# How do you know you have hit bedrock?



## Smitty (May 23, 2008)

How do you know you have hit bedrock?
How do you know your there?
What indications can you use to tell that you are there?

These questions came up the last time i went panning for gold in a new area. A lot of pink granite, pyrite and black sands in the stream. Well i kept digging and digging but could not hit the stream bed, it was deep. This stream medium moving water and had pooling ponds at the end of the streams followed by more pooled up water. Where's the best place to pan if i cannot get to the stream bed. One of the pools of water was actually 4 foot deep. I'm expecting that it would take me 4 foot to hit the stream bed.


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## Irons (May 23, 2008)

but then, you might hit a big boulder and think you have. 8) 

There is such a thing as false bottom where a bed of heavy clay or other inpenetrable material stops the values from going any deeper. If you hit hard clay, check the area just above it.

Around here, where there is a lot of glacial till, bedrock may be several hundred feet down.


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## Anonymous (May 23, 2008)

I assume you are dredging.If so try to punch through where the material is small with no larger material around you,always minding the location of your tailings.The location where it was the deepest could have been from the last dredger....are there a lot of prospectors where you dredge?If so maybe you should move to a less "worked" place.BTW where are you?
Johnny


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## Irons (May 23, 2008)

mariannalice said:


> I assume you are dredging.If so try to punch through where the material is small with no larger material around you,always minding the location of your tailings.The location where it was the deepest could have been from the last dredger....are there a lot of prospectors where you dredge?If so maybe you should move to a less "worked" place.BTW where are you?
> Johnny



Maine. Using a dredge around here is a waste of time. I do everything by hand. Almost all the dredgeable Gold was taken long ago. The few places left will take all Summer to get to bedrock. The stream bed consists of huge rounded boulders stuck together with sand and clay. You have to move all of it by hand anyway.


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## calgoldrecyclers (Jun 11, 2008)

bedrock will tend to look like rotten quartz, in various shades of the predominent mineral. unfortunately, Irons is correct. bedrock could be many many many feet down. although, the chances of bedrock being more than eight feet down in a river are slim. the river acts as a natural sluice and is constantly removing overburden. depending on the swiftness of the water, you may be able to see spots where bedrock is visible. if so, make note of it and what it looks like. the odds of having different species of bedrock in one general location are very slim. although, you are in texas, yes? so you should be looking for a sandstone type bedrock. the general rule is, if you cant sink your pick axe in after several blows, you are on bedrock.


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## ChucknC (Jun 11, 2008)

The bedrock around here, south central NC, is either sandstone or granite. Like has been said before, you may think your at the bedrock, to find your really on hardpak, or some other false bedrock. One thing you should do is to clean all cracks and crevices completely to be certain you have all the values and that you are indeed on the bedrock.

Heres a recent exaple I had. I was dredging near a boulder that was way too large to move. As I cleaned out around it, I found a crevice that looked small, but worked it anyway. Gold flew up the nozzle like a golden snowstorm. Not only that, but the crack belled out instead of going straight down. It turned out that what I thought was simply a crack was a couple of flat boulders that had been cemented together by sand, gravel and clay. Flase bedrock. I know the real bedrock should be about 3ft under this, but you just never know.

Chuck


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## Irons (Jun 11, 2008)

ChucknC said:


> The bedrock around here, south central NC, is either sandstone or granite. Like has been said before, you may think your at the bedrock, to find your really on hardpak, or some other false bedrock. One thing you should do is to clean all cracks and crevices completely to be certain you have all the values and that you are indeed on the bedrock.
> 
> Heres a recent exaple I had. I was dredging near a boulder that was way too large to move. As I cleaned out around it, I found a crevice that looked small, but worked it anyway. Gold flew up the nozzle like a golden snowstorm. Not only that, but the crack belled out instead of going straight down. It turned out that what I thought was simply a crack was a couple of flat boulders that had been cemented together by sand, gravel and clay. Flase bedrock. I know the real bedrock should be about 3ft under this, but you just never know.
> 
> Chuck



it took days to get that grin off your face.

My rule is to assume someone else has been there unless the strata tell you otherwise. You have to learn to read the strata, if there is any to get an indication if someone has been there first.

I work with a pry bar, shovel, trowel and bucket. If it looks like it's been worked by a dredge, I go elsewhere. A pay streak may be only an inch or so thick. Once someone has stirred it up, it's usually not worth the time to bother.

Once, I spent over 2 days working my way to the top of a promising looking ridge south of Death Valley along the CA/NV line. When I reached the top, I found a metal stake with an old Prince Albert tobacco tin wired upside-down to the stake. Inside was a claim form from 1936.
During the Great Depression, there were tens of thousands of unemployed that poked just about every crevice on the North American Continent. 
I have a feeling that those times are about to visit us again.


