Test Garden Design Questions

[wirelessguy]

I am new to detecting and gold prospecting and have opportunity to prospect in a quartz environment which has historically produced gold.  I am not yet up to the traditional 100 hours time on my metal detector and the prospecting site is a journey away.  I have been practicing in my back yard getting familiar with a Whites MXT Pro.  I also have access to a Gold Bug Pro although I have not yet spent much time on it.

 

I have some test garden Qs.

 

1) Would I be able to simulate the quartz environment I'm prospecting in with a test garden of silica sand?  

The ground reading on my MXT pro varies from -50s to -80s at the prospecting site.   

 

2) As an alternative to siiica sand, what about construction Quartz flagstone?   Would I be able to simulate the quartz environment better than silica sand with this?  My intuition is no, the air voids between pieces would just make unnaturally discontinuous permeability. 

 

3) Is the hassle/benefit of building a silica sand (or quartz flagstone) test garden worthwhile relative to just using my native backyard soil?

I'd like to have a better feel for what size gold target I could find at what depth in the quartz environment.  Not at all sure how well what I do in my backyard correlates to the real environment in this regard.   Let's say the answer to 1 (or 2) is "yes".  Is the build worth the hassle?  ($ not too big an issue for me, yet no one wants to waste time or $)  Should I just get used to what the controls do in the backyard and go prospect and learn more about the environment IN the environment? 

 

   

 

[Steve Herschbach]

"Is the hassle/benefit of building a silica sand (or quartz flagstone) test garden worthwhile relative to just using my native backyard soil?"

Not in my opinion, especially since quartz or silica sand is non-magnetic and not much different than air testing. You want to learn how to run the machine in something more challenging, and your normal backyard soil is probably better than quartz sand.

"Should I just get used to what the controls do in the backyard and go prospect and learn more about the environment IN the environment?"

Basically, yes. A test garden can be informative and fun but nothing beats going detecting. Go find the closest sandy beach or volleyball court or playground equipment surrounded by pea gravel. Someplace people play where digging is easy. Then go aluminum detecting. Aluminum and gold respond the same on your detector. You will find big aluminum easy to detect and you can detect it deeper. So the goal in aluminum detecting it to find the smallest aluminum you can and find it as deep as you can. The better you can get at detecting aluminum, the better you will be at nugget detecting. And along the way you will probably dig a bunch of lose change and maybe some jewelry. It does not matter, it is all about the process.

I do this all the time. I find it relaxing and I make some pretty good finds doing it. Use no discrimination or at most learn to discern ferrous from non-ferrous. When you get a target, experiment! What happens if you swing over it faster? What happens if you go over it slower? What swing speed gives the best signal? How fast does the target disappear if you raise the coil an inch? two inches? What is the penalty for not having the coil close to the ground? Try all the settings on a target in the ground. You can find gold with the MXT coin mode, relic mode, and prospect mode. They all sound and act different but they all work.

Have fun!!

[LipCa]

Where would you have so much quartz that it would cover the ground? Not saying there isn't such a place but what part of the earth?

[wirelessguy]

Steve, thanks for the advice.   Makes sense.   More to advance my knowledge than to influence my backyard, can you comment on Q1 and Q2?

[wirelessguy]

"Where would you have so much quartz that it would cover the ground?"

 

under the ground

[azblackbird]

Should I just get used to what the controls do in the backyard and go prospect and learn more about the environment IN the environment? 

 

You answered your own question. Good job and good luck. 

[LipCa]

Quartz never presents a problem anywhere I've known. 

 

I know it can in the ground(or, on top of the ground).

 

I figured if you thought it was going to be a problem such that you had to build a bed of quartz,  there must be such a place.

 

Most places I've seen, quartz may be strewn around from erosion but never makes up the bulk of the soil.