Jp’s Gold Thread

[Gold Catcher]

Absolutely enjoyable reports, thanks JP. Always an inspiration.

Just curious, in the places where you hunt is the gold originally coming from lode deposits near by? I am not familiar with the geology in your area, but where I hunt known lode deposits can erode quiet substantially into massive alluvial fans. Interestingly, in these fans the heavy material travels up, not down. Hence, heavier gold can be quiet shallow in these fans. I was just wondering if you have a similar situation there. Your gold is nice and chunky. 🙂

[Jonathan Porter]

On 5/11/2020 at 2:54 PM, Gold Catcher said:

Absolutely enjoyable reports, thanks JP. Always an inspiration.

Just curious, in the places where you hunt is the gold originally coming from lode deposits near by? I am not familiar with the geology in your area, but where I hunt known lode deposits can erode quiet substantially into massive alluvial fans. Interestingly, in these fans the heavy material travels up, not down. Hence, heavier gold can be quiet shallow in these fans. I was just wondering if you have a similar situation there. Your gold is nice and chunky. 🙂

Clermont is not known for its lode deposits, there are a few on the southern end but generally it was a very large alluvial gold producer in its hey day. There are a number different gold deposition events, some are the typical gold shedding from reefs and mullocky leaders, although because of a number of upheaval events, some of the reefs are now flat laying so the gold has weathered out differently. There is also evidence of conglomerates in the area with what we call pudding stones often scattered about (hard boulders made up of water worn quartz rubble bound with silicious material ), some of these stones are gold bearing and have possibly been pushed around the landscape via glaciation and ended up weathering out gold into the environment once they start to oxidise (Although I think the glaciation might have been more ice sheet variety than the deep valley gouging variety up in your north, with the alluvial locked up in the glacial material sitting atop the original gold bearing country beneath).

I am also pretty certain some of these conglomerates when layed down were flat laying like sedimentary siltstone shallow alluvial fan deposits and then in a subsequent upheaval event have become folded into a vertical position mixed in with the slates, its really weird to find water worn nuggets high on the hills sitting on slopes with rough quartz rubble and the odd water worn country rock stone or in a lot of cases just sitting in weathered schists with little or no wash at all. Right on top of the hill the country is pure slate/schist with quartz stringers, then there will be an old boys shaft with the collar made up of intermixed slate and water worn pebbles. 

In essence the gold occurrences for metal detectors in Clermont are associated around country rock that is auriferous in nature then through the process of upheaval, capping off by basaltic flows then subsequent weathering, glaciation and conglomeration then more upheaval with long periods of the country eroding, more than likely a different direction, has left the gold scattered about but generally adjacent to its original source in shallow surface deposits on the hills, ridges, slopes and modern drainages. At one stage in the long distant past Clermont had an extremely high rainfall which was part of the coal deposits, over time the country has dried out and become more dessert like with a lot of the top soils removed leaving the less fertile shallow alluvial/colluvial soils behind, perfect for metal detecting. 

JP

 

 

 

[Gold Catcher]

22 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Clermont is not known for its lode deposits, there are a few on the southern end but generally it was a very large alluvial gold producer in its hey day

Very cool, thanks JP. Sounds really interesting and thanks for the detailed description. It also shows once more that good  knowledge of the geology is the foundation for success, with you being a living example 🙂

[Jonathan Porter]

Time for another gold fix, had a fantastic session a few days ago with a run of solid water worn pieces shedding out of an ancient cross fault that has seen a lot of water action. These little guys just lit up the GPZ like no mans business. Old patches + new approach has been paying dividends lately.😎 

 

That’s 12 grams not 1216! 🤕 🤪

 

 

[Lunk]

Onya, JP!

[Jonathan Porter]

Been a while since I added to this thread, travel restrictions have eased so I did the trek south to go see my Mum who’s been in lockdown and not seen a soul since this all started (she in a high risk group at 80 years young). Since returning home the shop has prevented me getting out much so only a couple of sessions over the last week or so, thankfully the good thing about gold is it doesn’t rust.😜

JP

Some of the nasty ground I’ve been working (holes will be refilled)

Few pickers I got just on dark

Yesterday morning’s session with a bonus chunkster 🙂 

[Jonathan Porter]

Been a while since I posted to this thread, this year has been good for me on the gold front with some nice finds. Theses pics are of some of the pieces I found during testing of the NF coil, I’m now at liberty to show them off on this thread. I’ll be posting up a fair few more pics of gold finds once I get the thread revived. I’ll also include some pictures of what the locations look like as this is sorely lacking this day and age due to secrecy. 

This thread is not meant to be political, just sharing some of my gold finds for others to enjoy.

JP

Fern leaf gold, sold this one for AU $150 per gram

Nice solid 9+ gram piece found deep on the edge of this gully

 

[peterinaust]

Good to see you back JP

[Steve Herschbach]

Some stunning specimen gold there JP, more like stuff seen here than what I’m used to seeing from Oz. Thanks for posting!

[Lunk]

Great finds JP, thanks for sharing and good to see more posts from you on this thread.