My long range field trip

[Dedevil]

I've been thinking that there has been enough talk about devices, diodes, things that go bleep and just about everything else on here and it's about time to put theory into action. About 20 years ago my friends and i found some good nuggets litterally sitting on top of some old 20-30ft shafts from the 1800-early 1900 rush in Victoria. Now the gold is from 20- 30 ft depth of an old creek bed and this makes for a good testing ground for any LRL. The nuggets found here are discribed as follows from a 1900 Tasmanian paper.
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A 25 0Z. NUGGET
FOUND AT ABCDEFGH.
Messrs. Philip sand John Robson and Fred. Beach, jun., working at ABCD Gully, a few miles out of ABCDEFGH (Vic.), recently, were the fortunate finders of a nugget which when cleaned weighed 25oz. The party had been working about the gully for some time past witlh but very meagre results, and so poor had their prospects become that at the place that they had on the previous day decided to give up in despair. They had even removed most of their tools away on Friday night, but on Saturday, whilst having a last look round prior to abandoning the claim, one of the party, in. taking out a few buckets of wash, struck the nugget in the side of their drive, about 20ft. from the surface. It was in the same locality about three years ago that Messrs. W. Atkins and James Seymour unearthed a nugget weighing about 130oz., and at different times during many years past other rich finds have occasionally been made by miners working there from time to time.
================================================== ==========

It's an incredibly interesting reading about what these people did just to get here from overseas and the way they mined the area. Some of the reef gold paid 20 oz of gold per tonne. (thats rich ore!) But where i'm going is a seconary ore deposit, it's the old creek bed thats been washed down and been covered over by dirt over millions of years.

So back to rules of detection No. 1- Does it exist? - Yes
No. 2 -Is it safe?
No! There are 30 ft shafts everywhere and some are covered over by grass and twigs, but stuff it rules are made to be broken.
Now the old time miners from the 1800-1900 rush knew a thing or two about this stuff and they knew that where the underground stream is running on top of the hard rock (at 20- 30 ft) is where the gold will be. So how do you Long Range Detect where the contour of the hard rock is at 30 ft delow the surface? Well it's hard rock so the water doesnt sink through it and so it becomes a creek after rain which will still be flowing if there is enough rain. So you water devine it! Simple! This gives a fairly accurate reading of where the creek is. I even use pegs with colored flags to point out where the divining "path of statics least resistance" is.
Now that i picked my spot it is time to detect @ 30 ft/10 mtrs.
More to come.

[nelson]

Hi Dedevil

It is very interesting what you are posting here.

In my case i m planning for February 2013 to test an LRL device on a site were people on the past recover gold nuggets. But now my question is if devices like LRL, Mineoro and others can detect gold nuggets?
In my opinion the answer is yes if you consider that gold buried from long time produce the phenomenum, so why not gold nuggets?

Regards

Nelson

I've been thinking that there has been enough talk about devices, diodes, things that go bleep and just about everything else on here and it's about time to put theory into action. About 20 years ago my friends and i found some good nuggets litterally sitting on top of some old 20-30ft shafts from the 1800-early 1900 rush in Victoria. Now the gold is from 20- 30 ft depth of an old creek bed and this makes for a good testing ground for any LRL. The nuggets found here are discribed as follows from a 1900 Tasmanian paper.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A 25 0Z. NUGGET
FOUND AT ABCDEFGH.
Messrs. Philip sand John Robson and Fred. Beach, jun., working at ABCD Gully, a few miles out of ABCDEFGH (Vic.), recently, were the fortunate finders of a nugget which when cleaned weighed 25oz. The party had been working about the gully for some time past witlh but very meagre results, and so poor had their prospects become that at the place that they had on the previous day decided to give up in despair. They had even removed most of their tools away on Friday night, but on Saturday, whilst having a last look round prior to abandoning the claim, one of the party, in. taking out a few buckets of wash, struck the nugget in the side of their drive, about 20ft. from the surface. It was in the same locality about three years ago that Messrs. W. Atkins and James Seymour unearthed a nugget weighing about 130oz., and at different times during many years past other rich finds have occasionally been made by miners working there from time to time.
================================================== ==========

It's an incredibly interesting reading about what these people did just to get here from overseas and the way they mined the area. Some of the reef gold paid 20 oz of gold per tonne. (thats rich ore!) But where i'm going is a seconary ore deposit, it's the old creek bed thats been washed down and been covered over by dirt over millions of years.

So back to rules of detection No. 1- Does it exist? - Yes
No. 2 -Is it safe?
No! There are 30 ft shafts everywhere and some are covered over by grass and twigs, but stuff it rules are made to be broken.
Now the old time miners from the 1800-1900 rush knew a thing or two about this stuff and they knew that where the underground stream is running on top of the hard rock (at 20- 30 ft) is where the gold will be. So how do you Long Range Detect where the contour of the hard rock is at 30 ft delow the surface? Well it's hard rock so the water doesnt sink through it and so it becomes a creek after rain which will still be flowing if there is enough rain. So you water devine it! Simple! This gives a fairly accurate reading of where the creek is. I even use pegs with colored flags to point out where the divining "path of statics least resistance" is.
Now that i picked my spot it is time to detect @ 30 ft/10 mtrs.
More to come.

[Dedevil]

Why use an LRL?

LRL's were not around in the 1800- 1900 gold rush and they found plenty of gold. So why buy a LRL? Sure there are detectors that will detect at 30ft/10 meters a nugget on the surface. But these detectors will not penatrate the ground and so cannot find a nugget straight below you where the gold is 30feet/10 meters straight below. Also the gold that has been washed along the old creek bed is scattered every where so how would you distinguish between lots of tiny specks and a large nugget? Here's a picture of the detector i use. It will detect to 1 cm max.

