My First 2023 Flakes

[phrunt]

Thanks, I intended to go in about an hour after dinner once it cooled down but the wife is telling me a thunderstorm is coming so may have to leave it until tomorrow night.  I was hoping the DD may help, I’ve struggled  with them with the GPZ before in the same general area.  I think your rock educated guess maybe correct Steve.

Does the Axiom handle them any better?

[PhaseTech]

Yep, flyschitt or bits is what I call the really tiny ones. Something around half a gram may occasionally get called a nuggy, especially if it's got a bit of character. 

[Steve Herschbach]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

Does the Axiom handle them any better?

Easily knocks them right out.

[phrunt]

4 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Easily knocks them right out.

Awesome 

[Valens Legacy]

13 hours ago, phrunt said:

My first nugget for 2023

Great looking nuggets no matter what someone else says they are.

Good luck on many more and stay safe out there on them hills.

[mn90403]

Thanks for the post Simon.  I'd be out there after more no matter the weather.

Big hat, cool drinks, awning, chairs ...

[afreakofnature]

10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

We have them here. I think they are rhyolite, fine grained, usually some tiny bubbles (hollow spots) and some white bits enclosed in the gray or pinkish mass. Sound exactly like a gold nugget, and no 6000 setting or coil will knock them out. 7000 does not like them either. Luckily, the places I have run into them they are not quite so plentiful as to be more than annoying. If an area was thick with them it would shut you down or force a change in equipment. Rhyolite is high in silica and total alkali metal oxides, and alkali metal oxides can have high conductivity. I'm just winging it on the identification but I think I'm close.

Rhyolite varies in appearance depending on the exact composition and how quickly it cooled. Some pictures:

Yes you are correct these are examples of Rhyolite.  The ones with the large phenocrysts are called Porphyritic Rhyolite or Rhyolite porphyry. 

[Steve Herschbach]

9 minutes ago, afreakofnature said:

Yes you are correct these are examples of Rhyolite.  The ones with the large phenocrysts are called Porphyritic Rhyolite or Rhyolite porphyry. 

Yes, they definitely are, since they are from the Geology.com site about Rhyolite. I guess I should have noted they are not pictures of the rocks I have so it’s still an open question. The pics were more to help Simon maybe id what his were. I’ll dig my samples out if I get time and confirm what they are, but it’s pretty low priority at the moment.

[phrunt]

Today wasn’t so fruitful, at least it was something.  Bumped into JW too, he had one in his bottle with the GPZ and 15” CC

I’ve got a torn muscle in my arm at the moment not from detecting so the GPX has been handy being so light but I’ve got a new model 12 inch Spiral for my GPZ I’m desperate to try out. It’s meant to handle bad ground better than my original one. 
 

tiny one, smaller than a pellet, deeper than my finger 😁

[phrunt]

I went back to the hot rock hillside today this time to try the DD on the 6000.  Sadly it was no better than the Coiltek 10x5, in fact probably worse with the bigger size.  I was wishing I had an Axiom or at very least I wished I brought the GPX 5000 with me hoping it would handle them better.   
 

I have gathered up a selection of troublesome rocks to take home and test the 5000 on, I already know the Zed can’t deal with them.

Here are some photos of the hot rocks the 6000 can’t handle, they come in all  sizes from tiny to huge but it’s the buried tiny ones that are most annoying and sound just like gold.

they are super tough, I managed to break a bit off this one

This sort are lumpy

These are screamers

This is a big one of the worst sort, small buried ones fool me thinking I’ve got a flake.

this is a cut out cliff on the area so you can see the ground type, rounded rocks hundreds of meters up a mountain side.

My first nugget of the day, they all seem quite shallow here.

This is my little dig hole, I was filling it back in while recovering the nugget, sorry flake. See how only the left of the coil is dirty, thats because the right has next to no sensitivity, if I was left handed I’d have to fit the coil upside down to recover targets comfortably 😁

My second flake for the day

and my third, a quite small one.  This is the first time I’ve properly used the DD, runs nice but not near the sensitivity of the 10x5, it only found shallow pellets.

Here is my total for the trip so far, notice the little one in the middle from yesterday is a different colour? It was from a different spot about 30 minutes drive from this spot.