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Exploration Gold


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Steve and I got out to do a bit of prospecting recently - it wasn't the most productive trip we've ever had, though I have done worse.

Sometimes you do well and sometimes not. When exploring around and searching for new places, you never know what you will find - nice gold or not much. More often than not exploration leads to slim pickings.  Its just hard to say until you give it a try. However, exploring around is important as every patch plays out and the cream is taken, so its necessary to keep searching to find good spots. That's the essence of prospecting, searching for that next great patch.

We found at least one place that needs further investigation.

I ended up with right at one pennyweight or 1.5 grams. Took this photo with my dumb camera, so no GPS coordinates attached. Won't mention how I cleaned the dirty nuggets up or removed the caliche from them as that caused a minor bit of hard feelings last time.

 

Nevada_gold_may_2016.jpg

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Exploration for me still consists of looking for old workings and potholes. Here in Arizona I'm pretty confident I know what the geology should look like for undiscovered nugget patches but time is always a big constraint for me. Down the road once I'm retired or something and I've got a nice cache of gold and I've got the time I'll probably get more into exploration and see if I can reap the rewards from that. For now I just stick to where it's already been found and try to eek out a few more that were missed. 

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Nice looking gold Chris.  It appears you found 8 nuggets, and when you tell your story its 8 nuggets and that sounds pretty good to me regardless of size.

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Good post..and a reminder to us all.....it ain't easy folks. Like Tortuga....I hunt in the usual spots 75% of the time.....the other 25%  I hunt new grounds near the old worked grounds to see if I can find a trail of gold that may lead to the motherlode....:smile:. And when i feel strong..I slap on the big coil for those deep nuggets that I may have missed with the smaller coils. 

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1 hour ago, AU_Solitude said:

What'd Steve end up with?

Six nuggets 1.82 grams, all GPZ. Gold Racer got a run in the trash but just found all manner of non-ferrous non-gold stuff.

It is hard to pull off known ground looking for new places as more often than not less gold gets found. As Chris says however you always have to be looking, and in the end if you really want to make the big score finding a new patch is the way to go. I actually am expecting my gold take to drop off this year perhaps as more time is spent blue sky detecting on unknown ground. But if we hit a good virgin patch maybe the best year ever. You never know, and that is part of the adventure of prospecting.

My coil saw a lot of ground that has never seen a coil this last go, and much of it looked like it should have gold all over. It is too bad good looking ground is usually not as good as it looks!

2016-0526-gold-nuggets-herschbach.jpg

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2 hours ago, Blackcoffee said:

Rookie question- what do you mean by "pothole"?

 

"searching for a patch" what are some key features of likely looking spots in your neighborhood?

A pothole is an old hole, looks kinda like a crater, that the oldtimers dug up. They usually dug down to bedrock then drywashed the paydirt. Over the years the hole will get filled in by erosion and they can look like a small depression or crater.

In Arizona all the patches I've found have had some old workings around them. My patches have mostly consisted of working a few more nuggets out of areas the oldtimers dug or places hunted by detectorists in the past with older tech or less skill. Anything over 5-6 nuggets in a small area I'll consider a patch.

Like I said I look for old workings and importantly for where I hunt, red clay. But each goldfield is different. 

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