tracking "black sands"

[shadowulf]

I'm still looking at a few different detector for both prospecting an general use. Being I prospect in the northern nevada desert, one feature that I would like is being able to track black sands for setting up a drywasher or recirculator.
The gold bug pro has the "magnetite meter" on screen, but I understand both the mxt and the xterra 705 can track black sand aswell.

Does anyone use this feature and is it effective?

 

[Hoser John]

EZ to do with just about any detector,even old school TR as in reverse disc you can set to look for metal or mineral and good to go. Even el cheapo radio shack junk overloads on black sands deposits and that's how you folow by it's inability to gb out the black sands. Same with vlf-set sensitivity to max and gb slightly negative and when it blows it's mind your in it--- John

 

[snakejim]

Check out the manual for the White's GMT. It has that feature.

 

[Reno Chris]

The problem is that no machine really tells you black sand concnetration. The machines you mention tell you increases or decreases in the ground's magnetic response. This may or may not have anything to do with magnetite concentrations. All kinds of extraneous factors such as depth to bedrock, presence of hotrocks and changes in mineralization type can also affect the ground's magnetic response. So because of that you just dont know if the increases in readings on your detector really are indicating black sand or something else. Because of this it is impractical and hard to use. I dont know of any successful prospectors who actually use that technique even though many manufacturers mention it in their manuals.I dont reccomend it.

 

[Hoser John]

I've trained 100s. Outline the area that troubles you most by footdrag or poker chips. Then step into the area and reground balance your machine to perform to the best of it's ability within a confined area. NUTTN' is 100% ever in detecting ,simply just another process to find a highly mineralized area,then detect and when done,rake off a couple a inches and you'll be amazed as junk,trash removed and closer to bedtock or holding clay layer and more gold for you too. Any machines ability to NOT gb is an indicator of extreme mineralization or hot rocks,both of which usually accumulates. Whenever possible I keep a sluice to run these areas in as there is always gold toooo small for any detector and ifn' I can't find nuggets I'll pay by tiny flakes powder also. I'll take my pay anyway,using anytrick I can find. There is NO detector,dredge or piece of recovery equipment that is 100% at recovery or use so just run what ya brung and do the best ya can and forget the rest as 100% does NOT exist in any mining op of any kind--John

 

[shadowulf]

Thanks for the feedback. I know "streaking" (looking for black sand streaks when panning for gold) can often be a lesson of frustration. But maybe a indication of more mineralization might have been helpful.

I know about sluices and trommels not being 100% effective on recovery. But I figured a drywasher/detector combo might get me a few more grains per desert outing.

 

[steve herschbach]

I have a White's GMT and a Fisher Gold Bug Pro, which have two of the best implementations of this feature. I can't say I have seriously tried it out much myself though, so I am going to put that on the "to do" list.