So I don't really have any experience of which to speak. However, I feel like I may be on the verge of hobbyist refining. I live in NH and have a 600' well. About 10 years ago we had a fairly sustained "drought" during a time I was on vacation. By the time I got back home my well was sucking up all the sediment and emptying it into the back of my toilet tanks.
A few years goes by and every so often some more sediment gets sucked up and empties into either a shop sink or all 4 toilet tanks. One thing leads to another and I notice stuff in the sediment that looks a bit like gold/silver dust or something shiny, could have been nothing at all.
I had a family member that is in the metal business test the material and get a composition of it. Without getting percentages it definitively contains gold and silver. Now I have buckets of this stuff dried out and lying around that I just scrapped out just in case. The foundation of the house has a massive amount of granite and I know that veins can grow in that.
NH has had a few minor earthquakes over the last 10 years and the well has been frac'd a couple of times but I'm curious if that was enough to loosen up a little more sediment.
So my question is. I know that it's not worth digging up my well without getting a better knowledge of the composition of sediment but it there a good method of separating the "black sand" from the gold that doesn't require an incredibly expensive centrifuge system or does anyone else have experience in something like this that could tell me outright if any of this seems worth the trouble?
I could also probably upload a picture of the stuff if that might help anyone get a better picture of the sludge I'm dealing with.
Thanks in advance.
A few years goes by and every so often some more sediment gets sucked up and empties into either a shop sink or all 4 toilet tanks. One thing leads to another and I notice stuff in the sediment that looks a bit like gold/silver dust or something shiny, could have been nothing at all.
I had a family member that is in the metal business test the material and get a composition of it. Without getting percentages it definitively contains gold and silver. Now I have buckets of this stuff dried out and lying around that I just scrapped out just in case. The foundation of the house has a massive amount of granite and I know that veins can grow in that.
NH has had a few minor earthquakes over the last 10 years and the well has been frac'd a couple of times but I'm curious if that was enough to loosen up a little more sediment.
So my question is. I know that it's not worth digging up my well without getting a better knowledge of the composition of sediment but it there a good method of separating the "black sand" from the gold that doesn't require an incredibly expensive centrifuge system or does anyone else have experience in something like this that could tell me outright if any of this seems worth the trouble?
I could also probably upload a picture of the stuff if that might help anyone get a better picture of the sludge I'm dealing with.
Thanks in advance.