Gold Mining Questions and Answers: Part 14

It's been quite a while since I posted an installment of answers to questions sent to me by readers of "Bedrock Dreams." With that in mind, here is the 14th installment of gold mining questions and answers:

Why don't you have any articles about nugget hunting with a detector? The truth, plain and simple, is that I've done very little nugget hunting with a metal detector. So I am definitely no expert in that regard, despite my 30-plus years as a small-scale placer miner and treasure hunter. I have used a Whites Goldmaster and a Gold Bug II to hunt for nuggets in the past, but with no success. So I don't feel I'm the best guy around for telling others what's what and how to do it in that regard. (Anyone out there want to show me the ropes?!)

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Where's the best place to look for gold? That's a pretty broad query. But the old saying, "gold is where you find it," is probably pretty appropriate as part of the answer to your question. Another part of the answer is this: look for gold where it has been found before. For example, old mining areas, regions of historic mining activity, famous gold strike locales, etc. You also might want to read up on the history of gold production in the U.S. and maybe try to learn a bit about gold geology, formation, and deposition.

Can you still file gold claims here in the U.S.? Yes, you can. But gold-bearing areas open to claims are rapidly being "swallowed up" by other miners and claim buyers and sellers (a.k.a "scammers" in some instances) due to the very high price of gold today and the fact our economy has been seriously weakened by the greedy and the inept. So it's increasingly difficult to find good claims that remain open for filing these days. But good luck to you just the same.

What's the best gold-bearing river in California? Well, different miners working in California will have differing opinions of course. But for my money the one of the best gold-bearing rivers in California is the Yuba River and its forks. Of those, I would chose the North Fork of the Yuba as my favorite. Good gold values can be found along its entire length and especially in those sections of the N. Yuba that are in steep ravines or other harder to access areas.

I'm thinking of buying a desert claim near the old Randsburg mines. Any suggestions? I used to work a dry placer claim on the alluvial fan below the old mining community of Randsburg, so I do know a bit about the area. My first suggestion would be to do some serious sampling of the claim first using a drywasher to get an idea of the gold values it contains. Secondly, make sure all the seller's paperwork is in order before you shell out any bucks. Third, bear in mind that good placer gold can be had in the Randsburg District if you're experienced, astute, and willing to work hard. (By the way, in the not-too-distant past a lucky nugget hunter using a detector recovered a 8.7 troy ounce nugget near Randsburg....one of the largest surviving nuggets on record from that historic mining region.)

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I've got about 4 ounces of river gold to sell. Some of it in fines and some in flakes and small and medium nuggets. Should I separate it before I sell it? I think it's always wise to separate out any placer gold nuggets first, because they can draw a premium, however slight that premium may be. Nuggets are especially sought by specimen collectors and jewelry makers. So separate out the nuggets and sell those individually, even though it may take you a bit longer. As far as the fines and flakes go, try and get the highest price you can depending on the overall purity of the gold and its spot or "melt" value.

That's it for this round. I hope good fortune accompanies your mining efforts out there!

If you liked this post, you may want to read: "Mining for Gold in River Moss (Part 2)"

http://goldbedrockgold.blogspot.com/2009/06/mining-for-gold-in-river-moss-part-2.html

(c) J.R. 2009

Questions? E-mail me at jr872vt90@yahoo.com

Mining for Gold in River Moss (Part 2)

(Fine or "flood" gold.)

In my previous post on this topic I told you I would provide some specific "moss mining" information for you. Here you go:

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1) Moss patches (or "colonies") tend to thrive in damp, shady areas along a stream or river course. Use your eyes and gold deposition knowledge to determine where a particular stream's high-water marks are, because any gold trapped in those patches will be deposited during high-water or flood events.

2) Moss will trap fine sands, including heavier black sands, dirt, and other small stream material as well as tiny particles of gold. (Understand here that it is this material trapped within the moss that carries the gold, not the moss itself.) Moss patches or "colonies" left high and dry on the surface of exposed rock, bedrock, fallen trees, etc., should be examined closely along with any underwater or partially covered mossy areas that can be easily accessed.

3) When sampling "wet" (underwater or partially covered) mossy areas use a gold pan or 5-gallon bucket to catch the contents of the moss as you "wash" the moss by twisting and kneading it. Then pan what you've recovered to determine what gold values may exist.

4) When sampling mossy areas left "high and dry" after stream high-water levels subside, use your gold pan or a 5-gallon bucket to catch the contents of the moss as you twist, knead, and shake it. If you are using a 5-gallon bucket, try slapping or banging the dried out moss against the sides of the bucket to ensure anything trapped in the moss is forced out. Again, pan the contents to determine how much fine gold the moss is carrying.

