Garrett Scorpion Forum

As a rule, gold is also mixed with the heaviest particles in a stream, such as bits of iron, lead and iron oxides (black sand). No detector will pick up flour gold, however, finding the largest concentrations of black sand will lead you to a better chance of flour gold or small nuggets. The Scorpion will pick up small nuggets, with the deeper ones sometimes just being a change in threshold.

But, as in my case with only flour gold, I ground balance my machine, then run it just past the threshold of being stable. So, as I swing the coil in the river, the pockets of black sand do create an audio sound. These are the places I search, and get my shovel working for me.

As you can see below, there is gold in those black sand concentrates.



And with lots of hard work, you end up with about 1 1/2 ounces of that flour gold.

Yeah gathering up flour gold is tough prospecting. It's a cinch you devoted a whole lot of time and energy to accumulate that 1.5 ounces, even harder than panning for flake gold but you got about $1500 or so in gold there for your efforts. Is there anyplace at all in your general area where one can find nuggets?

Bill

How long did it take you to do that John?
Did you pan it or sluice it?


PennyFinder

It took me two seasons (June - October) to get that. I used a homemade rocker and a sluice box and used both. The rocker saved much more black sand then the sluice box. I built a 6 foot by 2 inch minnie slice with 1/8" deep matting, recycling 5 gallons ow water between 2 x 5 gallon pails. I would spoon feed the black sands onto this minnie sluice, which would separate the black sand from the flour gold. The first 12" of the sluice held about 80% of the gold. To prevent the flour gold from floating away on top of the water, I would add a little Sunlight dish detergent to the water, which would act as a water surfactant and keep the flour gold under the water.

It's about a 6-7 hour drive to get to gold producing creeks, along with grizzly bears. Been out a couple of times, but not with a gold detector.

Sure nice to get away and pan though, John WTG, good work! The grizz are within 100 mile radius of Vancouver here, it is always inspiring to see them in the wild.

PennyFinder.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2010 12:26AM by PennyFinder.

No grizz near Edmonton, but a Cougar (the 4 legged kind) was spotted in Edmonton about a month ago in the river valley. Lots of coyotes in and around Edmonton....they probably make a good meal for those cougars.

Thanks for posting about it John. That's one of the Stingers features that interests me sometimes.
Mick Evans.

John, some of my family lives in Edmonton and they say there were moose wandering around the city limits on the North side.
Around Vancouver there is a Black bear problem.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080807/BC_another_bear_shot_080807/20080807?hub=CTVNewsAt11

Back east they have killer coyotes! Look what Wily is up to! http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/02/10/nb-coyote-attack-stcharles.html

I think they should limit the sale of Acme rockets and rollerskates!


PennyFinder





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2010 12:06PM by PennyFinder.

Yes, this is the converse of the age old technique of ground balancing neutral, setting the threshold slightly high, and then listing for the threshold to decrease or go silent when you detect possible black sand. Which technique will work best depends on the makeup of the ground you are in! One aspect of the "sound on blacksand" approach" is if it contains gold, it can sound slightly louder than other less gold bearing black sands. But this has an analogue with the "sound lessens on black sand" approach also... will not lessen as much! After all, ground balance is just a secondary discrimination optimized for ferrous phase shifts!

We have lots of coyotes in the river valley in Edmonton, along with the odd moose, cougar and plenty of deer.

Hi John

I have a river close by that has small flecks of gold in it but finding it is hard as i seem to pan heaps without too many results. The thought of using the scorp to find the black sand deposits has got me curious. Now you talk about ground balancing then run it just past the threshold of being stable. What do you mean by this? Am i expecting the scorp to go quiet on black sand or what?

Glen

P.S.I think we need a scorpion Gold Stinger insert!

I crank up the 10 turn audio until it runs unstable. Then.....I hunt areas, and the areas with the noisiest audio, are the ones with the highest iron oxides, hence where the flour gold should accumulate also.

Now, in my own personal experience, prospecting with the Scorp in the Southwestern and Western U.S., I would hunt as I normaly do searching for gold nuggets. All-metal mode, ground balanced slightly positive, with a barely audible threshold and in manual mode(of course). Whenever, I get a nulling in threshold that is over an area larger than a singal small target, nine times out of ten I'm over an area of black sand concentration(which is always worth panning out for some flour gold). A small target sized area that nulls out is typically either a negative hot rock(cold rock)or some piece of very old iron that has completly rusted out to just iron oxide.
Different areas have different geologies, so what works in my part of the world may not be the same where you're at.
Just my two cents worthHappy Hunting!

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The only thing that I hate more than digging pulltabs is missing a gold ring!

interesting approach there John

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Garrett GTI 2500, Infinium LS, Ace 250, Scorpion Gold Stinger, AT Gold.