AzNuggetBob Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 Thanks GeoJack I plan on looking her up next time I'm up there. she knows the area very well. Also jack sorry about the loss of your chevron. those chevrons are an elusive little critter, I try not to practice catch and release. I use a nugget bottle myself, I like hearing and feeling the rattle in my pocket and it gets me pumped as I'm looking for more. AzNuggetBob 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dakota Slim Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 On 2/18/2017 at 4:38 AM, AzNuggetBob said: Slim Have you seen Dusty lately, I remember she would come out to our digs and we were teaching her how to run her new Minelab, Last I heard she was tearing it up on the nuggets out there. Started her own Minelab/prospecting shop out of the store in Star Point trailer park. AzNuggetBob I met Dusty several (many) years ago and haven't seen her since. I thought she sold it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 (edited) http://starpointtradingpost.com/rv-park.html Edited February 24, 2017 by Morlock 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted February 26, 2017 Author Share Posted February 26, 2017 On 2/20/2017 at 6:00 AM, Morlock said: I rarely hunt with anyone other then occasional gf or my son. I suppose we could have met at some point in time but have talked to hundreds during my travels. Very poor memory. I hunt mosty in Montana and Idaho with occasional forays down south. Morlock I dont do Montana, but I have hunted Idaho a few times. My guess is we met at Burns brothers. here is an old photo of me. AzNuggetBob 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyy Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 AzNB: You should add large bold subscript near the gold that says "ANY QUESTIONS ? ....." 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swampstomper Al Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 3 hours ago, Andyy said: AzNB: You should add large bold subscript near the gold that says "ANY QUESTIONS ? ....." I like it, Andyy.. This may be better though: "(M)ANY QUESTIONS ? ....." Swamp 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted February 27, 2017 Author Share Posted February 27, 2017 Swamp That nugget was the end of a great run. it was 7.3/4 ounces as I recall. I was celebrating with a cold one.I did my research, went out to a new area well known for gold. I eye balled the geology decided on a spot up on a ridge that looked like it could be a good concentration spot and started at the bottom and zig zagged hunting back and forth, left and right as I worked my way up the ridge. bang hit the first nugget, not large,half a gram maybe. as I worked my way up the ridge I started finding more. the nuggets were getting larger as I went up. the next day, same thing. more nuggets. I looked down the ridge at my old holes and I could see that a line was starting to form. that gave me a direction to follow.by day three or four I was up to around two ounces and loving it. and then the nuggets just quit, no more? But following my old rule of thumb. I knew from past experiences if the slope is not to steep the big nuggets hang back closer to the source.following that rule I kept at it.up the ridge I went but after a while no more nuggets? about fifty yards no more nuggets.I'm about to give up on it and I swing over the end of a granite boulder and I get this smooth light signal? I start digging under the end of the boulder. I shove my coil in the hole and the signal gets real strong.bam bam. I take a couple more swipes of my pick and check the hole again, gone. I swing over the pile bam! I grab the first handful of dirt on top of the pile and pass it over the coil and wham. I hand pan it and I feel it settle down into the palm of my hand. I call it my rat turd nugget. 2 ounces.not bad I'm up to four ounces in less than a week.I go home for a few days and I'm thinking could there be more? so I go back work my way up the ridge to where I found the 2 ozer,no more. well I'll hunt up a little higher. in about 50' I get this real light signal under a bush. the signal covered almost two feet wide.I'm thinking ground balance so I move my coil to the right recheck-rebalanced it and back over the target. its still there. swinging left and right, up and down its still there. so I start plowing up the spot with my pick knowing if it was a target it was deep. after digging and checking I get down about two feet deep and while trying to pull all the dirt out of the hole I notice this one obnoxious round red rock that keeps rolling back into the hole? so I reach in with my hand to toss it And at he same time I felt the weight as I was trying to toss it. it fell from my hand back into the hole. I reached back into the hole and grabbed it and knew. It was Gold. it felt like pure gravity in the palm of my hand. here is a better photo of the two larger ones including the one on the bar. Take care out there, AzNuggetBob 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyy Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 The crazy thing is how rounded even the larger gold near the source can be. I would have expected an ancient river channel to have removed it from the source by how rounded those are. Thanks for sharing those pics and your story. It really makes me think. