oldmancoyote1

I have a Lectric XP 2.  I'm not very happy with it, but I have hopes for it once I have made a few modifications.  My greatest disappointment is how unstable it is on logging roads.  Frankly, by my experience, it's nearly unusable for prospecting/exploring as it comes from the factory.  After trying other fixes, I' think that the problem is the width of the handlebars.  They are about 22 inches.  I intend to replace mine with a 28-30 inch handlebar in the hopes that the bike will be more stable.  

In my experience, the second serious problem is the shape of the throttle/handgrip.  A 10 minute ride on a rough road, leaves the web between my thumb and first finger so painful, I have to stop.  The cause is the constant jarring and the increasing diameter of the throttle.  I hope a uniform width throttle/hand grip with a thumb throttle will be much easier on my hand.  With a wider handlebar, there should be room for both.  I'm going to try a $12 clip-on thumb lever.

I still have high hopes for the bike.  Otherwise, it seems a pretty solid design.

Without a photo, I can't say much, but crystal cavities do sometimes form in the center of petrified logs.  In fact, many petrified logs in Northern Arizona were dynamited during the last century in search of crystals.

Seven years.  I got a bit frustrated and paid Ray Mills considerable cash for help.  After an introduction session that Fall, he took my buddy and me to a better place that Spring.  Over the next few days I found 63  mostly sub-gram "nuggets".  My buddy the @@@,  fount 79.

On 4/12/2023 at 6:22 PM, Hard Prospector said:

Three of the four pieces look well traveled, perhaps from an ancient  river channel or bench deposit long since pushed way up.

I look at this differently.  Natural gold is about 2.5 on the Mohs scale while quartz is about 8.  That's a huge difference and gold should wear much faster than quartz.  Here is a photo of my finds from 2021.  There are 63 pieces from a mile upstream.  They have been in the river much longer than this year's finds and are much purer.  I still think this years finds originated close by.

Cheap foam knee pads.  Lots of duct tape.

Addressing the knee pad part of these comments, for me knee pads are essential, but they were a huge pain in the neck because they slip so much.  In frustration I started using duct tape to hold cheap foam pads in place.  No subtlety here.  I just wrap'em until the stay where I want them.  Works pretty good.

I'm thinking about your suggestion.  It may take a while.  Thanks

Thanks for all the info folks.

You're right about VLF not being practical.  Yes, for PI machines it would lock on real non-gold targets, but in that respect I don't think it would be that different from  what is normal for PI machines.  Syncing between swings would be difficult, but it would be doable if the user laid down a thin chain alongside the area to be searched.  Then, the beginning of each swing would be marked by a double peak signal.  I probably would discard the second (return) half of the signal.  A uniform swing wouldn't be that hard to maintain.  

How about wether there is enough noise with PI machines to make this worthwhile.  I have very little experience with PI machines.

I might write an iPhone app to filter noisy metal detector signals.  Is this a big problem, or is the problem just my old GPX4500?  The basic idea is to repeatedly swing across an area, and the app would add all the signals together.  Random signals would cancel each other out, and a valid signal would be reinforced.  The oil companies call it "stacking", and it has been extremely successful.  Any other ideas for an app for nugget hunters would be very welcome.

I have had similar problems in the past.  In my case I was getting only one of the two stereo channels.  Fiddling around with the 3.5 mm plug fixed the issue.

There is coverage for the south eastern part of the Klamath Mountains, specifically coverage for the Carr-Hirsh-Delta... Fire areas.The lidar images from this web site are fantastic.  Here is a satellite image for one area and the lidar image for the same area.  The second image shows pocket gold pits that are otherwise invisible.  The images are about 600 feet across.  The scale info on these copies is not correct.

If you are not experience in VLF, experiment with a VLF in your intended area before you buy anything.  You may be disappointed.  If all the iron junk is small, VLF has potential, but larger iron junk (particularly rusted iron) can produce VINs in the gold range.  This can produce trashy areas that are very frustrating to detect.

There are things that can be said, but i must say that I have no specific knowledge of gold related to the paleo-lakes and the ensuing floods.

It occurs to me that gold-bearing stream discharges from mountains ringing the lake would form deltas where they reached the shores.  When the lake drained, much of this sediment would be eroded away.  As these deltas would be at the edges of the lakes, they might escape catastrophic erosion and  leave some gold behind.  

This is an exploration concept not a prediction.  Sometimes exploration concepts are profitable.  Often they are not.  Without specific knowledge of discharge-related gold occurrences you'd probably do better ignoring the floods and seeking an exploration concept related to a known traditional gold occurrence.

Consider renting ground penetrating radar.  You can get a simple system for about $100/day with a $100 prep fee (look on-line).  Shipping and insurance are extra.  There are useful videos on-line to help you understand and interpret it, but there would be a significant learning period before renting.  You would also have to convince the rental agency that you are responsible.    All in all this would require a significant effort to make this happen, but it is in the range of possibility for an amateur.

On 2/9/2022 at 9:42 PM, UpAndDownTheHills said:

oldmancoyote1

Have you thought sending it in to get an assay and see what the yield is?  It might be pretty good even though it's not visible.

I have only seen about 1/2 square feet of gold film.  I think the odds are way too low.  There isn't enough sulfide to yield much gold.

11 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Would you give an example or two of minerals that fit this profile?

Locally, it's pyrite that usually forms an iron stain or lumps of iron oxides, but the situation is very complicated.  Example:  Some of the local pyrite contains a little gold.  When the pyrite oxidizes, it forms an acid.  If there is some manganese present and some salt (often the case in black shales), any gold may go into solution.  The gold can then precipitate as very thin films on shale or as valuable spongey pocket gold.  I don't really know how to judge which is the case without digging up the shale.  After digging up a lot of oxidized pyrite without any visible gold, I have given up metal detecting the local black shale.

Sulfides are very common in shales.  Oxidized sulfides often resemble gold when viewed with a metal detector.

If your metal detector does not find anything up hill, consider panning looking for gold of any size including dust-size.

Do check the slope up hill for a pocket gold deposit.  There's lots of info on this on the web.

Can't tell from the photos.  I think I see some cubic forms.  If so, it may be pyrite.  Crush a small piece.  If it crushes to a powder, pyrite is most likely.  If it  deforms like lead, it's likely gold.

One sometimes useful way to anticipate tech advances is to look at the extreme high-end hardware and software packages for big money uses like military, shallow ground investigations for engineering, and maybe archeology and geology.  I haven't looked at this stuff for several years, but the thing that did impress me was graphics especially map views and 3-D representation of the sub-surface.  As hardware become cheaper and the software more sophisticated, some of this will come our way.

Mary Hill wrote a booklet Hunting Diamonds in California.  A geologist I met who specialized in conventional diamond geology said he searched the pit Hill mentioned and found no indication of diamonds. The diamonds found in California apparently are not from kimberlite pipes as found elsewhere.  Looking for a pipe would not be a very promising approach.  Your best chance would be exploring a pit using an ultraviolet light after dark.

I should mention that rattlesnakes can fluoresce too.