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## calgoldrecyclers (Jun 11, 2008)

Irons, 
i get the impression you know what you are talking about because you can relate to your experiences. i would have to agree with you about the hard times upon us. with the price of fuel and the costs of living going up everyday, it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet. i have three claims out here in washington, and lately find myself going out there to work because if i work them long enough, i eventually surpass my work wages. you may very well be on to something here. although, you also have to keep in mind, that the earth and surroundings are constantly changing. erosion takes a new form every year. rivers get wider, find new water courses to follow, etc. sometimes reworking an old dredge area isnt a bad idea. especially since the dredge will usually reject any material over an inch in diameter. this includes large gold nuggets. 
good luck to you in your endeavors at any rate...


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## Irons (Jun 11, 2008)

Every time I go back to my favorite haunts, things have always changed. All it takes is a big thunderstorm and the resulting flood to wipe everything clean.
You're right, it doesn't hurt to work old diggings because there's always something left behind.

The choice is yours, real big, or real small. Most everything else has been taken already.

The land doesn't give up its secrets easily. A book can only tell you so much and every spot is different.

Good luck to you as well.

II feel sorry for those poor folks who depend on a paycheck for survival.


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## ChucknC (Jun 11, 2008)

Irons, what looked so hot going up the nozzle wound up being only about 1g of gold. Still, it paid for my gas there.  
One thing people fail to realize is how the larger nuggets will be trapped in the riffles of a dredge sluicebox. The specific gravity is what makes this possible. Now capturing the fines, that's the kicker. The sluice has to be setup properly, a low enough volume of slurry to water ratio, and not hogging the material. My opinion is that most professionally made dreges are setup for larger gold, allowing fines to escape. Most of the homebuilts I've seen are designed specifically for the fine gold like is here on the east coast.
If the fines will blow thru a dredge, then several problems are apparent. First, there could be too much water flow, or too mauch material in the slurry. A solution to that is a longet sluice box, but even that has some drawbacks. The riffles could also be too tall, forming a stronger vortex that scours out everyhting trapped behind the riffles. 
The scenarios and solutions are too varied to post here.  


The next thing people mess up on is the cleanup. Prospectors are constantly saying classify classify classify. Material needs to be screened down as far as possible to allow gravity to do the hard work of seperation. I have a green bowl that I use for final cleaning, but I will soon build a popanson cleanup sluice to use after I have powdered the concentrates I have. Most people would be surprised how much gold they are throwing away thinking they have it all. Me. I want all I can get!


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## Irons (Jun 11, 2008)

There's still plenty of Gold out there. You might have to work a bit harder and have to be more careful but there are plenty of peckerwoods that leave a nice tailings pile for me to work over without having the hard work of prying the boulders apart.

I prefer virgin territory but I'll take sloppy seconds any day. :twisted:


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## JustinNH (Jun 11, 2008)

I know the place I go has to have been completely panned and dredged over atleast once- yet every pan I still manage to find atleast 1, up to5 or 6 pieces of small gold... Sometimes I prefer to pan v. sluice as I have gotten fast and dont have to worry about some gettign kicked out. Thats until my back starts to hurt haha


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## Irons (Jun 12, 2008)

There's no secret. The more yards of gravel you process, the more Gold you get.

I think the point about turbulence is important, especially when trying to recover fine Gold. The Keene sluices are better suited for the West where the particle sizes are bigger.


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## JustinNH (Jun 12, 2008)

Yeah, most people around here buy the keene sluices and replace the green carpet with a better miners moss to catch the fine gold. I have a 3' keene sluice with 'after market' carpet and it catches the fines pretty well. I know some gets pushed out comparing what I find in a bucket of pans v. a bucket through the sluice, but ti seems to be pretty effective especially when time is considered. Although ive gotten pannign down to 30 seconds to a minute at the most from my original time of 5 or so minutes haha


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## Anonymous (Jun 15, 2008)

Granite bedrock can be a real bugger to identify. Usually (but not always) there will be a caliche type layer on top of the bedrock. A couple years ago I was digging along on the caliche layer and hit a big boulder that the water had eroded the bedrock out from around and under creating a nice little gold trap about 18-20 inches deep. After that I looked for the larger rocks sitting on the bedrock and cleaned out the scoured area underneath. I guess after going down through the rotten granite bedrock a few times you get an eye for it.....Bob


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## Anonymous (Jun 15, 2008)

If you are dealing with fine gold you should run a section of expanded metal in conjunction with your riffles. Not under the riffles but in line with them. Carpet type is also important. Miners moss although expensive traps the gold well and is easy to clean. The best all around riffle is a 1 inch angle iron tilted 15 degrees up current with a 2 inch spacing. Bob


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