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted February 27, 2017 Author Share Posted February 27, 2017 Andy if you look close at the nuggets you can see there is reasonable wear for nuggets of this size, simply put nuggets this big dont move easily. but we are also talking hillside wear verses creek or river wear. assuming you dont find any ancient placers indicators such as well rounded smooth rocks with the nuggets. Could there be more up higher ? until you find the probable source you never know. AzNuggetBob 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 On 2/25/2017 at 9:25 PM, AzNuggetBob said: Morlock I dont do Montana, but I have hunted Idaho a few times. My guess is we met at Burns brothers. here is an old photo of me. AzNuggetBob No, I'm almost positive we've never met. Sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted March 2, 2017 Author Share Posted March 2, 2017 (edited) After looking at my last post it got me thinking about putting more up on what has worked for me., some people don't think indicators are important. That's fine they have their methods, I have mine. So lets talk about indicators and I'll share some of how I use them to find gold and you can too. There is a lot to learn here so stick with me and I'll try to cover them. Whether your hunting flats, creeks,Dry washes or mountain hillsides. Indicators can and will point you in the right direction once you learn how to understand them. They include simple visual mineral ID commonly associated with gold and can lead to some other valuable minerals as well. also basic geology and basic use and understanding of the topography, geographic shape of the land(boulder runs are one of my favorites) so you concentrate on high probability areas rather than wandering around the mountains waiting for a nugget to pass under your coil. love that statement.JK!. Some say they don't really care if they find gold or not, just have fun getting out, meeting people, ETC. So I guess we wont see many of them here. AzNuggetBob Edited March 2, 2017 by AzNuggetBob notepad errors 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonoran Dave Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 (edited) Learning the geology of the area you hunt is a huge advantage...and one I struggle with. What holds true in one spot, may not in another. Mineral ID in the field is difficult for me too. There are so many forms of each particular mineral that is hard to pin them down sometimes. Hematite from one location can look different than hematite from a spot 10 miles away. Psuedomorphs, mesomorphs, pollywannacrackermorphs....it's all as clear as mud. This thread is great Bob. Keep it up. Edited March 2, 2017 by ArcticDave 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted March 2, 2017 Author Share Posted March 2, 2017 Dave I don't worry about all the technical end of it when it comes nugget hunting. maybe on hard rocking or finding the source. its not all about the geology. one thing I found that if I reverse engineer my gold finds it can leed me to more. every once in a while I would find a nugget or patch that didn't follow the rules. The rules as I understood them. everyone says what about the exception of the rules. You see I don't look at an exception of the rules the same way as most do. to me an exception of the rules is in fact a new form or type of deposit that I didn't previously know about or understand. This is why I remember some of my finds very well, not just because of their size. they taught me a new rule! So it is very important to study your finds, and where you found them, how did they get to where you found them?, why did they stop where you found them?. Do they contain any host rock? quartz, hematite etc,a clue to leed you to their source. Did that nugget jump out of that creek and land on top of that 6' tall bedrock out-crop in the middle of the creek? NO!. It was simply left or abandoned there as the creek changed course and eroded the creek down around it. Its a learning process. I've been at for 35 years and if people go out thinking they already know everything they need to know about prospecting or follow the same paths or methods of prospecting they are probably making a huge mistake. your putting on the blinders before you go out and you are going to be oblivious to new types of gold deposits. I'm not a graduate of Colorado School of Mines. I'm a graduate of in the field observations, the libraries,and now the net. I'm a proud card carrying "surviving" member of the school of hard knocks too. Reminds me of another story. Here is an example from back in my early days. Another adventure. I call this one Dynamite 101 I was sitting at my mine down by Stanton Az. just thinking, I had been hitting the famous Potato Patch on top of Rich Hill with a detector(on club claims)and doing very well. I'm finding nuggets up on the center bedrock islands,some pretty good sized around an ounce. even up in the stacked rocks going down one wash where the old timers had stacked rocks around these huge about(3-15 ton)granite boulders concentrated up there from very old alluvial deposits. so I'm wondering, if I'm finding nuggets around these boulders there has got to be nuggets in those wide cracks in the bedrock running up under those boulders from when the creek bottom was that high. and because of the size of these boulders I was confident the old timers never got to the gold under them and were probably doing so well digging the washes next to them didn't even bother with them. but the problem was how to get under these boulders? So maybe I can blow the boulders up or maybe blow them over and off?. I had about 7 sticks of Dupont rock softener(dynamite) so I rolled them in a cotton shirt to cut down on the static charge put them in my nylon backpack along with my detector and off I went pounding my way up to the top of the mountain on my trusty 175 Yamaha motorcycle. I only had a few blasting caps left and I was short on fuse too,and that always makes things interesting. So I get up there and I'm trying to decide where to put the dynamite in between the boulders, and after scouting and picking out a place to hide. I prime a stick with cap and fuse and put in a hole in between the rocks,light it and run. Well as soon as the dust settled a bit and the sound of fly-rocks landing around me stopped I looked up and headed over to the boulder pile, its still there? OK, no problem just need more rock softener. So I put in two sticks and pretty much the same result just