Why can’t I find gold here?

[Wilderness medic]

Is the answer as simple as there is no gold here?

Lots of cobblestone, a fair amount of quartz. Heavy deposits and black sands. This creek behind my house in Shasta county ca looks like everything I would see in an area with gold but after a dozen test pans at different spots I haven’t found any color. It has this nice wall on the side eroding away with very old dirt/clay and river rocks.

Any ideas? I thought pretty much every decent waterway in “gold country” would have something, even if small.

 

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[smokeythecat]

It could be. Some places just didn't have a vein nearby. Check the old mining maps of the county to see if there is a better place nearby.

 

[RTR]

Gold is found where its been found before. Has any gold been found IN THAT creek before ?

 

[russau]

Dig deeper! Don't give up !

 

[arizau]

Make yourself familiar with this site. Welcome to Land Matters. It maps the location of claims (your area and everywhere else in the west) to the quarter section at least and is current. Search near but not on those claims and prosper. By the way, black sand is not an indicator. It is one of the most common minerals found on earth. If there is gold and black sand then they will accumulate together simply because they are both heavier than most other minerals and elements.

Good luck.

 

[RTR]

IF, that was my property and I really thought it had gold in that stream.I would rent a back ho or tractor w/ power auger (for half a day).And dig some test holes (on the inside bends of that creek) Then pan & sluice the crap out of it good luck...

 

[dave wiseman]

Get down to bedrock in a few spots if possible,then pan.

 

[Wilderness medic]

Thanks for the replies. There is a fair amount of bedrock exposed. I've done some test pans around it, and scraped some crevices. Nothing.

That site sure is cool. It would be nice if they had a search function as its really hard to keep zooming in with poor internet.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Thanks for the replies. There is a fair amount of bedrock exposed. I've done some test pans around it, and scraped some crevices. Nothing.

That site sure is cool. It would be nice if they had a search function as its really hard to keep zooming in with poor internet.

Land Matters doesn't work like other web maps.

You can search with the binocular tool on the right.

Use your mouse to draw a box around the area you would like to zoom to. You don't have to click over and over again to zoom like google. Zoombox is much quicker!

Don't turn on base layers until you've zoomed to your area of interest. If you don't turn on the Aerials or Topo base layers the map uses very little bandwidth.

There are a bunch of cool features built in to make your mapping easier. Try looking around the pages explaining map use, just click on the "HELP" button at the top of the map and click around the links there.

Heavy Pans

 

[winners58]

Shasta county is mostly newer Quaternary volcanic flow - basalt flows
look at the LandMatters Geology maps you can zoom in, some areas that are better might be Tertiary
if you can find some breaks or landslides or deep cut valleys, possibly intrusions, what areas has gold been found in?
I like comparing the rock type and age of what usually carry the gold for the area I'm looking in using USGS maps
like this one; https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2012/1228/ sometimes its hard to know where you are (location on top & edge of maps)

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

Is the answer as simple as there is no gold here?

Lots of cobblestone, a fair amount of quartz. Heavy deposits and black sands. This creek behind my house in Shasta county ca looks like everything I would see in an area with gold but after a dozen test pans at different spots I haven’t found any color. It has this nice wall on the side eroding away with very old dirt/clay and river rocks.

Any ideas? I thought pretty much every decent waterway in “gold country” would have something, even if small. View attachment 1656955

In the picture you show I would move all that rock that is in your creek then dig until you hit bedrock then do your test pans there.Also take some dirt from lowest levels of the banks but make sure you dig all the way down to bedrock and test there also.You also need to be on a bend where gold could drop out of current, an inside bend in the river or creek.In a straight part of the river any flooding will wash the gold out, you need something to slow the current for the gold to drop out, something that creates an eddy is where the gold will be.

 

[smokeythecat]

Not all gold is found in bedrock. Case in point I live in a little valley between two not really tall hills, but schist happens and schist happens to upthrust on both sides of the valley. There are quartz veins in the schist. So these were sediments long ago that were "cooked" and uplifted by added heat and pressure to become schist, which is metamorphic.

The bedrock here is so deep, you can't get to it. However we do find gold in the creek. As we are in a relatively narrow valley here and it's been raining a lot, I have been panning sands that have come clear out of the creek bed and have been thrown 5' above the water line. There is small gold in those sands.

The bedrock is about 15' below, so the weathered out gold has come up 15' to the top of the ground! Good for lazy prospectors! Like me!

 

[beekbuster]

the gold area of shasta is mostly west of I5.

 

[Bejay]

in order for there to be gold in the gravels/streambed there would have to be a source. Often no source exists in a drainage system. As well; often one can find huge amounts of black sand in a stream placer deposit and not one flake of gold will exist. As well the geologic mineral history of the drainage will lead one to understand the worthiness of prospecting efforts.


Bejay

 

[Wilderness medic]

Thanks. After looking at that map it seems like there’s little to no gold here sadly. A gold filled stream on my property would have been a huge buying point on this house for me.

I tried topsoil pans, into that wall, and a couple feet down along bedrock. No dice

 

[placertogo]

Tailings from an old operation which got covered with dirt over the years, perhaps?

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

The panning advice given is good, but there is a lot to the old saying “gold is where you find it”.

From what I have read and based on my conversations with people that routinely prospect in Redding area, gold can and does get found in some unlikely looking places. Primarily with a metal detector.

Good Gold is closer than you think.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

An avid and experienced prospector in your area (Ray Mills) regularly contributes to a magazine called “ICMJ’s Mining and Prospecting Journal.”

He’s generous with his knowledge and you won’t find better information (specific to your area) anywhere else.

He goes by the handle “TrinityAU” if you want to do a little internet sleuthing.
He has a web site and at least one book out. You won’t go wrong ordering his book.

In fact I’m looking at it now..

 

[winners58]

just a FYI there is Gold in Shasta county.
video of a friend just outside Redding, the creek is described in TrinityAU's book
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RJtnHCrHulM

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Best of all, probably in an area not open to mineral claims!!
Hint..the areas not claimed are not necessarily barren of gold.
They could be private or withdrawn from public domain.
Crap, I don’t want to give too much away.