Blue Clay

[FlyingEagleLode]

Is the blue clay in placer material or lode form.
If its lode type and part of the North west chain of volcano's its, kalonite clay (decomposed feldspar) probably hydrothermal.
Do a basic fire assay that will let you know.

 

[bluestone]

i would say its load form, i have done a fire assay. what should i look at in the assay.

 

[FlyingEagleLode]

Dig and do some test pits so how big the deposit is and sample each one.
The safest way know days is to trench it or pit avoid tunneling a adit if you can.
You probably have a galena mine lead and silver.
Do a fire assay on the clay with no solids screen it really fine.
If there are no values in the clay it self, you know to just break it down with water and extract the silver.
Beware find out what your mine is running I have seen arsenic crystals people thought where silver.
I have seen the blue clay here in Oregon but I have known people to pull good gold out of it.

 

[ayeyou]

i would say its load form, i have done a fire assay. what should i look at in the assay.

Its hard to say what to look for not knowing what type of assay you had.If you had a simple gold fire assay like below then it is pretty self explanetory. If you had a full spectragraphic assay then it getrs confusing to decipher without looking at it. Try to post it and we will help you interpret it.

 

[bluestone]

this is the clay with no solids, we mixed it with water and let the heavys settel then we had it tested.

 

[bluestone]

here is the quantitative phase analysis on #1

 

[FlyingEagleLode]

The first say 10 feet in should be the oxidation zone.
This zone may hold silver chloride and the silver solid black.
Do some test leaching in small 5 gallon buckets see what work best for your ore.
You will have to roast the ore to drive of sulfides do this in a very well ventilated area.
Do not do this any where near homes or where the smoke can harm some one or yourself.
I have seen the old timbers run the roasting ovens and turn the trees black from arsenic.
But they are a commercial operation not a small scale.

 

[kentucky blue]

hello, my dad and i were drilling in ky when we hit this stickey b lue clay in several diffrent locations . I always wondered if this Blue mud may have somthing in it? I know I need an assay, but is it possible that gold, silver. and possibly jewels can be presrnt here in ky? Some areas the mud was more than 20' thick, what do you think?

 

[butcher]

Kentucky Blue,

Hello, I grew up in Kentucky as a kid, & sure miss home.

I cannot give you an answer, I do not remember anyone mining for gold there, and I do not know of much any mining besides for coal, do remember a couple of oil wells an ole friend of mine helped drill, maybe check the history to see if any gold was found in the area.

I know they did discover gold down in Georgia, after general Jackson ran the Cherokee Indians off their homes and farms into Georgia, after the gold discovery in Georgia the removed the Cherokee again, that is when federal troops marched many thousands of people, men, women, and children to their death on the trail of tears to reservations in Oklahoma.

By the way the Cherokee mixed early with the whites, they also helped the US gain its independence and win the revolutionary war, and many of these people are our ancestors.

There was a portion of the Cherokee that wanted to keep the old way’s they did not mix with whites at that time, when Jackson stated the Indian removals they hid in the mountains later they mixed with whites, this is why most of us from the hills of Kentucky have Cherokee in our blood, many of the older generation denied it, as they were teased and taunted and looked down on if the were half blood.

Welcome to the forum, sorry I cannot answer your question and I wandered off topic, hope you find the gold.

 

[manorman]

I don't believe that is the form of silver that is normally found. Certainly not from Canadian glacial ground blue clays. But cool nun the less.

manorman, how do you know it is silver not pyrite :?. i have panned what i think is silver, other than a assay, which i have done on the clay , how do i know it is silver, not pyrate.

Pyrite wll shatter when struck with a hammer, the silver you can hammer flat.
The silver i have came from placer deposits in my quest for gold, not from blue clay, but i have seen some native silver recovered from a blue clay puddling operation.
If you want to see nice native silver go to Treasurenet and follow a user named Jim Hemmingway in the Gold prospecting and Canada Forum, some real nice finds inculding a nice 101 pound nugget on his FEB 09 post.

 

[goldmember2]

I'm in BC with a blue clay layer that so far we believe is directly on top of bedrock. We're about 25' deep in overburden to the blue clay layer and another 4-5' to bedrock below this. Bedrock is under water at this location. We're hoping to expose the old traditional channel in our explorations. The Chinese before me were ground sluicing this bench when time stopped their progress. I started where they left off, still looking for the original channel of this gold creek. We will know more as we expose a bit more in this Bench deposit with lowest workings still under water. Above the blue clay is another layer of approx. 3' thick more reddish and oxidized. Larger gold in this layer than in the blue. We're working above the blue clay layer which appears to be about 4' thickness where we are now, because recovery is easier. The blue clay needs special attention to recovery especially because much of the gold is ultra-fine and the clay will easily clog up your riffle system if it's not watched and controlled and your fines will simply pass over your packed riffles; once your riffles are clay packed, they need manual cleaning because the hydraulic power needed to loosen the packed clay behind your riffles will also scour any gold out of there. Red clay layer processes easily; the blue clay layer comes apart with a bit of work and at this location is largely angular fractured material, with some evidence of stream or glacial wear/travel typical to this drainage, tightly cemented together with a blue sticky clay. We suspect a trommel will do the trick so we will process this material later. I think the bottom line is that if you're looking for gold and dealing with easy home recovery, then you don't need an assay to know if you're ground is good. Be patient and pan your sample out....pan into another pan or bucket if you're concerned about your panning experience and do it twice or as many times as necessary. If you can't 'SEE' the results, move on. A 1/2 bucket test of my blue clay showed about 30 colors all<100 mesh, but also one 1 cm picker. Assay results can be 'loaded' and may not be representative....a 'catch' sample of concentrate of my blue clay run from a half 5 gallon pail returned 95 ozs / ton Au, but that was in a concentrate form so this is 'indicative' there's gold there and the material appears to concentrate well, but it certainly is not representative of bank run values which are lower. Last year we 'guessed' we produce about 1 oz for every 30 - 35 yards processed. This year so far slightly less recovery per yard, but still 'in the black'. Ran red for years!!!!!

 

[TreasuredReTreasured]

Hay eaglewing35, I have found blue clay like you talked about I have had an assay on it over 4700oz silver per ton 7oz gold, I will post pictures, and thank you guys for the info on boiling and adding the soap

 

[TreasuredReTreasured]

More pics of my blue clay

 

[TreasuredReTreasured]

Blue clay

 

[eaglewings35]

Hey Treasured !!! That looks exactly like what I had. I didnt know enough to work it properly, and I ended up wasting my samples. I told my friend just to keep it, I didnt know how to work it.

I would try again, but I dont know if he is still working on it or not.