[Dedevil]

Down to 25 feet / 7 meters

Well i must say that LRL's are a good idea BUT In practically digging down through 7 meters of dirt and clay to the bedrock is very hard work.
The pictures here show the shaft about 10cm from the bedrock which is where i started getting small gold.

[WM6]

You are on trip again?

[Dedevil]

I think that was an attempt of sarcasim by wm6? No Not trippin I used to process this ore and get an ounce a day with nuggets up to thumb size. With todays gold prices thats around $10,000 a week. These small pieces are everywhere but the hardest thing is getting them seperated from the potters clay in which they lie. For this i used a trommel but i am now moving towards a gravity feed sluice.

[Dedevil]

Some things i found

One shovell from the bedrock and i was called away due to family being ill.
But here's some pics of what i've found so far at 26 feet depth

Detectors dont like muddy water!
A 1850's style cheisel for smashing though the false bedrock at 24 feet.
A clay pipe with stamp GLASCOW on side
Rusty big nails

[Dedevil]

color at 13 feet depth

With bushfire alert at maximun i decided to get out of the bush for a few days.
Here is what i've got so far at 13 feet/ 3meters depth. The old river bed is full of fine gold. I panned these few grams in an afternoon from around 6 large buckets. I also stopped because my back was killing me! Next i will have to make a trommel to wash the soils and speed up the process. Hopefully i will be able to speed it up so that i can process 2 ounces a day.

[WM6]

Hopefully i will be able to speed it up so that i can process 2 ounces a day.

Congratulations. Right approach.

[Dedevil]

Lots of small gold adds up!

Thanks Hopefully it will work out. Funny enough i almost gave up as i panned some of the dirt and got nothing, then moved 30 cm and got gold. It is mainly sitting on the sandstone bedrock of the old creek bed and shows the local indicators of iron oxidisation associated with gold bearing soils of the area. My idea is to dig out the old shafts to 14 - 15 feet then use a drill and large auger bit to drill horizontally to the next shaft thereby taking out the lower layer of the old creek bed while being out of the way in case of collapse.

[Dedevil]

Some safety tips

There's a large amount of gold and money for anyone attempting this but it's all no good if your DEAD! So as i'm doing a safety course at the moment i thought i should share some safety knowledge on shallow lead shaft mining.

So Rules for detection

No. 1 Does it exist = Yes
No. 2 Is it safe = No.

DEATH CAN AND DOES OCCUR! But what a way to go!

I spoke to a local who told me the last death was around 1950 when a bloke was chasing the bigger nuggets deeper and about 1000 meters away. He cut in TOO deep in his drive with no support and the top caved in on him.

So the 1 st safety concern is cave in.

Where i am working is 14 feet / 7 - 8 meters so a bit shallower but still dangerous enough to kill. A cave in will put around 3 - 6 tonnes of dirt on you.

So as a mining professional i just stop and use my control methods.

Can i eliminate the soil above me = No
Can i substitute the soil above me = No
Can i engineer a way around the soils above me = Yes

The use of support "toms" or " squeeking trees" have been around for ages.

A tom is just like a car tyre jack but can only be used on hard rock reef mining. As this is loose old river soils i'll use "squeeking trees" Funny enough i cant find a picture of squeaking tree supports on the internet.

Simply wooden tree trunks get cut and one end sits on the hard bedrock and on top the loose soil is stopped by planks of wood which the trunks gets jammed into. Any movement in the soils above causes the grain of the wood at the top of the stump to rub with the plank. The pressure and movement cause a sound of "eeeeeeekkkkk" if there is any movement between the grains of wood and tells you to GET OUT.

Next hazard is bad air

Can i eliminate = Yes

A branch of a tree with leaves tied onto a rope and pulled in and out of the shaft is enough to elliminate most bad gasses. Well at least where i am working.

Next hazard is going insane while spending all your day underground.
I just elliminated by radio and long antenna to the surface and up a tree.
But to any newcomers be carefull. Explosive Gases can occur underground and mobile phone transmissions are not the way to go. As occured resently in a New Zealad coal mine where all the workers were killed just after a txt transmission one man sent to his wife saying "love you" as he went under ground. Transmission in these enviroments are like the "click" spark lighters on a barbeque.

What else?

Clear safety glasses are a good idea.

That will do for now.

rgds

[WM6]

As this is loose old river soils i'll use "squeeking trees" Funny enough i cant find a picture of squeaking tree supports on the internet.

You mean something like this ? :

[Dedevil]

Yes that is it.

A shaft 60cm x 1 mtr x 3 mtr deep takes around 80 - 90 buckets. To make it easier to get down to where the gold is the shafts are oval shaped. This takes about 75 buckets.
Once at 3 meters the dirt starts going through a trommel to be washed. There are about another 25 buckets before you hit the bedrock, each bucket will have about a match head of gold or maybe more. I will also go slightly into the sides at this depth for another 25 buckets and hopefully get around 1 -2 ounces for my work.
Also a windlass on top to get the buckets out makes it easier on the back.

[Dedevil]

Too much Geotech crap

Let's get back to the basics and just find GOLD! This forum has become too much like another Geotech forum where everyone talks about the best with no results.
So here's my results
1 OUNCE A DAY!

LETS SEE ANYONE ELSE BEAT IT!

Or are you just hugging JP's electronic Teddy Bear?
rgds

[Geo]

Hi.
Did you finish the trommel???
One ounce per day is with the use of trommel???

Regards