Rye Patch Report

[Gerry in Idaho]

My customer was there earlier this year with his 7000 and his goal was 100 pieces.  He hit 97 and #98 while we were training in June.  I think he spent about 3 to 4 weeks out there. 

My last trip of 2019 I pulled 35 grams and hit my 1 ounce goal.

 

[mn90403]

Gerry, well done of course.

But my point is ... "Rye Patch ... what have you done for me lately?"  haha  I mean this summer.

[Gold Catcher]

Yeah it looks different now. Whenever I am out there I hardly see a soul! BTW, I misspoke earlier. I of course meant WEST of the Majuba placers towards the hills, not to the east. But watch there are active claims beginning at the foothills.

[GB_Amateur]

Now you know why Steve wants gold detectors that handle the salt.

[Gold Catcher]

Where the placers are salt isn't actually that big of an issue. I can hunt in HY/normal without problems

[flakmagnet]

42 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I thought it was snow

(pretty sure it is…)

 

[jasong]

More than anyone wants to know, but for those curious:

The white is actually alkali in that photo, it's in the basins (topographic lows). Alkali is salt but not like table salt, in this case is usually sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. Found that out when searching for lithium years back and getting stuck doing flame spectrometry which made lithium ID impossible because the sodium lines blow out the lithium.

Anyways, there are also "normal" salts in this soil too, left behind as Lake Lahontan evaporated and concentrated down the once dispersed salts. Sodium chloride, like we eat. I believe the alkali is derived from both the water evaporation as well as the local sedimentary formations, as it can be found quite a ways above the ancestral lake levels. 

When wet, the ions from all the various salts out there mobile and turn the ground into one big conductor and it makes it very difficult to detect. Pointless in some areas IMO with the GPZ. Doable with a GPX. Even damp soil has enough ion mobilization to make detecting a challenge. They don't pose nearly the problem when dry. This should be a great season to detect NNV due to the lack of rain.

But even a small amount of dampness will mobilize the ions, and we can experience quite significant depth/sensitivity loss in these soils. Even when the soil is dry on top, it may be damp a foot down, and I believe this accounts for a great many missed nuggets in such heavily  detected areas up there, vs equally heavily detected areas in Arizona which do not consistently produce so many missed nuggets.

Thus, areas like this should logically be places where new technology can still produce a few more nuggets. 

[geof_junk]

11 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

No, it wasn’t me. When I’m sent off to hunt gold nuggets my wife does not let me come home until I find some. 

That is not what happens with my wife, if she finds one we are not going home till I have got one.😬

[mn90403]

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

Is this the Rye patch I hear about so much? Looks pretty well hunted 🙂

Simon,

On the left hand side of the reservoir there is a road.  That is the road we use to turn towards the mountains which are mostly off of your picture.  If you look at the 'light area' on the left side of your picture just about in the middle are areas we hunt.  These at one point had been the shoreline of the lake that Jasong mentioned.  Several of us have hunted a pattern there that tried to trace the old lake shore at a time when the gold was moving down.  Nuggets stopped close to the existing shoreline.  It is a much less productive pattern now.

Your picture was taken at a time when the lake level was low so it has much more salt exposed.  Your picture also does not show the dam which really isn't that big but it is effective.  There can be some good fishing above and below the dam.

When you get a good snow in this area everything in your picture will be white except the water but it doesn't last too long and if you want to go skiing you have to go back to Reno/Tahoe about 100 miles west.

[mn90403]

Actually the little 'light' area is closer to 1/3 up from the bottom left.  It is 2 miles from that road.  Your picture is about 20-25 miles wide.