Helping out testing at a mine.

rick91351 · February 21, 2013, 10:52:26 PM

A friend of ours is down here in Az with a group of pardners looking to reopen up a mine that has been shut down for several years. He knew we were in the area and might be interested so he called and wondered what we were doing and if we wanted to take a look see. He added I might be of some help if I were not to busy being retired and avoiding the cold back home.

It was last worked in the like 2003.

Trommel, water tanks and mill

Small trommel they are using to run test ore.

Washed rock

Slucebox off the test trommel waiting to be panned.

I have been working some of the washes with our metal detector to see of there is any placer gold near the surface. I can assure you down below there is some of the weirdest geological formations. Mining underground there in this area is sort hard rock placer gold. Nothing is in veins like back home and everything is sort of cemented with adobe and calcium from the limestone mixed in the hodgepodge of muck.

Sort of a geologists dream / worse nightmare figuring what all happened here. Pretty plan that there was a lot more water here at one time than now. Sort of global warming after one of the ice ages. Then strata of dry then huge washes of river rock. The gold under the microscopes show some water washed and rounded others just below crystalline, some looks like it was ripped and tore apart. It has been a lot of fun and very educational seeing this type of strata.

glenn kangiser · February 24, 2013, 01:13:44 AM

That's way cool, Rick... you gonna work it?

February 24, 2013, 09:14:54 AM

Quote from: glenn kangiser on February 24, 2013, 01:13:44 AM
That's way cool, Rick... you gonna work it?

WHOA!!! Glenn!! Watch that four letter W word.

No - I am just an interested armchair geologist with no degree. Willing to look and learn. Plus I can seem to be able to add two and two and most the time cipher out four when looking at this stuff. It is still way too early in the survey and testing to crunch the numbers. They brought a core drilling rig over from Ca. last week. I dare say they have neighboring mines and friends of the company dropping in and wanting holes drilled as well. Way, way longer that these guys are wanting to be down here.

One of those friends of their company an old gentleman. (And I mean that.) He asked us out to some claims about 100 miles from here. He is wanting some claims core sampled. It is a hard rock mining area with formations way more like we are use to. The area had some very high producing hard rock mines. I think this old gentleman's homework will pay off in spades for him. From claims shot in via a real surveyor and surveys recorded, A very nice geologist's write up on the area. This coupled with some mapping. Very warm and fuzzy. I sure hope he does well.

glenn kangiser · February 25, 2013, 12:56:57 AM

"W" word... sorry 'bout that Rick....

Some of the new detectors will locate gold under the wall surface if it is not too far out....

Some have had luck with that. A fortune could be a half inch under the surface... who knows?

rick91351 · February 25, 2013, 07:31:35 AM

Legend or fact,

One of the largest or the largest gold nuggets discovered in Australia was at a car park or parking area or just beside the road. They pulled their metal detector out turned it on. It went nuts, the person messed and messed with the detector. They finely decided to dig there and up rooted a huge specimen nugget. Doing some research I am finding that some what an urban legend. Most likely a detector salesman twisting the truth. But some things just should be.

One thing I have found is most gold machines and multi use detectors (gold, relic, coin and jewelry) serve to confirm mans trails are well marked where ever they went. From old iron horse shoes, lost jaw traps, logging peavies and cable. Then there is the iron off old dredge or muck bucket, right to the sixties beer and pop tabs that are still doing real well out there surviving.

Last week down here on this prospect I hit the mother lode of all mother loads. Something alerted my detector down in a wash I was walking. It was very rocky and where two washes come together just above the high water line was some deep sandy overburden. It was beeping and chirping like gold, it was happy, I was happy. It was only showing like a 20% chance of iron. It is large over a nice sized area. I was happier - Wow!! Right? I dug and dug with my trowel and was not finding anything but it was there. Still showing 20%. I gave up walked almost a mile and got a shovel out of the pick up, walked back carefully started pulling back the top layers and getting down there like unearthing Tut's Tomb only to be greeted by a very very rusted Spam can and two tab topped beverage cans that were so rusted you just had a hard time figuring out where and what they were. Lunch was served.......

February 25, 2013, 11:20:46 PM

I spent 4 1/2 hours down a mine shaft 30 feet vertical and dug my way about 8 feet horizontal and another couple feet vertical stacking and restacking rocks following a great signal... found myself about a 12 inch rusty pipe who knows how long... Whitlock thought he lost me... [ouch]

rick91351 · February 25, 2013, 11:32:43 PM

Quote from: glenn kangiser on February 25, 2013, 11:20:46 PM
I spent 4 1/2 hours down a mine shaft 30 feet vertical and dug my way about 8 feet horizontal and another couple feet vertical stacking and restacking rocks following a great signal... found myself about a 12 inch rusty pipe who knows how long... Whitlock thought he lost me... [ouch]

I hope you got first dibbs on the rusty pipe.

Just look at it as exercise or exorcism.

glenn kangiser · March 02, 2013, 12:48:52 PM

Once I had dug down deep enough to see what it was I left it there....

Whitlock drug my backpack out with a rope.... strap broke on the bag...it fell about 25 feet and, it and 30 lbs of rock samples as well as broken glass shards and coffee from my full Starbucks bottle were all over the inside of the bag.

Missed me by that !! much....

Actually I was in the drift a couple feet from it....

rick91351 · March 02, 2013, 05:05:12 PM

Sounds about as fun is having the hanging wall of a stope give way some time in the night after you leave it.

You sort of spend the next day counting your many, many blessings.

Not that I have ever been an underground miner. Been underground but...... Then in Idaho being so Idaho is Idaho sort of hard to escape ........