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Date Posted: 21:55:17 07/14/02 Sun
Author: Seeker (ak)
Subject: It May Not Matter Whee You Start
In reply to: trapper 's message, "Detecting Dredge Tailings" on 12:18:04 07/14/02 Sun

Dredge Tailings aren't really my favorite place to hunt and if you are using a manual GB unit you will soon see what I mean. It seems that every Pos. and Neg. rock in the world lies there at your feet and they are spread across the pile one right after the other and it is a good job to stay on top of the tuning. Some things you really need to know about your particular tailing piles are: # 1 a little about the characteristics of the gold that was mined in the valley. Were large pieces prevalent? how big were the openings in the Trommel screen so you have an idea that it is even worth hunting these piles. My next door neighbor is an old time Alaskan prospector and has some great stories of the early days of dredging around Fairbanks where he grew up. He told me about one of the dredges on Cripple that was usually cleaned up about once a week and then hit a spot on the paystreak where it was cleaned up every shift for a week or so. He said they had a man on the tailing stacker whose job it was to look for large pieces of gold and that it was a boring job and maybe he caught a little snooze time too. The dredges around Fairbanks were state of the art as far as recovery was concerned and some of them had at least 90' of sluice, plus jigs, etc so it was the large occasional piece that escaped. Now the next thing that is of importance to you is what type was the bedrock material? Was it hard slate or a mica schist type easily removed and did the dredge actually dig into the bedrock material or scree over the hard slate leaving untold riches trapped in bedrock crevices. When you look at the cobbles in the tailings and you see blocky squared off material that is the bottom of the valley or bedrock material, and you are looking at matrix that held the paystreak, so you can really slow down here and concentrate on your hunting. Again, you will see decomposed dirt piles spread across the top of the tailings and this was probably a large clay wad or seam that went thru the dredge and you want to hunt this to see if it collected any gold as it went thru the sluice, this will be fine gold so you might want to sample it with a pan. I guess there are other things too that you can look for bedrock areas exposed on either side etc, you will find out about those rusty looking rocks because they will let you know they are there but start at the beginning and hunt the piles and keep track of the areas you have covered, use paint to mark where you have stopped so you know about where you have been. I once found a nice small gold ear ring with a semi precious stone on it around Fairbanks this was in the late 80's go figure! and plenty of lead copper jacketed bullets so you will have fun, it is good excercise so you will have lost nothing and have everything to gain Good Luck.. HH..Geo

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