Herb, always the gentleman, and always appreciated that you drop in to leave your kind comments.
Howdy Lanny… thanks for sharing your gold sniping experience with us. It looks like you guys found a real honey hole at that site. Your son was wise to return the next day. It is always a good idea to harvest the bird in hand while you can do so.
Your comment about hotrocks got me thinking that prospecting country means having to deal with quite a variety of hotrock types. Interesting, but not much fun for the VLF operator as a rule. In our area of northeastern Ontario, the ground-balancing PI units silence the non-conductive hotrocks belonging to the mineralogical oxide group. These include the red-hot positive “metallic” signals generated by the reddish-brown iron oxide maghemite, and most but not all signals produced by minerals belonging to both the sulfide and arsenide mineral groups as well.
The non-conductive, but magnetic susceptible iron oxides such as magnetite, maghemite, and in some areas specular hematite are the usual culprits that trouble electronic prospectors using VLF units. Various dark rocks associated with serpentinization or metamorphism such as black serpentinite could possibly be included with this group.
Photos of some potential “hotrocks” are included below for readers who might appreciate some visual help with hotrock identification. Magnetite is not included because most goldhunters are probably familiar with it. But we should point out that the variably magnetic and conductive pyrrhotite pictured separately below has widespread occurrence. Its size typically varies from fingernail to multi-pound variably-shaped configurations, and the surface weathers to quite a dark brown discoloration from the original pale yellow of a fresh surface. It normally responds strongly to both PI and VLF units, and at least in our territory is considered to be the foremost bane of electronic prospectors.
Conductive graphitic rocks often associated with metamorphic outcrops represent a widespread conductive type of hotrock with no magnetic properties. Similarly, we occasionally detect some of the dark sulfides, for example the sooty-grey, conductive copper sulfide chalcocite. It looks like a typical darker hotrock, has no magnetism, produces a very strong “metallic” signal to VLF detectors, but won’t react to my PI units. Unless there is some surface (green) oxidation present, I doubt most detectorists would recognize it in the field.
The list of potential arsenides that produce strong VLF signals is lengthy, but most of our conductive arsenides here in northeastern Ontario tend to be light-hued, grey-white, or silvery on a brittle fresh surface. Some of the common ones, for example, skutterudite, safflorite and copper colored nickeline also react strongly to PI units, but fortunately arsenopyrite only reacts to my VLF units. Its signal strength seems to be more dependent on its grade and structure than many of our complex arsenides. There is no point in listing the arsenides because there are numerous varieties, and many cannot be specifically classified without sophisticated lab analysis. The important thing is to realize that quite a variety exists in many areas we frequent, and that may apply to some of your areas too.
Congratulations on what looks to have been an outstanding gold recovery experience for both of you guys. We do enjoy reading your gold adventure tales, and look forward to more now that winter is firmly entrenched in the West. Oh yes, we’ve seen the weather reports for your area!!! All the best to you Lanny, thankyou, and please convey our best regards to your son.
Hi Jim, and as always, I am blown away by the depth of your knowledge of things that I can only guess at.
Your specific descriptions of the types of mineralized or metallic stones will be of great benefit to anyone chasing valuable metals, anywhere, with a detector.
Some people that dabble with detectors are known perhaps as metal detecting specialists (heard that somewhere), but others like you Jim, I'd have to call metal detecting experts, far above my level of understanding of the technology or how minerals and metals react to the signal put out by a detector. I take my hat off to you sir, you being one that I would easily call an expert!
Thanks again for the explanations, and for your kindness to go to so much work to post highly specific and valuable information on this thread for the benefit of all who visit here.
Last edited by Lanny in AB; Feb 11, 2019 at 11:51 PM.
Thanks Lanny… I enjoyed adding the hotrock information and hope it proves interesting to your readership. Thanks again for those appreciative words, most kind.
