The Thing's We Do For Some Gold

[phrunt]

3 hours ago, GotAU? said:

I was going to also mention glacier polish… there even seems to be some parallel lines in it that would indicate directions that it flowed.  Simon, and small lakes or natural ponds in that area? Glacial moraines?

looks like a great day, good for you Simon. I’m curious, why did you feel that the 10 x 5 Coiltek would have been a better choice than the larger 12 x 7 Nugget Finder coil? Was it due to the terrain or performance?

Yes, there are massive lakes in the area, I drive half an hour at about 62 mph along the side of one to get to this spot, and that's not even half the lake length, it's called the Lakes district ? It had glaciers all over the place, still does have some but much smaller ones now, this area we were detecting in was a big glacier at one point.  From Bing search. "An inventory of South Island glaciers compiled in the 1980s indicated there are about 3,155 glaciers with an area of at least one hectare (2.5 acres). Approximately one sixth of these glaciers covered more than 10 hectares."

It does indeed have little lines all going the same direction through the smooth surface, it looks like it's wet it's that shiny but it's not.    I can't get a good photo of it, well one that shows how it really looks.  Tilt it on an angle to show the sheen of it and it gets too glossy to see, and straight on doesn't show the shine.

We aren't called the Shaky Isles for nothing, no shortage of earthquakes and faulting here.  

The 10x5" would be a better choice in the area due to it being deeper on smaller gold, which seems to be the gold we are finding in the area.  I don't like to use the term more sensitive as much with the 6000 as the 11" will hit gold as small as the 10x5", so it's not so much sensitivity, it's depth on the sizes of gold and the smaller coils seem to hit the tiny bits deeper, which you would expect.  I'm betting the 10x5" would give a better response to the piece of gold I was quite disappointed in the performance of the 6000 with, something I'd like to see, I can't do like I did with the Algoforce and just turn it on in my house and try it out though as the GPX just makes all crazy sounds ?  Only the Algo can be tested in a house like that.

[GotAU?]

2 hours ago, RONS DETECTORS MINELAB said:

Same here, the 10 x 5" has the best sensitivity of all the coils offered and where it starts to lose depth on larger pieces the 11" starts to excel. 

What 11” Ron or Simon?  The stock coil?

[RONS DETECTORS MINELAB]

 

13 minutes ago, GotAU? said:

What 11” Ron or Simon?  The stock coil?

Yes, that’s the 11” stock coil I was referring to.

[phrunt]

Yep, 11" stock, great coil except a bit noisy and reliability issues which seem resolved.  Not often I'd recommend a Minelab GPX stock coil ? but the 6000 one is really good when you have a good one.

[Valens Legacy]

Thanks for sharing the hunt with us as I liked the videos very much.

Great pieces of gold that you have found and I just wish you could find something much bigger. I know that NZ is not known for real gold nuggets (ounce or bigger) and can fully understand what your up against.

Good luck on your next outing and I wish you luck.

[phrunt]

JW kindly passed on a few photos, his total gold from the day plus a photo of me detecting a slope, no gold on this one though ?

I circled me in the photo.

He found the smaller bits, that little 10x5" coil is a powerhouse.

[GotAU?]

6 hours ago, Valens Legacy said:

“I know that NZ is not known for real gold nuggets”

Spoken like a true Aussie… You’re going to ruffle some kiwi feathers saying things like that! ?  

But they actually do have gold nuggets over 1 oz. Simon shared a video of one found in a stream bed a while back. It was palm-sized.

[rvpopeye]

Nice lookin' spot .

If I could drive my rig there I'd probably just park it for good ! ?

 

 

[mn90403]

Patch hunting these days takes strong legs and/or special equipment.  Much like the old days!