less smaller rocks around the boulders.So I hit it with the detector and no gold just some pieces of blasting caps. Ok here we go, I'm going all in. I prime the last four sticks but this time I dig under the boulder with my nugget pick and put in the dynamite and stack a bunch of rocks behind it. I light it and I run over and dive into my hole and a few seconds later WHAM! I hear the fly-rock and possibly nuggets go flying by like bullets. never thought I may be taken out by a flying nugget. anyway I walk back over to the pile and the largest boulder is still there. It had a few new cracks, was split in the middle and appeared to have moved over a little, couple feet. so I look under it and it is clean underneath!, I mean clean and polished. Absolutely no small rock or soil left, gone. even the wide cracks in the bedrock were clean. So I hunted around the area but nothing,no gold nuggets. Well if your ever up there hunting and you find some sun-baker nuggets laying in some strange places, now you know why. Take care out there. AzNuggetBob 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dakota Slim Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 Good stuff Bob. I know that you and many other posters (past and present) know way more about geology, mining, gold and where to find it than I, but anyone can look at the landscape and imagine where gold might settle if it was present. "Be the nugget" I used to say. It will stay right where it formed unless something moves it. It could move a couple inches or miles, depending on the conditions. I remember Montana (Bob Dansie) saying that "Gold doesn't go far in the desert." There are exceptions to that of course, but some force was necessary to move it. One thing is certain however, and that is, if you don't get out and look for it you will never find it. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonoran Dave Posted March 3, 2017 Share Posted March 3, 2017 Dang Bob...I haven't laughed that hard in a while! They probably will be finding your flying nuggets for years. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Furness Posted March 3, 2017 Share Posted March 3, 2017 Yup! I was laughing pretty hard through that tale! Never been to the very top but maybe someday I'll just start early and walk up to say I had been there! Maybe even look for signs of a dynamite blow! Mike F 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marky Mark Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 (edited) Hello All, New here, new to metal detecting and new to nugget shooting. Thank you all for the great shooting tips. Special thanks to AzNuggetBob for this knowledge and insight on nugget shooting. Great inspiration! I do feel I am one step closer to that first nugget. At this point I am not able to contribute much to this forum but I did read this and found it quite interesting. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/oceans-of-ore-how-an-undersea-caldera-eruption-created-jerome-arizona/ Mark Edited March 7, 2017 by Marky Mark 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted March 7, 2017 Author Share Posted March 7, 2017 (edited) 11 hours ago, Marky Mark said: Hello All, New here, new to metal detecting and new to nugget shooting. Thank you all for the great shooting tips. Special thanks to AzNuggetBob for this knowledge and insight on nugget shooting. Great inspiration! I do feel I am one step closer to that first nugget. At this point I am not able to contribute much to this forum but I did read this and found it quite interesting. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/oceans-of-ore-how-an-undersea-caldera-eruption-created-jerome-arizona/ Mark Welcome Mark As you can see I like posting reliable links here on this thread too. be careful of some of the Youtube Photoshop stuff. Thanks for your contribution and I hope we can help you get that first nugget into your pocket. AzNuggetBob Edited March 7, 2017 by AzNuggetBob 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 11 hours ago, Marky Mark said: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/rosetta-stones/oceans-of-ore-how-an-undersea-caldera-eruption-created-jerome-arizona/ Mark Pretty interesting article. Who'd ever thunk pyrite would catch fire in a mine? Coal.. sure. Pyrite.. never. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted March 7, 2017 Author Share Posted March 7, 2017 23 minutes ago, Morlock said: Pretty interesting article. Who'd ever thunk pyrite would catch fire in a mine? Coal.. sure. Pyrite.. never. Morlock I read about a mine in India that they were mining out pyrite and burning it and using the flotation process to recover gold that was flashed onto the surface of the pyrite. AzNuggetBob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 55 minutes ago, AzNuggetBob said: Morlock I read about a mine in India that they were mining out pyrite and burning it and using the flotation process to recover gold that was flashed onto the surface of the pyrite. AzNuggetBob I grew up in coal country so I'm quite used to hearing about coal mine fires. Pyrite fires.. not so much. I can understand pyrite dust explosions but not actual ore burning, esp in low oxygen environment. Dust from lots of materials can explode under certain circumstances, but very rarely do you see them catch fire. Found an interesting link. http://www.bisbeeminingandminerals.com/mine-fires 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homefire Posted March 8, 2017 Share Posted March 8, 2017 (edited) On 12/12/2014 at 10:58 AM, azblackbird said: What blows me away is if precious metals originated from the bombardment of asteroids and space dust, how come we're still not being bombarded yet today? When did it all stop? Dated response to old post but had to do it. It hasn't stopped. You have star dust on your roof top. Enough Meteors enter the earths atmosphere causing Ionic trails to be used in Communications with a high degree of Certainty. I kid you not ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_burst_communications Star Dust is being collected by the earth by the tons every day. HF Edited March 8, 2017 by homefire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted March 8, 2017 Author Share Posted March 8, 2017 9 hours ago, Morlock said: I grew up in coal country so I'm quite used to hearing about coal mine fires. Pyrite fires.. not so much. I can understand pyrite dust explosions but not actual ore burning, esp in low oxygen environment. Dust from lots of materials can explode under certain circumstances, but very rarely do you see them catch fire. Found an interesting link. http://www.bisbeeminingandminerals.com/mine-fires Great link Morlock, it says a lot. Its all about the sulfides. many ores must be roasted before processing. more later. 