greendave41

I believe the first specimen is "Angle Plated" Quartz and indicates there was some interesting hydrothermal activity going on. See this a lot in NC. The etching could be the voids left over from Calcite that was dissolved out. Interesting nonetheless.

http://www.johnbetts-fineminerals.com/jhbnyc/articles/minclean.htm It is my understanding Super Iron Out is now that safest and most universal cleaning agent - followed by Oxalic Acid - but this requires a little more effort/materials. When it comes to doing a quick test on a minerals sensitivity to acid - i suggest finding an obscure spot on a specimen and trying a small drop or dab with a Q-Tip of Vinegar or Lemon Juice. Be very careful with your calcites, fluorites, and other carbonates and evaporates. Most quartz and pegmatite minerals are ok with Super Iron Out. Finally -

The small one could very likely be Topaz. Parts of Colorado are known for it. I found a handful at a fee site 20 some years ago and yours mimic the light blue hue found in many of them. -Dave

Swamp, Yeah, the boards got pretty dismal. Flash tried his best to post gold photos regularly to keep people interested, but it's down to a handful of "regulars". We even went as far creating some Youtube videos to drum up interest. Trust, me Flash is lapping me on pickers/nuggets many times over, but he gets out about 5 or 6 times to my 1. This particular creek is very interesting, enough gradient that there are definitely places that blow out and places that catch. No consistent flood gold other than one spot way upstream in a slow flow area. You'll get a 1gram piece with almost nothing

I've had the pleasure for the last year to work this spot with Flash, I'll answer what I can. Our old spot didn't get blown out but we have obviously found better and we mostly worked out the good stretch that we had access to at the old spot. Flash gets out a lot more than I am able, but we work well together and give each other status updates and lessons learned after each trip whether we're out together or solo. We are enjoying putting the puzzle together as much as finding the gold. We have dug test holes adjacent to the creek, only yielding micro gold. We've read the geology as

i'm thinkin rutile on the mineral. Not sure if a vlf would sound off on it or not. -Dave

I agree. I see alot of Rhyolite points around here. I think it's a blank or pre-form so it doesn't have the fine-tuned edges. -Dave

I think this is the first one we agree to disagree on Adam. It looks like an unfinished blank of what would've been a point. The overall elliptical shape looks right, and i see fluting around the edges. The rock looks an awfully similar to Rhyolite that is very prevalent down here in the NC Slate belt/Uwharrie Mountains. -Dave

without more info, my guess is an iron stained, waterworn quartz geode. Reminds me of geodes found in southern Indiana and Kentucky. -Dave

yeah who knows what all you got there. I would say the pinks, reds, and oranges are all garnets (various types..almandine, pyrope, hessonite, rhodolite) I see some likely rutile in there, the green is likely epidote. might have some zircon in there as well....cool pic! -Dave

I'm going to throw out the idea of it being calcified coral. Tampa Bay area and Withlacoochee River are known for agatized coral. There's also Rucks Pit known for calcite crystals in mollusk shells. -Dave

The majority of these nuggets were gold in quartz specimens. I ran the 11"mono w GPX4500 on the one patch and got no targets where the GB2 later got 13. Many of these were 1" or less, but 2 or 3 were around 3" down. I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but my opinion is that the type of gold (specimen/wire/veiny) was the contributing factor in the GB2 outperforming. -Dave

Appreciate all the comments, it was a blast and wish i could spend another week doing it soon. next goal is to now get that GB2 finally over some east coast gold. As for "the goldfields" you can tell by the nature of the gold, there's still a lot left to be scraped up, so in respect to that aspect, the best I can say is that this is Mojave Desert gold. -Dave

I recently got to spend a week with my dad out in the goldfields. I had been on numerous trips before that had only yielded 2 detected nuggets, so with 6 days to look, my goals were simple. 1. Find atleast 2 nuggets with a detector (size does not matter) 2. I have owned a Goldbug2 for 4 years (primarily used on the east coast, and have yet to get it over a piece of gold). So goal #2 is to find atleast one nugget with the GB2. Well, 20 minutes into day 1 and the GPX-4000 w/ 11" commander mono hits on a small but nice specimen gold piece. Day 2- was spent mostly investigating a recent small patc

I just heard recently someone post about taking the sensitivity back to a 5 or 6 rather than 10 for hitting these fly poop pieces. Can either of you speak to this? Thanks, -Dave