Gold in quartz

metalmeister

Out on a local trip to the mountians in an old mining district here in Southern California was picking through some old
mine tailings of quartz and ore out comes this! Its pretty small, but my first Gold in Quartz. Looked awhile longer but nothing.
Filled a bag of ore that was making my Whites Goldmaster sing. Maybe mail assay someday. Fun day hiking and hunting

CROCKofCOINS

Nice find!
I need to get back out to The Randsburg area. I may just wait till Fall time.

Jerry

davbec

very cool!

thatoneguy

adamlaneus

Fantastic! I've never seen anything in a tailings pile other than low grade rocks. What you have there is mighty interesting.

metalmeister

Thanks,
I talked with some locals up in the high desert near the mountians
years ago and talked about visable to the eye fine gold in rock ore
a few miles from where I found this quartz gold.
I have panned the winter streams in the area and found some fine
gold. Need to helicopter a dredge in

ricko

Great find... I have seen quartz with gold in it 'sized down' by jewelers and put on a necklace.... has even more value that way. Though if it were my find, it would be a keeper. Cheers, RickO

metalmeister

Heading back up the the mountians.
wish me luck

CROCKofCOINS

93°F in Mojave, CA...Don't over do it.

Jerry

metalmeister

No kidding! But I'll be up at around 7000 ft. elev. a lot cooler in the mid. 80's
50 deg. at night kinda chilly!

pcgs69

Good luck on your venture. Can't wait to see what you bring down next!

ricko

Go for it... good luck.... hope you find gold. Cheers, RickO

metalmeister

Ended up mostly drinking beers in the shade. Doing more talking
about treasure than actually looking. Still collecting and logging
"Hot rock" ore samples though to mail assay someday.
No naked eye Gold

ricko

Well, do not get discouraged.... there is plenty of gold out there... I read that only about 15% of the gold in CA has been recovered. May or may not be true, but certainly there is still a lot to be found. Cheers, RickO

marym

"Well, do not get discouraged.... there is plenty of gold out there... I read that only about 15% of the gold in CA has been recovered. May or may not be true, but certainly there is still a lot to be found. Cheers, RickO"

This is a curiosity if I ever heard one! lol How could anyone possibly guess at what we really do not know? "15% of the gold in California has been recovered." How the heck can that possbily be substantiated??

BTW Rick, I know it isn't you that is making that statement. You're too smart for that! -Mary

ricko

Thanks for the compliment Mary.... I will try to find that factoid and investigate how it was determined. I remember reading it when I lived in CA and was doing some gold panning. I am sure it is somewhere on the internet. Cheers, RickO

ricko

Here is an article claiming 80% of California's remains to be found. I will keep looking for more....
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090326-gold-rush.html Then another source says 'of KNOWN reserves' there is about 40% of the gold above ground (jewelry, banks etc) still in the ground. That does not count 'unknown' sources. http://www.galmarley.com/framesets/fs_commodity_essentials_faqs.htm
Cheers, RickO

CROCKofCOINS

No drywashing?

Jerry

metalmeister

I have seen the area a few miles away dry washed in the past. That dust!
We were looking mostly at hard rock and old mine tailings.
I have panned the lower stream beds near the area in the spring time
and found some fine Gold. Still searching for that vein to blast

ps By far the best Gold pickings are in the Mother load country up north.
Dredging. Hard work, yes, very but bigger Gold.

CopperWire

Any new updates? That is such a pretty specimen you found. I would be so proud!

Dredges are supposed to be environmentally unhealthy. Panning is about as low impact as it can get though. One day soon I will try panning.

SanctionII

If 80-85% of California's gold remains to be discovered and acquired, I suspect that our political leaders in Sacramento would make sure that any new gold discovery on public property owned by the state of California or any of its counties or cities would be quickly seized and used to generate money for the cash starved state. I even expect that new gold discovered on private property would be the subject of severe measures by the state to tax the heck out of it. Heck the state would probably file a condemnation case against the private property owner for the purpose of taking the land and its minerals, all for the "greater good".

Then of course the various environmentalist groups and their lobbyists would jump in and decry the spoilation of California's pristine environment, claiming violation of state and federal laws, demanding a shut down of mining operations and the assessement of fines and penalties. A legal fight would ensue, only to be settled with a share of the money generated from mining operations being paid to the environmentalist groups, with the remainder to be taxed in ever increasing amounts.

Thus if you find some gold in "them thar Californy Hills", just keep your trap shut until your grub stake plays out

gecko109

<< <i>Any new updates? That is such a pretty specimen you found. I would be so proud!

Dredges are supposed to be environmentally unhealthy. Panning is about as low impact as it can get though. One day soon I will try panning. >>




Exactly how are dredges bad for the environment? As long as you arent disturbing fish egg beds, dredging is actually HELPFUL to the environment. I pulled out about 6 pounds of lead from a creek in Indiana last year. And the tiny amount of sediment that trails any dredging operation is nothing compared to what gets pulled up in even a moderate rain storm.

metalmeister

Gotta agree with Gecko, we also pulled out alot of mercury for river bottoms here in CA.
Just moving the gravel around a little. We never destroyed a river bank or "Smoked out"
(silted) other dredgers downstream. Regulations (stream size) determine the size of dredge line to be used.
Nothing new to report as the wife has a rather long honeydew list

Zot

Fantastic find! Congrats!

CROCKofCOINS

Aug 6, 2009
SB 670
GOVERNOR SIGNS BILL BANNING IN STREAM DREDGE MINING FOR GOLD
Ban will remain in place until new dredge mining rules protective of fish are developed

WHY---SO FISHERMEN CAN KILL MORE FISH ! ! ! Go figure :-|

Jerry

metalmeister

Afraid this would happen as a lot more folks with Gold fever head down into gold bearing streams.
Too bad. BTW was that a CA SB? I would assume so but could be in a host of other states also.

sinin1

very nice quartz with gold



Washington has times when you can dredge and nozzle size restrictions



some rivers have only 45 day window

goossen

cool!!

DoubleEagle59

sounds very exciting,

back in my early 20's I always wanted to take the summer off and take off to British Columbia and pan for gold, but I never did!

metalmeister

Panning is back breaking work. Too bad about the ban on dredging here in CA.