Handy gold prospecting hints
By JMcJ
THE PATHFINDERS TO GOLD
Many prospectors will give country consisting of limey rocks a miss if they’re looking for gold but don’t you do it. Limey rocks can be the host of disseminated gold deposits. While such deposits may not be of much value to the individual, a mining company would certainly find them very interesting! A disseminated deposit is one that is scattered, a bit like micron-sized wheat that’s been cast about. You may not even see the gold in such deposits but you can test for it. A lack of visible gold at grass roots level shouldn’t mean much to a prospector that knows his or her stuff. A good prospector has an “earth map” and by that I mean they have the knowledge of and can recognise minerals that are pathfinders to gold. Arsenic, stibnite, cinnabar, scheelite and so on are all indicators that gold could be in the vicinity. A good prospector also won’t ignore zones of silification in sediments (brecciation, jasperoids etc) also acid volcanics. Learn as much as you can about such minerals and the type of country in which they’re found. Only time and experience will teach you the craft. You don’t need a degree in geology although a little geology acquired in the field certainly helps.
OPEN YOUR EYES AND YOUR MIND
In open country I have always been one for getting up on an open-topped knob and spending time with a pair of binoculars, a map, compass, notebook and pen. I study the country about me, taking it in until I form a picture of how it once was, what happened in between and how it looks today. I could write a whole article on this but let me just say that I look for rock features that might be conducive to my quest. I look for colour changes in rocks of the same type, and for changes in rock types. I also look at soil colours including what is evident in ant hills (the great Gove bauxite field was prospected after its red ant hills were spotted from the air). Vegetation is also important. A lack of or abundance of plant life can tell you many things. I next enter onto the map what I find at my marked points and in time these things form a picture. It may not be a clear picture at once but the more time you put into your study the clearer the picture becomes. But remember that you must always be flexible. The map you have made might work very well in the area you have charted but the same conditions encountered elsewhere could present you with an entirely different set of possibilities.
THE NUGGET PUZZLE
Nuggets of gold, true nuggets, pose a bit of a puzzle as to how they came to be where they are. They may be as smooth as a baby’s bottom, as if they had just been plucked from a river, yet be found in country that sees only a couple of drops of rain every fifty odd years. You will not find a true nugget in a reef, specimens yes but nuggets, no. You will find nuggets on the paddock but rarely more than a little distance below it. Only on a small number of fields will you find patches of nuggets and fine gold together. On some mining fields you will find nuggets in the gullies and not on the flats, while the reverse also occurs, which flies in the face of the theory that gold will always work its way to the lowest points in any area. In New Guinea I picked up nuggets high on a terrace when so-called logic said they should have been washed down into the gully below. Gold nuggets certainly are strange creatures and while all sorts of theories have been tossed into the ring, don’t let anyone fool you into believing they know the answer to the question of how gold nuggets end up being where they are found.
LOOK PAST THE JUNK
If you dig a piece of junk such as a nail or horseshoe, don’t just fill in the hole and move on, but run your detector over the hole again. I once saw a nice fourounce pancake nugget taken from below a horseshoe and I picked up a 20-gram slug from beneath a section of heavy iron plate that was visible to the naked eye. Incidentally, when you find junk, do yourself and others a favour and take it with you when you leave.
LOOK TO YOUR ROOTS
If you ever encounter a great old riverbank tree that has been uprooted in a flood or gale, never ignore it if the creek or river nearby carried gold. The tree’s root system will hold plenty of rocks, pebbles, sand, silt and clay and very likely gold. And if the tree came from the inside of the waterway’s bend, where the water runs slowest, it’s almost certain you’ll score some nuggets.
A TIP FOR WEIGHT WATCHERS
Long ago a prospector who had spent many years in South Africa told me of a blind native who picked through old mine heaps. If he picked up a rock that contained gold, he knew so by its weight. Many times I’ve picked up a lump of quartz that seemed to be too heavy for its size but I couldn’t see any gold. These lumps also tested negative with the detector and even on inspection with a hand lens, I couldn’t see anything. But, after crushing the lumps to dust and dishing, there was the yellow stuff. Quartz is about seven times lighter than gold so a few grams of gold added to a fist-sized lump lets you know it.