I clearly remember my first experience with hotrocks during a trip to the silverfields on a sunny, warm Victoria holiday weekend some 32 years ago. Operating an old Garrett ADS Deepseeker in the true all-metal motion mode, equipped with a 7-inch concentric coil, I was detecting a narrow gully running parallel and immediately below an abandoned mining trail far removed from any signposts of civilization. I didn’t anticipate seeing anyone out at that remote site.
It was certainly an introduction to metal detecting paradise that morning as my wildest hopes were realized while digging one shiny silver ore after another. It had vaguely occurred to me that the silver didn’t look quite like I thought it should, but that nagging doubt at the back of my mind was easily shrugged away. After all, they were responding to the detector loud and clear, and plenty too.
Then an unexpected dark shadow fell across my diggings, and I looked up into the kindly, weathered countenance of a rather grizzled old timer. He asked how it was going and could he see my silver. I readily complied, but began to feel rather apprehensive as he gravely examined my precious recoveries. My fertile imagination started to run along rather precarious lines. I began to regret showing him my silver because he just might broadcast the news of my bonanza to his cronies in town, or might he not be a rascally thief in the guise of a mining authority?
But none of the above applied, he was a fine individual who had spent most of his life involved with mining in the area. He bent his keen gaze upon me, quietly informing me that what I had recovered was something or other he identified as a worthless arsenic pyrite or whatever. He invited me to come into town to his hotel for tea and to view some examples of native silver.
So off we went into town and I spent the remainder of the morning getting an introductory lesson to distinguishing native silver from other locally prevalent minerals. Much later, as we were saying goodbye at the door, he handed me a small example of specimen grade native silver for future reference in the field. I’ll always remember that kindness, and that’s how I was first introduced to prospecting for silver and to the fascinating study of rocks and minerals.....................Jim.
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Thanks for posting the story of when you got started, and how you were mentored by a caring individual that was kind in letting you know you weren't on the right track.
I'm glad he set you on the right path and built the fire in you to learn the right way to chase the metal, as we all can now benefit from your passion and expertise.
As I stated earlier, I've figured out a few ways to find nuggets with the detectors, but I'm not the dedicated expert with all of the technical and specific understandings you possess, so it's nice to learn a few more things along the way, and it's nice to have an expert onboard, much appreciated.
Once again, I enjoyed hearing how you started off on your rookie journey, and it's great you stuck with it to be such a dedicated enthusiast that is always willing to help explain the technical details to others.
Jim Hemmingway and 63bkpkr like this.
Just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to those that are new viewers taking a peek at this thread.
I mainly metal detect for nuggets now (chased the gold in Alaska, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, north-central British Columbia, south-eastern British Columbia, Alberta, but now I spend almost all of my time chasing the gold in British Columbia, Canada), used to dredge, sluice, high-bank, snipe, etc., (still do a bit for fun) but for more than a few years now, I've been associated with a large-scale placer operation, one that has slapped on me the title of their mining consultant. Sounds grandiose, however in no way is it, but they like to have me do testing for them with my detectors after they've finished cleaning a section of bedrock with their massive, heavy equipment.
Why have me on site? To see what they're missing. Furthermore, after I've finished poking around, they've gone back and taken more bedrock (sometimes several feet) at times when I get a lot of gold in a hurry (or they've headed in another direction if there's a good line of pay shooting off under the overburden away from where they were trending), and other times when there's hardly any gold found with the detectors, they bury that bedrock right quick. It's a win, win situation for both of us as they value what I can do with my machines, and I value the privilege of the incredible opportunity. Their only caveat is that I can't tell the total weight of the gold I find to anyone outside of their crew (and I always must report it to them), but hey, who can't live with that, right? Oh, and they let me keep what I find, won't take a percentage (I've tried many times).
In addition, I know a lot of other claim and lease owners that have properties they're not currently working, ones with abandoned excavations and sites, or ones they haven't got to yet, and they love to have me snoop around with my detectors as well, and if I find anything promising, they set up and get after the gold. I've been doing that for quite a few years, but I still like to check out unfamiliar, un-staked ground too.
