Alwaysdirty Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 I left for the outing early Saturday morning leaving behind a very ill 2 year old kid, sleep deprived wife and a wild 5 year old that had been cooped all week for her spring break. I made it near LSD and by the time the afternoon rolled around I had run through 8-10 washes I was feelin a little selfish for leaving the family behind,so I ran back home for the night to help with the kids and decided to take my daughter out detecting on Sunday. Sorry I missed out guys! The first day near LSD was interesting but I got skunked. First I found the big piece that looks like silver? It is very heavy and split real easy when I cracked it in half. Next I found the lapis? or turqouise? pieces, these were the taiings of small hillside diggings, also where I found the trash, nails,old coin, and new machined piece of metal and the white/amber mineral piece. In another wash I found several sloppy or older handstacks, the largest of which is pictured and looked like this on both sides of the wash at this spot far up in the foothills, this wash was definitely worked well in the past and had deeper overburden the whole way up with hardly any shallow bedrock, a Minelab would be great to run in this one. Day two with my daughter to a new spot ran the skunk off, I guess it pays to be a good dad! I hit two small pieces of gold, several BB's and we both specked quite a few pieces. It was a great time! 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 Very Nice dude ! Well Done ! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeJ Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 Yeah.... That's good stuff !! You made a good decision with regards to your family.... WTG and Congrats !! Luke 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homefire Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 Good Stuff. Your Priorities are working for you. HF 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morlock Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 Nice finds. The silver mineral looks like it might be galena. The blue minerals look like chrysocolla. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dbado1 Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 Nice work on both the gold and your family priorities! Dean 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
primalspirit Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Shay, sorry I missed you. Nice rock finds -- I concur with Morlock about chrysocolla and galena. The middle one looks like jasper in the back and agatized something in the front. I'm happy your family got you back. Aren't those two big nuggies in that rock wall? Jean Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alwaysdirty Posted March 21, 2017 Author Share Posted March 21, 2017 Thanks everyone! Morlock and Primal, I appreciate the mineral id, as you can tell I have no idea and that helps me learn. I need a field guide with me. 10 hours ago, primalspirit said: Shay, sorry I missed you. Nice rock finds -- I concur with Morlock about chrysocolla and galena. The middle one looks like jasper in the back and agatized something in the front. I'm happy your family got you back. Aren't those two big nuggies in that rock wall? Jean If you mean the bedrock pic those are little guys I was also holding in my hand. If you mean the big handstack wall, well, I wish!!! I detected all over that pile of rocks and almost flattened them out and really wanted to get underneath them, but I wanted to keep exploring washes too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boulder dash Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Not bad dude!!!! Making it look easy. The outing was a blast and I was looking forward to seeing ya. Gold was found. I know Bill found a small piece, I ended up with 12 pieces and fines, and a guy who boulder dash showed where to work exactly found 3 decent nuggets with a fors gold. Also a test unit drywasher that can't catch fine gold kept some bigger gold. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alwaysdirty Posted March 21, 2017 Author Share Posted March 21, 2017 1 hour ago, boulder dash said: Not bad dude!!!! Making it look easy. The outing was a blast and I was looking forward to seeing ya. Gold was found. I know Bill found a small piece, I ended up with 12 pieces and fines, and a guy who boulder dash showed where to work exactly found 3 decent nuggets with a fors gold. Also a test unit drywasher that can't catch fine gold kept some bigger gold. Aww, man...We could of talked about dinosaurs all night. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomH Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 Yah,missed ya Shay. Hope you can make Novembers. It was a good time. Tom H. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swampstomper Al Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 I find it amazing your 5 y.o. can spec Au the way she does.. She's gonna be one heckuva sharpshooter..! I'll never forget that pix you took of her wearing those knee pads that looked like snake guardz on her, lol..! Swamp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alwaysdirty Posted March 23, 2017 Author Share Posted March 23, 2017 19 hours ago, Swampstomper Al said: I find it amazing your 5 y.o. can spec Au the way she does.. She's gonna be one heckuva sharpshooter..! I'll never forget that pix you took of her wearing those knee pads that looked like snake guardz on her, lol..! Swamp Lol!! I have that picture on my desktop, its one of my favorites. She's a super trooper out hiking, we just go slow and take the open routes around brush, I kick rocks and hit bushes with sticks to check for snakes before she goes anywhere. I found one rattlesnake in a packrat nest, it gave me a slow rattle sensing me kicking rocks. I had a picture of her holding the gold but it would not upload no matter what I tried. She got real good at specking, my last few targets were bb's and there was gold specks settled near the bb's. I'd ask her "Do you see any gold?", she replies "Yeah dad! Look look! Three pieces!" Sure enough three little pieces, it used to be she called every pretty rock gold. Now I have a second set of eyes checking for yellow! 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowPoint Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 Hey Alwaysdirty,... In your bedrock picture I think I see a couple of nice looking nuggets??? They appear to be 1+ gram'rs, or am I just seeing things??? Those aren't the specks in your hand (picture) are they?? Gary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reno Chris Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 Agreed on the Chrysocolla and Galena nodule, but the white and brown piece is chalcedony with they brown if its deep enough could make into fire agate - that's what raw fire agate looks like - you cant always see the iridescent fire, sometimes its covered by the milky white chalcedony. