Big Specimen Little Gold

[mn90403]

Thursday I went out to a Southern California gold location with a couple of friends.  The intention was to prospect hard all day but things didn't work out quite that way.  We did get a chance to hunt on an old patch that had raked hills and then another area where a quartz stringer had been chipped at many years ago.  My friends attacked the raked hills which they thought had been detected with GB2s.  They had 7000s. (I had my 7000 with me but I wanted to swing something different!)  I started out on some of the same little hills but quickly tired of nothing good and I headed for some areas that had not been raked.  

We spent about an hour at this location and we were about to leave when I got a signal on my 800.  It was a 1.  I did a bit of a foot scrape and pick scrape and it was still there.  This time it was not foil.  I scrapped a bit more and was encouraged by its depth of 4 inches.  I came upon a piece of quartz and got it out of the way and the signal was gone.  I swung and the signal was in the quartz but the rock was dirty.  I put it in my pouch with the other trash.  It weighs about a pound and a half.  We left.

About 2 hours later we stopped at another place to explore and I had time to pour some bottled tea on the quartz.  I looked and tested and my friend had a loop and he said it is definitely gold.  I looked and sure enough it is.  I haven't been able to do a specific gravity test on it yet but I don't think there is much gold.  Upon further testing the 7000 can see it from about 15 inches above on an air test and the 800 can see it about 8 inches.  There are a couple of more dense masses in it somewhere but I'm just glad the 800 could see it.  I was in Gold 1.

Mitchel

[steveg]

Mitchel, that is REALLY cool.  What a beautiful specimen!  And that gold is definitely there, and quite visible -- both left and right of your dime!  Beautiful!

Steve

[Northeast]

Nice Mitchel.  You might have a bit more in there than you think.  Hope so 

[Buzzard]

Nice going Mitchel , I will get my 800 tomorrow....looking forward yo it.

[IdahoPeg]

Wow, cool find with the 800! 

[SittingElf]

Maybe someday I'll have the opportunity to be in Gold Country somewhere. There ain't none in Florida, and Oklahoma is next for two years. Sigh....

[flakmagnet]

Nice going Mitchel, that's encouraging for the Equinox.

[Dig It]

Very Nice Mitchel !!!

[matt]

Very nice find MItchel!

[strick]

This motivates me to head to the hills maybe next weekend! Thanks Mitchell for digging a 1 on the equinox 

strick