In addition, I like to write stories about my gold hunting outings, and oftentimes, I'll include information for any rookies out there that are trying to figure things out as they get started. Why? That's how I got started; a few good people (my original mentor is now 88) took me under their wing and taught me the ropes (a few clichés too many in that sentence, I know).
My one son is now a dedicated nugget shooter (the other one lives thousands of kms away), and I love training him, plus my wife is now onboard with chasing the gold (she used to love panning my dredge concentrates, always heavy with goodies and always a good time for her and my mother-in-law [yeah, I know, sometimes the word fun and mother-in-law don't get used together in the same sentence]), and I'm ordering my wife a shiny new detector this winter because she's seen what we're getting (she loves to pan down our scoops of quick finds from the detectors which we slap in the pans when they're target rich for her to have some fun with; we call that speed-panning as it saves us the downtime of isolating the positive signals out of the scoop each and every time, giving us bonus time swinging the coils).
So, it will be great to meet some of you that are new, and for those that are acquaintances, it's a wrap!
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FIRE...Financially Independent Retired Early. Poor but free!
AND under the most gruelling conditions ever faced by any prospector! Calif state laws, "rules" & regs! Thanks buddy!
Last edited by Jeff95531; Feb 16, 2019 at 11:38 AM.
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We don't fight for gain. We fight for what is rightfully ours.
Just another supporter of Land Matters http://www.mylandmatters.org/ The one stop place for mining matters on public lands!
A recent study found that there are just too many studies being done.
So great to see you posting again!! Many thanks for your kind words, and I think you've written, from what I can tell, an apt description of what's happening to the pursuit of chasing gold in California (seldom took out less than a pound of gold a day!).
Just click on the pages to go forward or backward.
Last edited by Lanny in AB; Feb 16, 2019 at 12:26 PM.
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Herb, your eloquence is refreshing. The atmosphere you generate with your comments sounds right infectious, and I certainly hope people don't get as fired with the fever as you suggest (unless it's a healthy case, of course). I mean sedatives? Leaving town on foot? What have I done?
Lots of true stories for sure, and the rare time when I wander down the road of fiction, I hope it's perfectly clear to anyone that reads the stories when that switch to fiction occurs.
This thread is indeed long, and it's been quite an undertaking, but it does present a book of sorts for anyone that wants to know a bit more about chasing the gold, I hope . . .
I got the call last season for the chance any nugget shooter dreams of.
A friend of mine owns and operates a large placer mining operation. They had been working an ancient channel deposit (60,000,000 years, plus or minus, but hey, what’s a million years here or there, right?) and as I wrote this account, they were in the final stages of moving all of their heavy equipment to anther site. So, I got a call that people usually only dream of ever getting.
I was invited to bring my family to nugget shoot a section of virgin bedrock. After sixty million years, it was finally exposed to the sun’s rays once again, and as the entire mining operation was shut down, with no active mining in progress for the changeover, my buddy wanted us to come and check the bedrock for him before they had to do the reclamation work and bury it once more for perhaps another sixty million years.
I couldn’t believe it! What a chance, perhaps the call of a lifetime . . .
I called my son, who I’ve been training how to detect sassy nuggets, and he said to count him in. My wife, who is a speed-panning wonder of target-rich scoop dirt, said she was in too. So, we packed our gear and headed for the mountains.
For whatever bizarre reasons the weather gods had last winter (2017-18), the weather was terrible right up until the first of May, and then it was like someone hit the sun-and-warmth switch for instant summer. The transformation was surreal and wonderful. Fresh pine heavily scented the valley. A wide variety of mountain song birds were back in force, the flowers were blooming on every slope, wild honey bees, heavily laden with pollen, buzzed a honey-hunter’s symphony. While high above, the hawks and eagles choreographed their ageless aerial ballet as they rode the invisible thermals of the cobalt blue expanse. In addition, red-throated, as well as iridescent green-breasted humming birds initiated impossible angles of changing flight as they darted from spot to spot while visiting the innumerable mountain blossoms. To say it was breath-taking is a feeble attempt to capture the impossible, and those of you that frequent the wild reaches of the Rocky Mountains already know of what I speak.
