surfacing

[tagalt]

i see areas on maps that are marked as surfacing.
obviously they found shallow gold there, but do they strip down to bedrock?
they would have missed some tiny bits but is there any point searching deeper on these areas?
or is my time better spent elsewhere? any advice is appreciated

 

[Hunting the yellow]

i see areas on maps that are marked as surfacing.
obviously they found shallow gold there, but do they strip down to bedrock?
they would have missed some tiny bits but is there any point searching deeper on these areas?
or is my time better spent elsewhere? any advice is appreciated

yeah they would of gone to the bedrock and spoted if they did not find a reef sometimes but i would see if theres any reef at the bed rock if there is have a go at diging it out and see what ya get cos ya never know they may of missed the reef

 

[Aussie Detecting]

I've seen some very nice gold come from surfacing areas over the last couple of months. Well worth detecting as there's most certainly gold left in the surfacing.

 

[the duck]

Depends on who did it the chinese were great at surfacing and didnt miss much, and it depends on what you call surfacing, and how they did it, and the geology of why the gold was there, can be reef shed, river shed or glacial shed to name a few

 

[tagalt]

geez, so much i would never think of,
the one i might try looks to be reef shed,
how do i find out how they did it and who? is this possible?

 

[the duck]

First you need to know where you are what gully reef or working get old maps then say you want to know about some mines in ballarat

While the working of surface deposits continued, the method of working these deposits changed over time as more efficient methods were used both to process larger quantities of material and to capture the finer gold missed by the first wave of diggers. Tub and cradle gave way to the puddling machine and sluice box. The surviving evidence for this type of mining consists of a few clusters of shallow depressions, areas where the surface has been completely stripped of alluvial gravels and the trenches of a few horse puddling machines.

There is no clear distinction between early shallow sinking, and surfacing and sluicing of shallow deposits. The discovery of small patches of shallow wash dirt continued for a considerable time, and from the mid 1850's shallow deposits were reworked especially by the Chinese diggers, and possibly on more than one occasion. Following an initial rush, an area may have been reworked by the Chinese, then by a sluicing party, and finally by a hydraulic dredging operation in the early 1900's. Consequently there is very few areas with any undisturbed evidence of shallow alluvial mining, the few patches of diggers holes that survive occurs mainly on the periphery of dredging or sluicing sites

http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/44651/Ballarat_Suppledraftreport.pdf

 

[Aussie Detecting]

Either way, you'll never know unless you give it a go. Cure your curiosity & hit it.

 

[Aussie Detecting]

I'd also pan off some of the dirt in the area. What the detectors miss might be the fine stuff.

 

[tagalt]

thanks for the great info,
im heading out wednesday with my old man,
will give it a crack. fingers crossed.

Duck, where can i source these old maps?

 

[WalnLiz]

Just hope there weren't too many chinese there....my wife is half chinese and she doesn't miss anything.....if there is thousands of them u got no hope...lol..Cheers Wal.

 

[the duck]

http://dpistore.efirst.com.au/categories.asp?cID=26

 

[tagalt]

sweet thanks,
went out today, all day and nothing. think i need a new spot