)

BobM

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Feb 7, 2016
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Michigan
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All Treasure Hunting
Where to find Gold in the Creek?
Answers can be found online, No cheating.
This here is a group exercise, If you click on the pic you can see my labels, please pick a,b,c,d, etc... and why it's found there, unfortunately there are no large boulders.
Location is just south of Dahlonega, GA
850 of creek frontage on my 5 acres, fed from other mountain creeks and streams.

Someone can post a desert or mountain pic to keep this going.
Thanks Bob M



Gold in stream.jpg
 

Upvote 0
its a small area,hit it ALL
 

I dont understand the question, because for one I dont know what it looks like at flood stage,
and it looks like a flatlander stream or flat farm land meandering stream.
I have mined streams like that on the coast usually the gold concentrates where it is pushed to,
one side of the stream or the other, I'd say the gold is dispersed everywhere so mine it all.
here is a photo of what the streams I mine on look like;
.
2018_0412_140445_025.JPG
 

Here's the first areas I'd try, but I'm not much of a 49er so I while what others have said, it's not a big area, hit it all.

20190519_145218.jpg
 

Between D and F as under flood conditions gold will drop there.
 

I don't see that creek ever having enough flow to move gold even at flood stage. Go back upstream several hundred feet in elevation and see what you find. Winners58 nailed it. Just a flat land farm creek. No gold here fellas, keep moving :laughing7:
 

Thanks for the participation, it was meant to be conversation on a Sunday afternoon.
Heavy pans.
Bob M
 

I like this exercise...

I’d start at the gravel bar, front and center of the photo. Looks like a hairpin turn where the turns upstream and downstream look like 90s, and so my inexperienced mind would guess that the inside bend of the hairpin is where most gold would drop out.

Also, yes, I’d like to see what it looks like at flood stage
 

If there's gold in the pan and it's legal to dredge or high bank then run everything from the far tree line to the bottom of the picture. straighten out out the entire oxbow :hello:
 

I dont understand the question, because for one I dont know what it looks like at flood stage,
and it looks like a flatlander stream or flat farm land meandering stream.
I have mined streams like that on the coast usually the gold concentrates where it is pushed to,
one side of the stream or the other, I'd say the gold is dispersed everywhere so mine it all.
here is a photo of what the streams I mine on look like;
.
View attachment 1713920

Y-NOT [emoji16]
 


First, I'd start upstream of "A" as the stagnant pool will cause gold to drop from lack of current. So check the head end of that first. Along with that, if there were large rocks, I'd check the sand tails on the backside.

Then I'd hit "A" as it looks like a bedrock ledge. It will act as a riffle system. The head end might have large gold piled up in front of it. The fast water trough on the right side might also have some large gold.

I'd check "B" for it would act similar to the stagnant pool, but it will have some current so larger gold should be found there.

"C" is a no brainer! Gold will drop there due to less current.

"D" should have BIG gold that current couldn't drag very well.

"E" will have very fine gold, as it's mostly sand.

"F" will have larger gold that couldn't pile up higher on the bar.
 

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looks like the creek barely flows enough to move fallen leaves.

i'd wager if there is gold its deeper and deposition has very little to do with that bend.
 

Hmm, let's see. A meandering meadow creek with no large stones visible. I say go upstream and look for steeper runs or bedrock outcrops.
 

looks like the creek barely flows enough to move fallen leaves.

i'd wager if there is gold its deeper and deposition has very little to do with that bend.

Plum Creek is about as slow as this, but in the spring it can be a raging torrent.
 

I've had lots of luck digging up gravel bars in creeks. Unlike rivers they're small enough to concentrate more gold in a small section, so just better to dig the whole gravel bar up.
 

East coast is different from west coast. Most of our gold bearing streams currently have very little drop and wide flood plains within the east coast Piedmont region. There very well could be good gold in the creek, but i would bet that the current course of the stream will have nothing to do with where the good gold is, sure the inside bend may have flour gold from recent floods, but not much else. The gold will be where the ancient stream deposited it, somewhere with in the flood plain area, when the climate was different and the oceans were much lower. Best bet is to prospect and find where the current stream bed crosses the ancient stream bed.

The far bank is about 15 feet of alluvial silt on an inside bend, the flood plain is about 100 yards wide.
20190525_174755.jpg

Im dredging the beginning of the outside bend center of creek to the outside bend. Loose sand and gravel is what makes up the inside part of the bend down to smooth scoured bedrock, orange hardpack makes up the outside part of the bend down to rough decomposed bedrock. The loose sand and gravel is recent deposition, the orange hardpack is ancient.
20190525_174744.jpg

Clean out from a single day of dredging the creek from center to start of outside bend, running predominantly the orange hardpack. One of my buddies was running the inside bend material and came out with just a small amount of fines.
20190525_184626.jpg

On the east coast dont think that the normal prospecting theories hold true, sample to find out where the gold is. Idk how many awesome gold deposits ive found that dive off under the banks of the creek and dont at all correspond with current creek bed.

Just my 2 cents.

Heavy Pans
 

If it's holding flood/flour gold, start wherever you can see rocks poking out (fist-sized and larger on the surface, and the gold will drop with them, be in the top few to six inches, if there's enough current at flood stage to allow deposition that is).

Always sample any inside bend, any spot where the stream flow slows for any reason. Gold is lazy, and it loves to take the path of least resistance from point A to B (not the A or B on your labeled picture). If you can figure where your high water would run, try to draw a line where that lazy gold would get drug along by taking the shortest route from point to point.

That hairpin turn might throw things off a bit, as any real fast water would shoot the gold to the opposite bank (outside bend) as well. I've found nuggets (not fine gold) in conditions like that.

However, as others have said, since it's such a small stream, it should be fairly simple to sample almost every area to get an idea if and where any gold it being deposited in quantity.

Good luck, and all the best,

Lanny
 

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