REPORTS OF COARSE GOLD AND SILVER
Some "treasures" I found on my 2017 trip, visiting some mine dumps in NM, AZ, and NV.
I had the best luck in Nevada, a handfull of ore pieces, that had kind of small granular pieces of gold. And in NM, I found a piece of ore shown below, with leaf gold sticking out. My trip just about broke even, by staying in campgrounds and being cheap.
I tested about a dozen mine dumps, in those states, and found the piece below, in NM, on the first day, then nothing else. Testing a few mines in AZ, I didn't find anything. Off to NV, heard some interesting gossip in Tonopah, which I believed, because of my research. And I ended up finding multiple pieces of quartz ore, with specks of gold in, on a 20 by 10 foot area, on one mine dump. The dumps wasn't good all over, just that one area. I want to go back and shovel through that dump later. As you can imagine, I didn't leave too much behind, for you people to get.
About this photo, it's of stuff I dug up that are mostly man made. Obviously some are identifiable. And in the upper right, four hot rocks, probably without gold, just a guess. And in the upper left, there are man made items, that have copper in them, which oxidizes to a greenish color. The rest are iron or steel, which weathers into yellow, tan, reddish, and deeper into the crust, black. I only see one piece of blasting cap, by the two spent bullets, it can occur very often, and has a greenish tint. I always wear an apron that has pockets, to remove the trash and hot rocks. There's nothing worse than digging up the same square nail twice.
Ore with leaf gold sticking out. Kind of out of focus. Since gold is a metal and mealable, it tends to stick out of ore. From Pinos Altos NM.
A photo approaching the Clilfford Nye mine, in Nevada. I struck out there.
Never throw away ore that "beeps", if you can help it. Common minerals, that are in ore are conductive, and will make you metal detector beep. Such as Galena, Calcopyrite, and I'm guessing, bismuth sulfide, a black powdery mineral. Iron oxide coating will also beep, but will go away, when you clean ore with hydrochloric acid. Such as I did with these pieces of ore. And if you're wondering, gold is maleable, and be carved ore shaved, and will stay in one piece when hit by a hammer. Oxides and sulfides are brittle and will powder when hit with a hammer. Hitting your gold with a hammer kind of destroys the specimen value, so I suggest carving suspected minerals with a knife.
I guess the best thing to do with ore that beeps, is clean with HCL, then take them to the car was and pressure wash them.
Another pointer, I can work in areas that have large amounts of magnetite, the magnetic iron oxide, by listening to my detector, it kind of has a delayed beep, while sweeping the target. Oh, I like those old White gold detectors.
A view of Round Mountain Nevada of today, from a ways away. A big gold mine is actively mining that mountain, and you might have to negotiate to get in there and metal detect. Here's a site selling gold from this area.