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5) Make absolutely sure that you clean out any cracks, crevices, or fissures river moss may be growing over or into. These act as natural gold "traps" as well, and may carry good fine gold values as well as larger flakes and coarser pieces.

6) If you are not very adept at panning out very fine gold particles then I suggest you save most of the auriferous material gathered from your day's "moss mining" activities and process it using a "Blue Bowl" or spiral wheel concentrator, or even a small-to-medium sized sluice box. These pieces of mining equipment are known for their capacity to recover fine gold particles, with the first two being the most efficient gold "grabbers" (although it's hard to beat a good sluice box properly set up and operated correctly).

7) DO NOT pull out, remove, process, or otherwise destroy all the moss growing within a certain area. If you do, this essentially "kills" that moss colony and makes it hard for any moss to grow back in that location. Leave a few scattered clumps or or spots of river moss untouched...that way, you'll always have river moss' gold-grabbing potential in that particular location.

That's about it....nothing difficult or magical about mining for gold in river moss. But it should be another approach or strategy you can call on when out there in the "goldfields."

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Good luck to one and all.

If you liked this post, you may want to read: "A Placer Miner in Africa: "Joseph's" Story (Part 6)"

http://goldbedrockgold.blogspot.com/2009/06/placer-miner-in-africa-josephs-story_26.html

(c) J.R. 2009

Questions? E-mail me at jr872vt90@yahoo.com

A Placer Miner in Africa: "Joseph's" Story (Part 6)

(Photos, top to bottom: villagers dancing as "Joseph" prepares to leave; panning gold from weak metal detector signals.)

I now pick up "Joseph's" story as he and his village "helpers" continue hunting for gold in the surrounding area:

Weak Signals Produce Gold

"As the days progressed I continued nugget hunting with my metal detector in the areas around the village. On many occasions I actually got signals where I couldn't find visible gold."

"When this happened one of my 'helpers' from the village would dig up the soil where the weak target was indicated and then pan this material out. In cases like this we often found small pieces of gold, but not in every instance."

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50/50 Split

"My metal detector must have made quite an impression on the local villagers because every day people came to us from different areas and said 'there is a lot of gold on my land so please come with your machine.' Our deal was always a 50/50 split."

"Sometimes I found gold in these other areas and sometimes I found nothing. Things were made more difficult by the fact that the local villagers had very little real knowledge about gold geology or deposition and often just assumed gold would be everywhere on their land."

A Mining and Gold Recovery Team

"By now I had been working many weeks and meeting lots of people from the surrounding villages. I was trying to find some reliable people that could carry on gold hunting and mining activities after I had returned to Sweden."

"My ultimate goal was to set up a mining and gold recovery 'team' that would work with metal detectors and also operate a suction dredge in areas where there was enough water to do so. Obviously, this enterprise could prove quite risky but, conversely, would be wonderful if it all worked the way I planned."

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Gold in Tailings Piles

"There were a number of rivers and creeks in the area and the locals panned gold in them. Since this was the dry season the water levels were pretty low in these streams and a medium-to-large dredge would require more water to operate efficiently."

"When I saw that the villagers were losing quite a bit of gold by their haphazard processing and panning methods, I went back to my room, grabbed some 'miner's moss', and showed them how to use it. Then I helped them take gravel from a tailings pile and re-process that material."

"My new strategy was an immediate success. The villagers became quite excited and exclaimed 'look Mr. Joseph!!...there is lots of gold here!' And they were right...they had recovered an additional 6-7 troy grams of placer gold after re-running those tailings."

I'll continue with "Joseph's" story of placer mining in Africa in a later post. In the interim be safe and keep smiling...

If you liked this post, you may want to read: "Mining for Gold in River Moss (Part 1)"

http://goldbedrockgold.blogspot.com/2009/06/mining-for-gold-in-river-moss-part-1.html

(c) J.R. 2009

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Questions? E-mail me at jr872vt90@yahoo.com

Mining for Gold in River Moss (Part 1)

("Moss miners" working in Northern California, photo courtesy of The New 49ers Inc., http://www.goldgold.com/generalinfo.html)

"Moss Mining"

Although I myself have spent very little time searching for placer gold in river moss, many recreational and small-scale miners use this approach extensively. In fact, I know of a number of individuals who approach "moss mining" with the same level of enthusiasm as any bedrock gold "sniper" worth his or her salt would.

