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Rye Patch Report


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13 hours ago, mn90403 said:

Gerry, well done of course.

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

June is as close to "lately" as I can report.  

I'll try to get down there in October and beat Lucky Lundy to it, but last I heard, he moved so close he could use his spotting scope to see if I was swinging the new GPX-6000.

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7 hours ago, mn90403 said:

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.

Did you ever find anything on the right of the street (east)? I haven't

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2 hours ago, Gold Catcher said:

Did you ever find anything on the right of the street (east)? I haven't

I have heard of nuggets being found on that side and there are some claims on that side but I have not found anything there.  I have heard of arrowheads being found there when the water is low.

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The Lake Lahontan maximum elevation was somewhere around 4370ft, it can be traced on aerials. The Black Rock desert which is the biggest white splotch in the background was part of the same lake 12,000 years ago. Now it's home to Burning Man.

The Bonneville Salt flats (and the Great Salt Lake) are the remnants of another more famous but equally massive ancestral sister lake which has mostly evaporated. But it shows a current example of how freshwater lakes can actually deposit salt when it's concentrated due to evaporation.

I believe that the lake sediment caused a lot of placer deposits in NNV with sources beneath the lake level to become buried and so they may still exist at some depth, many tens of feet, or a hundred. I'm not talking about Rye Patch but NNV in general. The lake was quite recent geologically and so it probably came after many placer deposits had already eroded into the soil.

While little to nothing has been written about it, I believe strongly based on my own observations that there exists multiple ancient river courses through NNV that originated in the Sierras, Oregon, or Idaho, which are now buried or faulted up into the mountains, much like the Sierras contain similar channels. I believe these old river courses eroding out, which predate Lake Lahontan are the mystery source for much of the apparantly river worn, rounded nuggets found in the middle of the prairie with no sources nearby. A lot of my exploration up there is now centered around locating these old river deposits. Which usually means I find nothing more often than not since it's a lot of ATV'ing around since there are no books or research to start from.

I own 40 acres of land just barely visible in the aerial Simon posted. The region is fascinating geologically and from a prospecting perspective. It and other parts of NV represent to me some of the last great exploration opportunities in the Lower 48 for prospectors. 

This whole area fuels almost exclusively my desire for new detecting technology to be developed which can exploit exploration like this. The amount of ground to cover is massive, and the difficulties due to salt can make things even slower.

 

 

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I love the area as so many of us do, but have no earthly idea about the incredibly confusing geology.
Every nugget I have found there seems random although I know it's probably not.

 

 

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29 minutes ago, jasong said:

The Lake Lahontan maximum elevation was somewhere around 4370ft

Here is an interesting read about it. Makes me wonder if there are more undiscovered locations with conditions similar to those at Rye Patch 

http://www.onlinenevada.org/articles/ice-age-nevada-and-lake-lahontan

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34 minutes ago, jasong said:

So, when looking for new patches, this is why it's important to pay attention to where the faults are in NNV when narrowing down areas to detect.

good advice

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3 hours ago, jasong said:

The Lake Lahontan maximum elevation was somewhere around 4370ft, it can be traced on aerials. The Black Rock desert which is the biggest white splotch in the background was part of the same lake 12,000 years ago. Now it's home to Burning Man.

Based upon this description some might think that Burning Man is close to Rye Patch when it really is about 200 miles to the WestNorthWest of Rye Patch.  The closest white patch at the top of your photo is Jungo Dry Lake which in fact has a layer of water on it many years.  I've searched that lake on both sides of Jungo Road and not found any but many have found them and posted YouTubes.

https://www.meteorite-times.com/the-northern-nevada-meteorite-hunting-trip-of-2019/

You get to Burning Man by going through Lovelock which is 30 miles west of Rye Patch placers.

Lovelock

You may be parched, famished, and you might be sick of driving. Salt Lake City lies about 500 miles to the east; and Black Rock City is another 150 miles to the west. Yes, you’re almost there, but you still got a ways to go.

Set on the western edge of “Cowboy Country,” Lovelock is your only pit stop on I-80 for another 60 miles before you hit Fernley, so you may want to fill up on some gas, maybe grab a bed, a shower and some food, and even load up on many of the supplies to be found here at the local enterprises who enjoy our company and know our needs.

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1 hour ago, mn90403 said:

Based upon this description some might think that Burning Man is close to Rye Patch when it really is about 200 miles to the WestNorthWest of Rye Patch.

Not that far (scale is at lower right of this map image).  Lake to left if Imlay is the one in Simon's photo:

1430658629_Screenshotat2020-08-21210107.png.d2b0597943d2acbfaf022598cc570960.png

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