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Lead And Gold Nuggets


mcjtom

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Both. Lead and gold are often found together along with silver. Mines often produce a number of minerals. They call it a silver mine if that is the greater amount there, same with gold and lead. 

Often you will find brass bullet shells. The lead that was once attached to them is likely there as well, just a bit further away. 

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For me the lead in my gold areas is almost exclusively shotgun pellets from rabbit hunters.

The first rabbits to arrive in New Zealand were probably brought by European whalers to the south coast of the South Island. They were a normal article of trade at shore stations, so were shipped from Sydney, Australia during the two decades of the 1820s–1830s along with other supplies, they were mostly used for food and sport.

Now they are out of control and a real pest and the lead shot outnumbers gold 1000 to 1 🙂

 

 

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Is there such as thing as native (metallic, elemental, conductive) lead?  Apparently so according to Wikipedia, but "occurs rarely."  I wonder if anyone has ever found native lead with a metal detector.  If so, this forum is the place to hear about it.  Native gold, platinum, silver, and copper have been found with metal detectors and reported here.

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Often find Star Antimony over here in Oz with the metal detector, gives a sweet signal, especially sometimes kilo plus "nuggets". Occurs with gold in some areas in FNQ, certainly gives you a thrill as you feel the weight in your hand on retrieving that soon turns to disappointment. 

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The primary ore of lead is galena, which can readily be found with a metal detector. I have found galena nuggets weighing up to 12 pounds. But, lead "trash" is manmade, i.e. bullets and birdshot.

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The VAST majority of lead found with metal detectors is man made. If it’s soft and malleable, it’s almost certainly man made lead, not native lead.

Galena is lead sulphide, and unlike native lead will shatter if struck with a hammer. Galena is highly variable in conductivity, with the classic clean cubic galena that I have tested basically undetectable, but those with silver and other minerals in the mix all over the map. I found some nice high silver galena in Arizona, with a very dark, dusky look a give away to high silver content, that sounded off quite nicely.

See page 39 of this publication for some discussion:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1071/PVv2017n188p37

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I wonder if the original poster asking re gold nuggets and lead "trash" is referring to their typically being found together in modern streams and rivers. When working crevices or sniping when I'm finding lead I know I'm in the area of the active channel that is also likely to carry gold - a good sign. Detecting away from active stream channels I will usually ignore iron but on bedrock adjacent to or in the rivers I dig everything. While not as heavy as lead, iron can also be an indicator of where the gold may be. Along those lines, hoping this next year will be great with reworked stream bottoms and lots of new catches full of heavies .

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Also will find “camp lead” term used for chunks or rolls of lead the old timers used for casting bullets...lots of that up in the hills. 

Strick 

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I like man made lead. If I find lots of it in a gold bearing area I know gold is still in the ground. GC

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