Gold In the tailings but not the nearby ground.

[Caliche Chris]

I'm just trying to get some info on a situation I'm in. I am running a drywasher in a dry desert creekbed. All up and down the length of this creek are old tailing piles from drywashers. Some of the piles are a foot or two high and others are the size of a van. Most of the piles are in the actual creek bed. They look to be several years old but its hard to tell. Having just bought a new drywasher I started on the tailings while I was getting this model dialed in. It's kind of strange because this model says to never get the riffle box any steeper than ten degrees off of horizontal. That seemed like a really mild angle compared to other models but after trying it how I was shown it seems to work well. So I ran a couple yards of tailings my first day. Every time I dumped my box I saw gold in the riffles, not much but some definite color. I've been up and down the creek hitting different tailing piles, I'm not sure yet if there is more gold in the ones near the bottom or top or vice versa but I'm still testing that theory. The part I'm having trouble with is the fact that while all these tailings seem to hold a good bit of fines that someone's drywasher missed, any spot I've tried digging in the gravel or knocking dirt off the creek walls has yielded next to nothing. I don't understand how every tailing pile I run has nice color but virgin ground right next to it does not. There is a lot of sand in the creekbed. I see tons of black sand deposits in the loose sand of the creekbeds. And lots of visible black sand still in the tailings. There are some spots of exposed bedrock but it seems like in most of the creekbed when you dig beneath the gravel and loose stuff you get to a thick layer of brittle, dry, and tough reddish clay. The clay looks like mud after its sun dried. You know all the deep cracks in it? Anyway, any info would be helpful on why there's gold in the tailings but not the ground. Let me know if pics would help. Thanks.

[lotsa luck]

Sounds like they were very thorough at cleaning the creek the first time they drywashed it so what you are thinking is virgin is only recently deposited just making it look virgin. With the kind of tailing you describe the entire creek may have been cleaned already. Try to find where they left off and go beyond for a few samples.

[frank c]

Also look to the areas N S E West close by and see if any drainages look to have been untouched and test them .

[Caliche Chris]

Ok cool, I will try both of those suggestions. Thanks

[Hoser John]

VIRNIN GRAVELS ARE AKIN TO VIRGIN WOMEN-YA NEVER REALLY KNOW TILL TRIED OUT FOR SURE. Someone may have actually gotten to,albeit with a not so good drywasher,the total alluvial deposit also?? That's why it's called prospecting,jus' a lookn' and a tryn'-John

[Caliche Chris]

I took a good look at the creek I was talking about. It's been a while since someone worked it so nature is starting to blend in some of the obvious signs. I guess it's more of an arroyo or wash because the only there's water in it when it pours rain. All along the length of this wash you can see where they removed all the large rocks by hand and threw them up on the bank. Then I'm guessing they just drywashed the gravel along the whole creek bed down to the clay that's under the gravel. There is a few small washes that connect to this one in the same small valley. I also noticed a few of these small streams have not been stripped and drywashed ( because there are still tons of big rocks in the creek bed and no big piles along the bank). And a couple of these washes have the same occasional swirls of black sand that the big wash had. I'm going to pick up some of those rocks and see if there's any thing in the little washes that dump into it. But not until I go through all the tailings from the large wash because there is some nice fine gold left in them. Either I have a good drywasher or whoever was here before had a crappy one.