1 hour ago, homefire said: Dated response to old post but had to do it. It hasn't stopped. You have star dust on your roof top. Enough Meteors enter the earths atmosphere causing Ionic trails to be used in Communications with a high degree of Certainty. I kid you not ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_burst_communications Star Dust is being collected by the earth by the tons every day. HF I agree HF We are being pummeled by space dust and rock all the time, tons of it. and with it some rare minerals too. Its the rare earths that are disrupting communications. ya have to wonder if some fine gold deposits aren't star dust from large exploding asteroids long ago. scientists keep talking about mining asteroids for rare earths. What all are they after? AzNuggetBob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clay Posted March 8, 2017 Share Posted March 8, 2017 (edited) I used to spend a lot of time riding horses with the chief geologist in Jerome. I learned a lot about the history, geology, mineralization and operations in Jerome during those long rides. When the main shaft there was still under lease to Verde Ex and later UVX there were major efforts to quell portions of the burning tunnels. "Burning" of the ore is probably not the visual you might be enjoying. The tunnels had been sealed with massive doors and all the "burning" taking place was intense de oxidation of the ore bodies. No flames and the only oxygen involved was the bound oxygen in the minerals - there was no free oxygen left in the "air" down there. Here's the interesting part, the minerals found in those burning tunnels and stopes were being pushed by the intense heat and oxygen starvation to extremes of their natural series. This has created some of the rarest minerals on earth. I saw many small but beautiful specimens found in the "fire" areas. The Jerome mines created the "Billion Dollar Copper Camp" but the biggest secret was the fact that more gold and silver values were pulled from the mines than copper. The copper investors were thrilled by the huge copper returns but the owners were made some of the wealthiest men on earth by owning the "byproducts" of that copper operation. I saw pictures of a 40 foot high by 12 foot wide lens stope that contained almost solid gold. According to the records that was neither the only one nor the largest found. That article on Jerome got a lot of the history wrong. Mining has continued on a smaller scale almost continuously since since Phelps Dodge closed their working operations in 1953. As an illustration the Big Hole Mine lease operation continued until 1975. This involved scaling the pit walls with a crew of between 8 - 12 men and transporting the ore by pickup truck to the railhead in Clarkdale. The ore was processed at the Douglas smelter. The Big Hole Mine operation produced 200,000 tons of ore that contained 25 million pounds of copper (12,500 tons), 2,800 ounces of gold, and almost 200,000 ounces of silver. All that with less than a dozen employees working the exposed wall of the "worked out" pit. The Jerome deposits are still a potential target for free gold mining, tungsten mining of the tailings piles and one of the largest zinc deposits on earth. That is without even considering the significant copper, silver, gold sulfite ore bodies still known to be in in place. Freeport Mc Moran, the successor to Phelps Dodge owns the hill there now - including nearly the entire town of Jerome. They will mine Jerome again when the time is right. There has been talk through the years of razing Jerome to establish a bigger mine than in the past. Freeport not only owns Jerome but also most of Clarkdale and the Smelter/Slag dumps along the Verde River. There are long term leases on most of the surface buildings but I'm familiar with those lease contracts and it wouldn't take much money to close them before term. They also own the air rights for the Verde Valley and have water rights senior to the State and SRP. Much like the history of the Rosemont plan south of Tucson the Jerome plan is a long timeline plan that is being played out mostly behind the scenes. Rosemont started acquisition and manuevering for position in 1964 and it is a world class deposit that is yet to be mined. Jerome on the other hand is already into it's second century of planning and will eventually become one of the largest mines on the planet - again. Of course all this planning is taking place by the owners of the mega mining corporation(s). The sad part for the little guy is neither one of these mega deposits has much in the way of surface pay. Without a mega miner hiring labor and staff there will be no payout for local small operations - unless you want to negotiate another Bug Hole Mine with Freeport. Edited March 8, 2017 by clay 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AzNuggetBob Posted March 8, 2017 Author Share Posted March 8, 2017 Wealth of info as always clay. always look forward to your comments. AzNuggetBob 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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