Bear

Pictures are hard to identify from and I am no meteorite expert but it looks like a rhyolite crystal tuff or flow. Rhyolite is the volcanic (extrusive) equivalent of granite (igneous). It can vary in color. The phenocrysts (crystals) look like feldspars and quartz. Some appear to be broken, that implies erupted. I don’t see fiamme which are flattened pumice that look like a wispy or flame like structure(s). The real way to tell is if the groundmass is crystalline, it will be very small or aphanatic, meaning no small crystals. Groundmass with small crystals means near surface cooling. No crystals means erupted.

Impact structures are discussed a lot in geology courses. To lengthy to discuss here but the driving forces behind tectonics, including the formation and break up of supercontinents is likely a combination different processes.

This would be the only large scale precious metals mine in Wyoming

This guy has been finding a few diamonds! https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/man-finds-35000th-diamond-arkansas-park-his-50th-this-year

I went out in the spring time on an intermittent stream below known diamond bearing structures. Hence the ability to use a highbanker. The structures themselves were all claimed. I also had a 55 gallon stock barrel, that my dad and grandpa made a mount for in the bed of my truck, for various prospecting adventures. The areas I worked had a lot of stones being close to the source.

I have used a highbanker to prospect for diamonds when I lived in WYO. I had varying results recovering indicator minerals and never found anything I thought was a diamond. I have thought about making a recirculating sluice/grease table. A portion of rifles in the top part first for indicator minerals and diamond with a lower section of grease table. From things I have read there are problems with grease tables such as temperate of the water and organic material. To warm the grease mixture washes out. To cold it gets harder and diamonds won’t stick. Organic carbon can cover the entire grease section preventing diamonds from sticking. Also diamonds may not adhere because of stuff coating them. I though about using a hot water heater to maintain the right temp for the water in cooler times of the year. Like mentioned, I would screen off large material above a 1/4 inch and likely everything below 16 mesh, maybe a little smaller, prior to tuning it through.

My favorite nugget detected. I found it in New Mexico the first time I went to the location

The texture appears to be botryoidal. As to the mineral it could be hematite.

I was a member few years ago. Back then it was a good organization. Some of the better gold I found in that area is where their claim is on Yankee Gulch, when it was a GPAA claim. I found a decent nugget on Big Atlantic gulch too. The South Pass/Lewiston area is neat with fascinating geology. It is a fragment of an Archean greenstone belt. It has all of the features of a greenstone belt including a synform, banded iron formation, granite/gneiss and gold. I recommend book the Economic Geology Of The South Pass Granite Greenstone Belt, Southern Wind River Range, Wyoming (1991). link here https://sales.wsgs.wyo.gov/economic-geology-of-the-south-pass-granite-greenstone-belt-southern-wind-river-range-wyoming-1991/

The links did not work for me before but now they do from a phone.

The bedrock where I dredge is a quartz Muscovite schist that weathers to a inplace clay from frost shattering. You can dredge quite always into it so I take at least a foot and then check it with my SDC. I have gotten signals and dredged deeper to find little nuggets which I wrote a little bit about on here. Last year my SDC did leak. I always clean and check the seal but it was an older model purchased in 2015. I had to send it in for repair.

Flint is chert, which are sedimentary rocks

More WYO gold, thank you for posting it

That’s really cool WYO nugget.

I don’t disagree with anybody on this thread but he asked about heavy digging and durability.