oldmancoyote1

Good information Steve. A slightly different interpretation of pocket gold deposits in the southeastern Klamaths would go like this: Hydrothermal waters (hot water) moving upward through the greenstone of the Copely formation tends to lay down some quartz and perhaps other minerals like pyrite and calcite, but does not lay down much gold. When these waters reach the black shale of the Bragden formation, the carbon causes the gold in solution to precipitate within the pyrite (5% gold by weight might by typical). This, however, is not yet mineable. The next phase occurs with oxygen-rich rain water causes the pyrite to oxidize. In the presence of manganese oxide, the iron in the pyrite completely oxidizes to ferric iron yielding an acid solution rich in sulfate and ferric iron. Because these black shales were layed down in sea water, there is abundant salt present. This sodium chloride added to the sulfate and ferric iron in a acid solution forms a complex which dissolves the gold. The final phase occurs when this descending gold-carrying fluid either: 1) encounters enough calcite to neutralize the acid precipitating the well-known porous gold of pocket deposits or 2) encounters the water table where the low oxygen content of the water table reduces the ferric iron to ferrous iron again precipitating porous gold. There are two other larger belts of greenstone overlain by black shales in the Klamaths. Both lie well to the west of the Copely-Bragden belt. You could spot them easily on a geologic map because they lie immediately to the west of serpentine belts. Each should contain pocket gold deposits of this type. There are other pocket gold deposit models, but I am still learning about them. I would, in particular, like to hear more about the occurrence of pocket gold deposits adjacent to serpentine/ultra magic rocks. I'm not necessarily looking for scientific observations. Miners often have practical knowledge of mineral deposits that exceeds that of those of us who are economic geologists. Oldmancoyote

Pardon my ignorance. What is loss characteristics.

If you are not familiar with the pocket hunter's techniques for following a trace to the source, you should do a web search for pocket gold.

Thank you Steve

Hi Steve: Just re-read your "Steve's Guide to Threshold, Autotune..." It helped a lot. Thanks. I do have a question though. I understand V/SAT. It's about how fast autotune re-adjusts the threshold after encountering some disturbance like a target. However, I'm unclear on how that relates to Ground Balancing and Tracking. It sounds like they are the same. Would you please explain that? Thanks

I followed your link but got a 404 message.

A good place to start is the USGS MRDS data base. You can download selected areas in a format compatible with Google Earth. Start here: https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/select.php?place=fUS&div=quad

It certainly looks profession. Is it practical? Do you continuously pump or add dirt, then pump...? It looks like it would benefit from rocker action.

Steve: You say you have multiple detector belts. Do you have anything you want to add about what's on them and why they are different?

Late last summer I took my new Gold Racer to the park along with a conventional detector. I swung both, one in each hand. At one point I got a strong signal on the GR but nothing on the other detector. I dug it and found a one carat cubic zirconia on a silver tie tack. I took it home, and just before I left for my winter home in Mexico, I put it under the GR for an air test. It came up a unshakable ID50. Now ID50 is about what I would expect for platinum. I was way too busy to pursue it further at that time. Now all winter long I'm going to wonder: Why would anyone mount a cubic zirconia on a platinum setting.

Angus MacKirk... was acquired and moved from Boise to Canada. I bought mine from Boise online before the move. I suppose the new owners at http://brokenback.ca would be a good place to look. They do indicate several west coast retailers.

Thanks guys. I did a study last summer. I dug the first 20 "hot rocks" < ID 5 and >ID 90. All were hot rocks. Still I wonder about these targets. Next summer I'll re-do the test with maybe 50 "hot rocks." Finding 50 "hot rocks" here will not be a problem. : ) If I still don't get anything, I'll kiss off "hot rocks." I'll also follow the consensus here and dig anything else that doesn't lock on ID 20/21. After a couple of months, I'll re-evaluate. I'll also do more testing with test nuggets in hopes of learning more about the audio signal. Training my ear will be a priority. I'm utterly in the dark about audio. Any further advise from forum members would be much appreciated. Thanks again guys. Oldmancoyote1

Steve: I spent about a month learning my Makro Gold Racer this summer. I went out almost every day. Most of the time I worked bare red soil over siltstone (ground balance values about 67) in and close to old pocket gold diggings in the Klamath Mountains. I didn't find any gold this year, but next summer I hope to do better. I have a few questions. Your answers might well help me succeed. 1) Would you advise I change the following protocol: In All Metal mode I ignore anything less than ID 5 or greater that ID 90 (lots of hot rocks here). I'm not inclined to dig anything that shows a dominate signal above ID 65 or anything that mostly grabs onto ID 20/21. However, most of my targets show multiple IDs (mostly in the teens and 20s with a few IDs above 70), and I dig any of these that show a few indications in the 40s or 50s amid the other IDs. 2) Do you feel you get useful information from careful attention to differences in the audio response? I discard responses giving the null-beep-null pattern even though I have seen some using a test nugget. Otherwise I ignore differences in the audio. 3) In one of your posts you dismiss using the Gold Racer in highly mineralized ground. I will have to deal with a lot of this next summer. Would you discuss the issues you had with highly mineralized ground?