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However one thing to bear in mind here is that unlike your basic bedrock crevice sniper, "moss miners" are not typically recovering coarse flakes and small nuggets but very fine gold values. The kicker here is that, in some cases, the amount of fine gold (in terms of actual weight recovered this way) can far exceed that recovered by crevicing. Go figure....

"High Suspension" Transport and "Entrapment"

The overall concept of how fine gold values become entrapped in river moss is fairly simple. When a auriferous stream or river is in full flood stage most of the very fine gold values (and some lighter flakes as well) will be moved along in what I personally call "high suspension" transport. High suspension simply means that the lighter gold values will be carried or "suspended" higher up in the water flow in general, while larger and coarser pieces (including placer nuggets) will tend to be tumbled along or carried lower down in the hydraulic flow.

When a stream or river drops from flood stage, the lightest gold particles will then be left high and dry near or on areas that form "traps" to catch those very same particles. I call this "entrapment" and it can be effected through any number of means, including the root systems of various plants and our topic of conversation here, river moss itself.

Mossy Areas Can Be Good Gold "Traps"

It's no secret that artificial "miner's moss" has excellent fine gold trapping and retention capabilities, much more so than the old indoor/outdoor carpet strips that were all the vogue in sluice boxes and other placer mining equipment back "in the day" when I first started my mining career. Therefore it stands to reason that areas of real moss growing in and along gold-bearing streams and rivers can be excellent gold traps themselves.

This is especially true if those mossy areas exist in "strategic" gold deposition points where the abrupt reduction of water flow from flooding or other high water events takes place. Even mossy locations left high and dry (like that pictured at the beginning of this post) above current water flows can be good gold producers if, and this is always the qualifier, they are acting as gold "traps" for flood-borne gold particles.

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In my next post on this subject we'll cover some of the basic techniques and methods for recovering fine gold from river moss. Until then, keep the faith!

If you liked this post, you may want to read: "A Placer Miner in Africa: "Joseph's" Story (Part 5)"

http://goldbedrockgold.blogspot.com/2009/06/placer-miner-in-africa-josephs-story_19.html

(c) J.R. 2009

Questions? E-mail me at jr872vt90@yahoo.com

A Placer Miner in Africa: "Joseph's" Story (Part 5)

(Photos, top to bottom: "the" nugget-52.3 grams; setting up the detector; into the bush; "Joseph's" home for 4 weeks.)

We now pick up "Joseph's" story as he begins his search for gold near the village with his new friend, Libby:

A "Side Benefit" of Bush Hunting

"The next day I started hunting nuggets on Libby's land with my detector. For the first hour or so Libby and I worked mostly around a brushy area and at one point I ended up with a strange spider on my shoulder."

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"One of the local villagers accompanying us quickly knocked it away and shook his head. He said that if that spider had bitten me I would have been paralyzed for hours or even longer....just one 'side benefit' of gold hunting out in the bush."

Villagers Join the Hunt

"We worked the bush for nearly 5 hours that first day with little success. Since I wasn't accustomed to it the heat was nearly unbearable for me and rather than risk heat stroke, I decided to train Libby to use the detector so that the nugget hunt could continue."

"Many of the locals were very interested in our activities. At times we had as many as 30-40 people from nearby villages watching and following us around, many armed with picks and shovels so they could 'help' us out if needed."

"The" Nugget (52.3 Grams of Placer Gold)

"I think it was the second day I found my first placer nugget in this new location, a beautiful piece weighing a whopping 52.3 grams! (Note: Nearly 2 troy ounces of gold. J.R.) One good thing about nugget hunting in Africa is that when you work any distance away from the villages, there is very little metal trash and you don't waste much (if any) time digging up nails and bits of wire."

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"Everyone was as excited as I was by this find and I let them use my headphones to hear the loud signal 'the' nugget gave off. The local villagers were dancing around, laughing and shouting, and carrying on in general."

"Someone Sent by God!"

"It was at this point I was given an African name that means 'someone sent by God!' Obviously, I was embarrassed by this a bit but I was also appreciative of how good and friendly these people could be."

"After this find I was very encouraged and ready to recover more of the gold in the immediate area. My dream of finding nice nuggets was coming true...more so than I had ever imagined."

I'll pick up "Joseph's" story again in a future post. Once again, be safe out there and keep smiling!

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If you liked this post, you may want to read: "A Placer Miner in Africa: 'Joseph's' Story (Part 5)"

http://goldbedrockgold.blogspot.com/2009/06/placer-miner-in-africa-josephs-story_15.html

(c) J.R. 2009

Questions? E-mail me at jr872vt90@yahoo.com