One For The Aussies

[jasong]

Am I just seeing patterns in the clouds here? Dunno, too much time on my hands away from the goldfields. 

 

[Norvic]

Boy that looks deep and solid, you beauty, lovely piece. How about the story? Been tracking you its not from OZ or is it?

[jasong]

I wish I could go to Oz and detect someday! This is from Gold Basin, Arizona. It's only 18 grams but that's lunker territory to me. I thought it was a dead ringer for Australia until I put it next to the map and realized my geography might be somewhat dubious. 

 

I sold this one, I think it ultimately went into a paydirt bag as a prize nugget it would be kinda funny if someone got it in their bag and recognizes it, I'm the papa haha. Found this with the 4500, I was going through a dead wash experimenting with an idea I had about using the audio processing to emulate a compressor/limiter, idea being ignore the big signals and expand the range between the small ones and the noise floor, it made this nugget visible at least. I was going to make a vid on this technique this spring but I didn't get around to it.

[Norvic]

Do you folks get away from known workings? Looking at the distribution map of gold in the US, Steve posted a few days back, you seem to have a lot of country that appears to have a chance, like ours the gold coloured areas are only generalised. I have not been to the US so my question may be a dumb question. But I do know most of my good finds over the years have been miles from mines or workings, in what I call fringe country, many days even weeks go without a find, even with very few ferrous signals.

 

 This is why I rely so much on GPS tracking and mapping. But I`m talking of areas that have seen few people, perhaps with your population that is just not possible. I think unless you visit OZ gold producing areas with a guide, chances are slim until you get to know the area. I know it was a shock, when I ventured to Victoria, NSW, NT and WA, totally different approach for each State. Would love to see a thread that elaborates a little on this from US folks that have chased the yellow in OZ.

[jasong]

That distro map is a bit innacurate, it has an area the size of France (all of North Dakota, eastern Montana, eastern Wyoming, and the Canadian plains) that has close to zero gold - well unless you count black gold.

 

Another thing over here is that a lot of those places have little to no detectable size gold, but abundant amounts of micro gold or gold that is primarily locked up in sulfides, tellurides, or just a byproduct of open pit copper mining. Especially out where I live and grew up. Much of Colorado, most of Utah, some of Nevada, etc. It's why even though that map is extensive, you predominately see people posting from 3 main areas - Motherlode country, Arizona, and Nevada. Certainly other states have detectable gold though, to varying degrees. Another thing to consider is that over here a lot of the gold bearing area is covered in snow for 4-7 months out of the year.

 

I would say the large majority of people in the US prospect mainly club claims or the well known goldfields, but there are those of us who do the same as you too. I generally spend 70% of my time exploring completely new areas, and 30% of my time hitting old patches or popular goldfields. I do go weeks without a single find occasionally but I try to keep a handful of patches in my backpocket that I can go and snag at least 1 or 2 out of every day on the way home to keep the spirits up. Like you, most places I detect have little to no ferrous or otherwise trash targets. I spent the last 6 years living out of an RV (caravan?) and trying to do this for a living full time, though in that time I only met a very small handful of people who were spending a lot of time exploring brand new areas, but maybe there are a lot of people doing it and I haven't met them. I have never succeeded in doing more than breaking even, but any success I've ever had has been almost exclusively owed to GPS+GIS software and I firmly believe that in this day and age anyone who is a serious prospector and doesn't use that technology is doing themselves a disservice, I can't even stress that enough. I would do better with Google Earth, my phone, and an Ace250 than I would with none of those and a GPZ 7000.

 

Anyways, even if the area of our goldfields is larger, I very strongly suspect there is just more gold available to detect in Australia though. I see guys posting from OZ with 5-10 ounces for a 2 week trip. Over here if you don't have private land, a 30 year old primo claim, or a dozer here, those kinds of trips are extreeeeeeeemly rare over here, those days ended in the early 90's.

 

Oh also was gonna say you are right about the population. We have very large population bases located pretty close to most of the really rich goldfields. A lot of this part of the country was opened up and settled by those pursuing gold back in the 1800's and well, I guess everyone just stayed.  California alone is like 38 million and AUS is like 25 mil people or thereabouts?

[Norvic]

Got you, and many thanks for explaining. I very rarely run across a detector operator in my area. It was given up as non productive by most years back.(the easy gold was got) Except for the Goldhounds, whilst I have never run across them in the field, they are, I presume, doing the same as I, except on a bigger scale, I presume this from their vids. NQ is a massive prospective area, but it takes a lot of hard slog, persistence and I just envy their youth. Certainly I don`t begrudge their finds, they have used the GPS as a important tool as you and I do, and they embrace new detecting tech with enthusiasm. I guess to sum it up OZ has not had the population effects the US has, and snow, well that is foreign to me.

 

Hopefully Steves insights into the use of the GPS on the GPZ will influence others to explore out further. With an up to date GPS & todays standards on the GPZ, rather than the 20 year old features it has, so much more could be realised.

[bado1]

Nice nugget jasong! Yep, 18 grams is lunker territory in my book as well. I have yet to detect in Gold Basin as the Central AZ. gold fields have been keeping me busy but I intend on going there soon to check it out. Thanks for sharing that great nugget!

Dean

[Steve Herschbach]

I am not particularly interested in the very popular areas and am slowly extending my reach into less traveled areas as I get my bearings.

Having been to Oz I consider it much easier for me to find gold closer to home here in the U.S.

[nvchris]

Man, how did I do it before the advent of GPS/cell phones and google earth  

 

Ill take the 7 and historical data over an ace and google any day!

[jasong]

Man, how did I do it before the advent of GPS/cell phones and google earth  

 

Ill take the 7 and historical data over an ace and google any day!

 

I know its tongue in cheek, but in fairness - the days before GIS/cellphones were also times when a guy could still have a 5-10 ounce day in a lot of famous goldfields located literally right next to the highway or interstate.

 

The game is different today, especially for those of us who joined late and are going at it alone. GIS/GPS is a tool that levels the playing field substantially. As more and more leads are found and removed, the need for subsequent generations of new detectorists to use every research tool available to them becomes greater and greater.