Goldseeker5000

If anyone else has ever detected what you knew to be a debris flow or land slide, I'd like to hear what your results were. This is what my next article in ICMJ prospecting & mining journal is on mass wasting. If you have questions feel free to ask.

Steve, I am curious if you have ever detected land slides, debris flows, translational slides,  areas of mass wasting? And if you have did you find any nuggets.

Yes. It states it in the mining journals on what gravel the gold is carried in and that it is various thicknesses. This ash has gravels mixed in with it. It was know as the tertiary lake beds. A large inland body of water. Much of western montana was covered by glacial lake missoula and glacial lake great falls. At at a period of time long before that much of montana was covered by a great inland sea much larger than these lakes. So that gives a very long time of erosion to clear out the regolith and the layer of limestone sitting on top of the granite. Perhaps since on this side of the mountain is absent of the limestone and the other side isn't then maybe this was a boundary of this tertiary lake. I don't know for sure. This area is known for large gold. Nuggets up to 9 ounces have been found here and one was found in the next gulch that was 27 pounds. No other gold was found in that gulch. Just the one nugget. Very perplexing isn't it.

There is very little left of the volcanic ash derived gravel containing the placer gold. It has mainly moved down and out away from the mountain. There was these gravels and limestone on top of the granite. It has all eroded away. My buddy says the big gold that could not be transported by erosion stayed in the spots where every nugget was lying and instead just dropped straight down. There are huge granite outcroppings all over this gulch and all loose material is all desinagrated granite, even the placer deposit alluvium that made it out of the gulch, almost a mile away is all granite. So my question to all who read this. What do you think? Share your best opinion. I think I need to go to the top of the ridge because I believe this is the area where the contact zone is. My goal is to look for the area where I can see the limestone from the first gulch and the granite from the second gulch and detect between them.

This particular spot where my friend and I have been skunked for so long is very interesting. It encompasses two gulches separated by a mountain,the first gulch on the west is barren of gold on the east facing slope and is rich in manganese. The west facing slope is the slope that carries the gold. The country rock in this gulch is dominantly limestone. There have been large nuggets found here up to 9 ounces. Now on the other side of this mountain is the second gulch. This gulch is east of the first gulch. It has placer deposits all thru the gulch but the richest deposits were the alluvial gravel that made it out of the gulch, from the mouth of the gulch leading out to the gentle low rolling hills and out to the flats. The country rock in this gulch is dominated entirely by granite. It is part of the boulder batholith. An intrusive granitic deposit. This deposits are formed in the earth. That is why it is a intrusive igneous rock. I know the gold was carried in a volcanic ash derived gavels that was on top of the granite. Here is where it gets interesting like some unsolved murder mystery. Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.

Just a reminder for all who use the 705 for gold. If you utilize the ground balance offset at a given spot you need to go into your setting for the offset and zero out the setting you just set when you are done. If you don't do this the detector will remember and save your last setting and when you go to a new area the 705 can and will act overly sensitive and lead you to think something is wrong with your detector. So remember to zero out that ground balance offset when you leave an area where you have employed this feature.

well put Doc. I just read this thread after I started a thread on gold, geology and sharing knowledge. Knowlege is the key to finding the gold we seek. If one doesn't stop and ponder how or why the nugget they just found got there, they are missing out on learning the clues that will put them onto that nuggets friends hiding close by or that nuggets other relatives hiding further up the hill 500 yards away. This is a game of clues. Learn everything you can find on an area geologically speaking including success of others if it is shared or slips from their mouth. This is how a friend of mine, Rick Radke who is now gone from this life, was so successful. He was very good at unraveling the clues.

 I wanted to start this thread because in all the locations we all detect whether it is in western US or any where in the gold fields of Australia there is at least one spot that can stump all of us. This would be the spot that maybe we go and we know there has been good gold found there but for some reason we get skunked. This could be a spot that the geology is different than places we have success finding nuggets detecting. As we all know what's going on with the geology where gold is detectable is different everywhere. Knowing how the gold got to an area is very important for our success. Here is an example . In one area I detect Libby Creek the gold is on and in the bedrock as well as spread out thru all layers of gravel as though sprinkled from a salt shaker. I have this figured out. Another area you will not have much luck finding nuggets unless you are on the bedrock. Period. That is where the gold is in that area. The one exception to this in this area is hunting for specimens around lode mines. There is one place a friend of mine and myself have been going to detect for nuggets, each of us for a period of about 14 or 15 years and we both get skunked every time. I have held a 4 ounce nugget from this area found with a detector.  So with this knowledge and knowing that three guys found 300 nuggets in this area in one summer, we keep going back. This is the eternal optimism of all of us who detect for nuggets. This area that stumps my friend and I is all granite the rock outcroppings the loose rocks on and in the ground are granite. The bedrock is granite, even the regolith on the bedrock is all granitic in make up. So I thought maybe if we all share info on the geology in each of our nemesis localities,  perhaps someone out there has knowledge how to hunt these locals. I am not asking anyone to divulge the name and location of these areas, just the clues you have learned dealing with the geology in relation to the gold that led to success in similar sitiuations. Lets try putting our collective minds and knowledge together to help each of us. What is your nemesis spot. Maybe we all can help each other. Try to give all geological info that you know of too figure out the clues of where the gold might be hiding.

Its too sensitive to use your hand over the coil. Have to use a scoop. Period!

