Over The Hill. My First Experience Hunting Nuggets In Nevada With Gerry's Detectors' Team.

[Shojo510]

Thanks Wild Bill for the pics and geology info. Good stuff it all helps! Myself I need as much help as I can get searching for places to go…Types of intrusive formations to look for. Very interesting

[jasong]

The in situ pockets of the prickly crystalline gold I found out there had a bunch of graphite/carbon, like my hands were black after digging through it. Nuggety gold is associated with carbon in some spots. I think in those epithermal areas, if there are underlying black shales or graphitic schists they will donate carbon which acts as a redox agent for metal ions in the hot water. Reduction will cause ionic gold to turn into native gold, this is the stuff nuggets come from. 

In some places there are pyrite cubes associated with nuggets, but I think this is by proxy and not directly. Why? Organic/carbon layers can also have hydrogen sulfide (or it can come from underlying volcanic activity which may be heating the waters), which causes iron and gold to drop out in pyrites. The pyrite simply sticks around on surface longer than the carbon because it oxidizes into stable goethite.

So looking for goethite cubes on surface can be an indicator to get in a wider general area as an epithermal activity indicator. And then trick, I think anyways, is finding the small pockets of areas where there was more carbon in the underlying formation than there was hydrogen sulfide available. 

Just my theory anyways. There was quartz in my pockets too, but I think the carbon association is more revealing in NNV. The carbon weathers away on surface quickly though so the indicators left are mostly by proxy or secondary. 

[Nikko]

13 hours ago, Shojo510 said:

Nikko, That was a great time out there! An excellent group all around. What a challenge,  what a blast! A whirlwind of a weekend for sure.  Focus Focus focus and even then you may not get on the board…but as always well worth the efforts. Great chatting with you out there look forward to catching up with you in the future. 

Good job on the vid I look forward to part 2 and following the Gold Master 2 challenge.
 

HH

John

It was a ton of fun!  I'm terrible with names, were you running the 5000 with the big coil?

Great pics!  I wish I took more stills of the landscape.  That bit of snow on those peaks across the pond was perfect.

[Nikko]

BTW I welcome any discussion related to the video/trip, including the history and geology of the area.  Thank you to everyone who chimed in about it.  

In fact, I encourage more conversation about the geology and history!  I'd love to include it in part 2.  

If anyone would like to do a video call to discuss the geology and/or mining history of the area for part 2 of the video, please let me know.  That's the kind of info I want to learn and share.  If you're not comfortable being on video, we can do a call.  Or, you can just type it out in a way that I can understand and subsequently relay it to the viewers in a way that anyone can understand.  
My geology knowledge is about at the level of a student a month or two into Geology 101 at a low rate community College.  😄 I'm getting there, slowly.  I tend to follow patterns which has worked out over time.  I may not be able to explain all the reasons why, but I can tell you "I found gold along this fault/ridge/drainage line, and the best spots were where these rocks contact those rocks." sometimes I even know what type of rocks 😂.

[Shojo510]

I was the lone 5000 swinger mixing and matching coils all over the place but I was really hoping to hit something deeper with that 18 elite…that large test subject sounded so nice and clear. Deep gold ahhhhhh 

[Shojo510]

Jasong- I had an interesting target that I thought was a front loader chip or something but upon closer inspection it was a piece of shale with a black/grey cube attached to it. Only about the size of a pea. Magnetic. I figured it might be a hematite cube that crystallized out from the mudstone. 
 

the landscape blew my mind the way the shale/slate was just scattered about. That coupled with the mountains and layout what a special place.

[Nikko]

19 minutes ago, Shojo510 said:

Jasong- I had an interesting target that I thought was a front loader chip or something but upon closer inspection it was a piece of shale with a black/grey cube attached to it. Only about the size of a pea. Magnetic. I figured it might be a hematite cube that crystallized out from the mudstone. 
 

the landscape blew my mind the way the shale/slate was just scattered about. That coupled with the mountains and layout what a special place.

Limonite perhaps?

[Nikko]

27 minutes ago, Shojo510 said:

I was the lone 5000 swinger mixing and matching coils all over the place but I was really hoping to hit something deeper with that 18 elite…that large test subject sounded so nice and clear. Deep gold ahhhhhh 

Ok now there's a face to the name.  🙂 Man, I was really hoping you'd hit something big too!

"Deep gold ahhhhh" is right!  I told Gerry I was planning on big game hunting out there if the opportunity presented itself, but you may have noticed I pulled the GPZ7000 + 17" Nuggetfinder coil out on Sunday for the first time during the trip, dug one 3'-4' wide, 6"-8" hole hoping that ground noise turned into a target.  I ran the Nox over the "scrape" and piles since I did the work already.  Nothing.   Filled in the hole, put the 7000 back in the truck, and grabbed the Axiom and Equinox 900 pair again. Both with the smallest coils, and brought a smaller pick. 😅 

After hearing Eli say he's never pulled anything over an ounce out of that area in (20 or 25 years?) and Gerry and Lunk saying they are so incredibly rare now that the GPZ7000 and such have gridded it every which way for 11 years, I figured my chances were pretty slim.  I wouldn't mind hunting for bigger deeper targets there.  100% guarantee there are still a handful in that ground.  But I can usually only do one day of detecting deeper targets at a time, with a couple days of physical recovery.  I was already hurting pretty bad at that point from the day prior.

[Shojo510]

I had a ground noise target but was fortunate to have help from Lunk and Eli …4’ wide scrape down 8-10” and it disappeared…so exciting but just a tease!

when in gold bearing ground dig all.