So, I set my son up with the Gold Bug Pro, outfitted with the 5X10 elliptical DD. I reviewed the basics of the detector with him (I love how quick the learning curve is on the Bug Pro), and off he went to a corner where the bedrock rose steeply, a jagged wall of bedrock rising close to 45 degrees up from the floor of the excavation, and that bedrock was iron hard (similar to some other bedrock we hunted later in the season) so there were lots of gutters, cracks and crevices visible that held intact material due to the hardness of the host rock. My son ground-balanced, adjusted his headphones, then made a few swings. He stopped dead right quick, then repeated a swing. With the numbers on the meter in the sweet zone (40-70 on the meter, if you’re familiar with the Bug Pro, usually depending on the size of the piece of gold), he quickly captured the target in his scoop and dropped it in one of our green plastic gold pans we’d already set out. A few more swings, and he dropped another scoop of target-rich dirt in the pan. Having got off to such a fast start, it looked like it was going to be a good day.
Last edited by Lanny in AB; Feb 20, 2019 at 11:42 PM.
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Yes, you're on the money Herb by figuring it out. That's why I call it speed-panning. Not that the panning is rapid-fire fast, but the time saved is what lets us keep speeding along only worrying about detecting, not wasting time isolating and identifying each positive target.
To elaborate somewhat, we locate a positive signal, drop the target-rich dirt in a pan, and when there's enough dirt in the pans, off they go for my wife to pan down the contents to see what the targets are.
How this works with VLF's is, if the coils of the detectors are close enough to the gold, and if there's no masking effect from pesky hot-rocks, ironstone, etc., the meters on the VLF's are quite accurate at pinning a reading in the gold zone (some hot-rocks fool them, etc.), so, with the positive targets in the scoops, then in the pans, it really does leave a lot more time for detecting.
You indeed waxed eloquent with your metaphorical representation of the sling-shot/flipper crotch, with makes me think you spent some time as a youth constructing such elements of rudimentary weaponry. Nicely done sir.
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Hello Lanny, Dennis here. Just stopped in to thank you for all the snow you sent down to Arizona, lol. We are getting pounded right now, breaking some records for snow fall and might even have a chance to break the drought that we have been in since about 1997, roughly 22 years. Next week might be a good opportunity for some people to dredge in some normally dry washes.
Where I live here in north central Arizona we got about an inch an hour, or maybe a little more over the last 24 hours. Haven't seen snow like this in such a long time that people have no idea what to do. It has basically shut the area down completely and will likely stay closed through tomorrow as the snow is still coming down with no end in sight. It is supposed to stop snowing Friday night and start warming back up through next week which will likely have just about every wash in the state with flowing water. Be awhile before anybody will be drywashing, but an opportunity to wash the dust off some dredges for sure.
Hi Dennis, great to hear from you again; it's been too long.
The weather in your area does sound bizarre, but I guess you're probably glad to have the moisture any way you can get it, but Mother Nature seems to be having a rather severe tantrum in your case. However, 22 years of a drought is a long, long time, so perhaps you'll get the relief you're after. Moreover, if all of that snowmelt moves some dirt, it could do some gold replenishing in your washes and make the dredging that much better if the opportunity arrives, the dredging being something people likely don't get that much opportunity to do in the desert I imagine.
That much snow in that short of an amount of time Dennis is remarkable, and something we hardly ever see here, so it sounds like you're really getting an arctic blast, but we've been blaming our recent cold snap on Siberia, so if you're happy we sent the moisture your way, I guess we'll take the credit.
My friends in Vegas sent pictures of the snow they had there, but they had nothing close to what you've had, but it still stunned them.
Thanks for the update, and once again, great to hear from you; furthermore, if you're a dredger (I already know you're a nugget shooter), I hope that sluice clogs with nuggets!