Very nice nuggets. Have you ever cleaned your nuggets in muriatic acid? It works amazingly well. I have an article in ICMJ prospecting & mining journal that I wrote from I think this past May called cleaning sampling and hydroshocking quartz gold specimens. If you haven't read it, check it out. Very informative.

I was on Libby Creek detecting for nuggets and I met a guy from Canada in our club claim. I invited him up creek with a friend of mine and myself. I was talking about all the advantages of the Monster. He uses a gold bug pro. I got a signal on a nugget that was pegging out on the gold chance indicator and I took the headphones off and just had the external speakers so he could hear it. It was loud and I had him come over and give it a try before I chipped it out of the bedrock. He could not get a signal. I had him jack up the sensitivity to max and he still could not get a signal. It was a nugget and the gold bug pro could not see it. It sold him on the monster and as soon as he got home he ordered a Gold Monster 1000. The proof is in the pudding. I've been detecting since 1980 for gold and coins and as far as gold is concerned minelab rules and I feel in my opinion they are the only company out there with a research and development team extremely serious about constantly advancing their gold detectors to be and stay the leader in gold detecting technology in the world.

I like these pants. Does anyone know if Murdocks carries these pants. I had a pair of painters pants similar to these. Lighter weight, same knee pad but after a few times kneeling on them and they permanently condense and loose the cushioning. What's the price on them?

Well done. You gotta be proud of finding that one.

I wonder if koss can replace the jack to a 1/8" to be used for gold monster. Without external speaker. No alternative seems to work.

Haal the 705 is actually a very easy detector to learn. Like DSmith said play with it and see what happens each time you try it. A couple things to remember that are very important. If you run the 705 in the preprogrammed coin mode you will rarely find the good old coins because those TID's are blocked out to be rejected. Read Randy Horner's ebook and set one of your preprogrammed modes to open up the tide for those old coins and watch your best and oldest coin finds stacking up. The other thing play with the other tones that are on there. Don't just stick with the 99 tone as minelab calls it. It is actually one tone for each tid notch. Try the 4 tone and two tone. Never ever pass by a target for example 10 12 and with it -6 -8 if those 4 tids keep coming up it will be a nickel with a nail or other piece of iron.

I have used the beach mode on Scratch Gravel Hills in Helena Montana. The entire hill system is made up of granite. It is rotten and in the gullies you can dig down two feet and constantly hit visible thick layers of magnetic black sand. It helped a little but the quietest detecting I had was with the 15" HF, surprisingly. There have been nuggets found up there as large as 9 ounces detecting. It is definitely an area ideal for pulse induction.

I couldn't even imagine what that would be like to detect an area with 2000 years of iron and other metals . But I do know what it is like to hunt relatively small areas with thousands of people working and leaving trash everywhere over course of 100 or so years.  Mines in montana and Idaho. In one area the is still a bulldozer resting on the bench of a creek from 1930's .

Rivers Rat, why haven't you used it? The 705 is one of the two best detectors you have. Do you have one of the 15" coils? The coin mode is really good as is the prospecting mode. Pull it out of the box and use it get familiar with it. As you do this write down some questions. I can help you thru the learning curve.

Haal perhaps the problem you are experiencing with the 705 and discerning from rusted cans and iron relics is that the rusted cans are tin and the detector sees that as not a bad target with the discrimination you have set. Try taking one of those cans and an iron relic and play with the discrimination til you get the can to blank out and the iron relic to come thru.

I run my 705 on threshold of 1 so I can hear the faintest signal and the volume on max. Like Steve said the connection between gain or sensitivity and threshold is very much connected with the 705. You raise the sensitivity in upper ranges your thershhold with be louder and noisy. You back it way off and your detector will be quiet and you WILL hear your target if it is within the depth range that the 705 can reach. Trust the 705 it will never cease to amaze you.

The 705 is very powerful and in a lot of cases you just can't run it too high on sensitivity, back it off. I rarely run in coin mode on 99 tones. I just run it in four tones. If you are hunting in heavy iron infested areas it will help to put it on two tones. You will have improved speed to discern between iron and a good target next to each other. Also all my best coin targets had negative id's mixed with the appropriate good I'd. This is because there were nails next to every one of them. I will never pass up a signal that has both positive and negative I'd. You will also get this mixing of I'd numbers when you have a deep target and the 705 knows there is a good target but it is at the farthest point it can lock on but until you get the coil closer it cannot determine that it is a 100% good target. I.E. non-Ferris.

So here are some of my finds with the 705. It is kinda hard to comment on the strengths of the 705 if no questions are asked but I will give it a try. I am experiencing problems with my computer so I will post these and switch to my phone for the info.

It took me six or seven years before I found my first nugget with a detector. With that said, one's success does In fact have everything to do with your faith and confidence in your detector and in yourself. Every time I went out gold detecting and didn't have 100% confidence that I was going to find a nugget that day or weekend , I was met with failure. But on the other hand that every time I went out with 100% confidence I would find one, these are the days I have success. Don't let that doubt creep into your thoughts from the moment you leave your house to go detecting until you have nuggets in hand.

Lunk that is some nice gold. Scott Thurber says you hunt around Murray. So do I.  We should meet up over at Murray next spring and detect for som beautiful Murray gold.

You are correct Steve these headphone will be universal for their detectors. I'm tired of kneeling on my headphone cord for the Monster. Awsome detector, bad headphones.