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisski Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Found a vein of the Chryscolla in the Wickenburg area. At first I thought it was Turquoise. Before I found out it was Chryscolla, I'd seen raw turquoise chips for sale at the gold show in Phoenix that looked exactly like the chryscolla. I wonder if the vendor had mislabeled the bag. I guess the Chryscolla can be treated to become artificial turquoise. Supposed to be fairly common in the Wickenburg area along the LSD. I've got about a 10 LBS chunk of the ore that's probably 5% to 10% Chryscolla. I'm talking to some six graders about Arizona's 5 C's, and I'm going to bring the Chyscolla ore to pass around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grumpy dog Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 a long time ago some one told me that you put your tongue on the chrysocolla and it will try to stick to your tounge because it has not enough water in it and then it sticks to your tonque Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reno Chris Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Stick to your tongue or not stick has to do with porosity and both turquoise and chrysocolla come in both solid and porous forms. Porous turquoise or chrysocolla wicks the water away from your tongue and so the stone sticks as it tries to suck more moisture. Not porous versions are solid, so they dont absorb the moisture off your tongue, so no sticking. Rock hounds use this - porous stones take a poor polish, solid stones take a much better polish. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alwaysdirty Posted March 24, 2017 Author Share Posted March 24, 2017 (edited) 16 hours ago, GDM/PV said: Hey Alwaysdirty,... In your bedrock picture I think I see a couple of nice looking nuggets??? They appear to be 1+ gram'rs, or am I just seeing things??? Those aren't the specks in your hand (picture) are they?? Gary Just specks, they are pictured in my hand, I should have put something in there for scale. Here is another bedrock pic from the same day. Thats a dental tool and its perfect for bedrock cracks, the other end is similar and bent at a 45, I love it! 15 hours ago, Reno Chris said: Agreed on the Chrysocolla and Galena nodule, but the white and brown piece is chalcedony with they brown if its deep enough could make into fire agate - that's what raw fire agate looks like - you cant always see the iridescent fire, sometimes its covered by the milky white chalcedony. Thanks Chris! Nice to know all those minerals now. My daughter is taking them to school for show and tell and will label them accordingly! Edited March 24, 2017 by Alwaysdirty 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowPoint Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 On 3/19/2017 at 8:50 PM, Alwaysdirty said: I left for the outing early Saturday morning leaving behind a very ill 2 year old kid, sleep deprived wife and a wild 5 year old that had been cooped all week for her spring break. I made it near LSD and by the time the afternoon rolled around I had run through 8-10 washes I was feelin a little selfish for leaving the family behind,so I ran back home for the night to help with the kids and decided to take my daughter out detecting on Sunday. Sorry I missed out guys! The first day near LSD was interesting but I got skunked. First I found the big piece that looks like silver? It is very heavy and split real easy when I cracked it in half. Next I found the lapis? or turqouise? pieces, these were the taiings of small hillside diggings, also where I found the trash, nails,old coin, and new machined piece of metal and the white/amber mineral piece. In another wash I found several sloppy or older handstacks, the largest of which is pictured and looked like this on both sides of the wash at this spot far up in the foothills, this wash was definitely worked well in the past and had deeper overburden the whole way up with hardly any shallow bedrock, a Minelab would be great to run in this one. Day two with my daughter to a new spot ran the skunk off, I guess it pays to be a good dad! I hit two small pieces of gold, several BB's and we both specked quite a few pieces. It was a great time! Do you know what would work great in your spot??? ...A "Gold-Vac".... I would think that you would get a lot more out of there than you have in the palm of your hand. I definitely have in the past with mine. And I would think that there are most likely some fairly nice "pickers" within those crevices as well. I would move some of those boulders out of there and onto the bank, skim-off the area down to bedrock and then "Suck those cracks dry". You might be surprised at just how much gold there still is there. Gary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alwaysdirty Posted March 25, 2017 Author Share Posted March 25, 2017 Haha! Funny you say that, I am going to buy a leaf blower tomorrow and make a crack vac. I haven't really been drywashing because of lacking a proper blower. I have another spot like this I have been just waiting to drywash but now with a second fines spot I need a flippin vacuum now! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowPoint Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 14 hours ago, Alwaysdirty said: Haha! Funny you say that, I am going to buy a leaf blower tomorrow and make a crack vac. I haven't really been drywashing because of lacking a proper blower. I have another spot like this I have been just waiting to drywash but now with a second fines spot I need a flippin vacuum now! I've got one. I bought it as a complete unit a year-or-so-ago, and it paid for itself in Gold in just a couple of outings. I have had it out 2-3 times since at different spots, and it continues get the small Gold, and surprisingly even pickers that where deep under rocks hidden in pockets. If you are willing to take the time to move the boulders and other overburden to get down to within about 1" of material above the bedrock, and then use a Gold Vac (with a pointed, and angled screw driver) to pull the fines out, it will most likely be worth your time, expense and labor (based on the very good looking bedrock that I can see in you photo). You might want to do it fairly soon if this location is down in the desert, considering just how hot it will be getting fairly soon. Gary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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