19" Zed Finds A Meteorite And A Little Nugget

[mn90403]

I've been out a few times now with the 19" and finally got over a couple of keepers!

Yesterday I was hunting in a known meteorite area in Gold Basin, Arizona.  Meteorites in this area are primarily surface targets to maybe 1 or 2 inches.  You can still hunt in some areas for them without a detector.

I started out with the 14" coil and found the 25g meteorite on the right.  Now that I had located an area still holding them (and showing dig holes) I wanted to try the 19" coil.  I didn't have to walk very far away before I got the 18g meteorite on the left.  My first keeper of any kind with the 19" coil.

Today we went a few miles away from where we found the meteorite and got the little .45g nugget that was 'missed' in a patch where I found several with the 14" coil.  It was about 4" down.  When I saw it and gave it a 'Find Point' I thought it was .2g.  The sound was very faint but when I got to pinpointing it screamed.  I was using JP's conservative settings.

Before we went to Gold Basin we were in Quartzsite where I have very little experience with big gold at any depth.  Actually I have very little experience anywhere with big deep gold so I'm trying to remember stories I have heard from others and go to those locations but I'll have to research more.

It's just good to break in the coil.

Mitchel

[AU_Solitude]

Nice work!   

[Lunk]

Good job!

[LuckyLundy]

Nice shooting!

Rick

[fredmason]

nice work, Mitchel...you have become very consistent. Happy New year

fred

[jasong]

Nice work.

There was big deep gold out there found in the past. I ran a backhoe out there and it's still out there, deeper than the GPX (and Z14) could hear if you know where to look. It's very scattered though...

Q has deeper on average and a lot more big gold by sheer numbers, but GB produced a lot of larger specimen type stuff, actually very similar to the big one you found in another field. Both have gold not uncommonly past the 3ft+ mark, so perfect places to test that Z19! Keep us updated. 

There are people lurking here who know more than I do and were in both places in the 80's and 90's, but they rarely or never post, hi. 

Also, don't be afraid to experiment with settings. That's some of the mildest ground in the US in Q and GB. It's a bit noisy from Vegas is about the only problem.

[Norvic]

WTG

[mn90403]

8 hours ago, jasong said:

Also, don't be afraid to experiment with settings. That's some of the mildest ground in the US in Q and GB. It's a bit noisy from Vegas is about the only problem.

I'll have to admit, I did push (12) the settings a bit for the shallow meteorites.  I was concerned that the 19 would ignore smalls as a hot rock so I stepped up the sensitivity.  It was still stable enough to hunt but we were in an area where most of them had been found so my count didn't go up.  Two others that were hunting with me didn't find any before we moved on to explore.

I went to the Hoppy GPAA claims (good in the past I understand) for the first and last time.  There were no old dig holes in the pavement.  I have been on much better areas of Gold Basin for meteorites.

The gold nugget area was mostly mild but there were a few screamer hot rocks which is not always a bad thing.  I've taken quite a few similar nuggets off that area and I was not the first.

[beatup]

congrats on some nice finds