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“Come on, just a little farther…the road
can’t get much worse than this,” I said
patting the dashboard. I was alone, but I
spoke the words out loud anyway. Part of me
was trying to convince myself; the other was
trying to convince my old pickup truck. The
suspension creaked, the tires spun and I
knew our journey together on the rough dirt
road had nearly come to an end. Rather than
risk getting hopelessly stuck in the middle
of nowhere I edged off on the flattest piece
of ground I could find and gave the panting
Chevy a rest. I grabbed my new VLF metal
detector a canteen full of water and set off
on foot. The open desert spanned endlessly
in front of me. A confident smile tugged at
the corners of my mouth as I flipped on the
power switch. There were going to be nuggets
hiding behind every bush; all I had to do
was go out there and pick them up. Six hours
later I trudged back to the truck, my
pockets full of trash and my body sagging
with defeat. Besides bullets and nails, the
only thing I had found that day was a
sunburn!
That is the condensed version of my very
first solo metal detecting trip into the
wilds of the Arizona Outback. And this
wasn’t the only trip to end this way; there
were many more that followed. No matter how
far I hiked or how many hours I spent
swinging the coil, the gold always managed
to elude me. I realize now, over twelve
years later, that it wasn’t my lack of
enthusiasm or the quality of my equipment;
it was simply my lack of experience. Back
then I didn’t take enough time to really
examine my surroundings. One piece of ground
looked as good as the next, so I just
started detecting. Today when I visit a new
area I don’t even turn on the detector until
I’ve had a chance to scout around for some
obvious gold indicators. By looking at the
clues left behind by the old-time miners, I
can now quickly gauge whether a particular
area is likely to carry nuggets or not; a
skill I desperately lacked in the early
days. There are many different types of
clues a prospector should be aware of. Some
are geological; others like the ones we’ll
discuss in this article are man-made.
Learning to recognize the significance of
these clues will certainly improve your
chances for success.
Mines & Prospects:
The first clue I would like to discuss is
old mines and prospects. Anyone that has
traveled through mining country has
undoubtedly run across the holes left behind
by the miners of yesteryear. Some of these
holes plunge straight down into the bowels
of the earth; others pepper the sides of
mountains like Swiss cheese. These shafts,
tunnels, pits and shallow exploratory holes
are excellent clues that should never go
unnoticed. They are important because they
let us know that something valuable was
discovered there.
Of course not all mines were dug for gold,
so a prospector will need to spend some time
researching the mine before he/she invests a
lot of time in the area. How discouraging it
would be to put in several days of detecting
near a mine that only produced manganese!
One of the best resources I have found for
doing this sort of work is the Hystware
Mines & Minerals computer software. This
program offers information on over 250,000
mining sites and records throughout the
United States. It sells for around $99 and
is available online, or from most
prospecting shops. It is a powerful tool
that will help you determine the type of
commodity mined in the area you are
searching.
Once a person has established that the mine
in question is actually a gold mine, they
will need to find a place to start. Mine
sites are notoriously trashy areas. Not only
did the old-timers scatter their metallic
rubbish about, but in modern times many
people have used the mine dumps as backstops
for target practicing. Anyone turning on
their detector in the immediate vicinity of
an old mine will likely find nails, wire,
disintegrated cans, and hundreds, if not
thousands of bullets! It is for this reason
that I never detect around the old mines
themselves, but rather hunt the surrounding
hillsides and drainages. A person can try
detecting the piles of waste rock near the
mines for overlooked specimens, but again
these piles are likely to be trashy.
I typically start by trying the washes and
gulches draining away from the mine. Many of
these have been barren of gold, a few have
been jackpots! If the trash is too thick in
the drainages I will start exploring the
nearby hillsides for traces of quartz float
or other prospect holes. As a side note,
some of the smaller, shallow exploratory
holes have paid off better for me than the
big mines. Many pounds of gold-bearing
quartz have been detected around these old
diggings, and even the occasional vein. My
father and I found one such vein (or pocket)
in 1998 while metal detecting in the
Northern Territory of Australia. While
working the hillside above an abandoned mine
we began picking up small bits of rough and
wiry gold. The line of nuggets led us
further up the hill until we finally
discovered a rotten quartz vein poking
through the surface. We dug it out by hand
and were rewarded with handfuls of native
gold specimens. This vein only yielded a few
ounces, some have given up hundreds! Mines
are not a definite guarantee that you will
find gold nearby, but they are a great clue.
Anyone exploring in or around old mines
should do so with extreme caution. The
openings around these long abandoned shafts
may be unstable and one careless step could
leave a visitor suffering from serious
injury, or worse. Aside from the obvious
dangers, old mines make great habitats for
all sorts of critters. Rattlesnakes,
scorpions, bees, and even mountain lions are
just some of the creatures that may find a
new home in them. Old mines are fun to
explore, but when in doubt – stay out!
Hand-Stacking & Drywash Piles:
These two valuable clues are often found
together and are a dead giveaway that placer
gold was being mined. The first we’ll touch
on is hand-stacking. This technique was
often used by placer miners to gain access
to the bedrock in a gold-bearing creek or
gully. In order to reach the pay gravels
resting on the bottom, they had to first
remove the larger overburden consisting of
rocks and boulders. This overburden was then
stacked by hand on the nearby banks where it
would be out of the way. These stacked piles
can be nothing more than a discarded heap of
stones on an outside bend, or carefully
built walls towering as high as ten feet!
Moving piles of heavy boulders by hand is no
easy task, so whenever I encounter
hand-stacking I assume that area must have
been fairly rich. I have never detected a
place that was hand-stacked and walked away
without gold.
Now, once the overburden was stripped off
the placer miners needed to process the
material resting atop the bedrock. If the
dirt was dry enough a device called a
dry-washer would most likely be used.
Drywashers process gravels first through a
screen then over a series of riffles that
trap the gold particles; something which is
accomplished without water. Occasionally
nuggets too large to pass through the screen
were unknowingly cast aside with the waste
rock and buried. These “header piles”, as
they’re called, can contain nuggets weighing
several ounces, and are always worth a quick
scan with the metal detector. Detectorists
will also want to check any exposed bedrock
left behind by the drywashers. If the
original occupant of the hole didn’t
thoroughly sweep the bedrock, there’s a good
chance he could have left a few nuggets
behind. Prospectors should also pay special
attention to any well defined cracks in the
bedrock; I have pulled as many as 12 nuggets
from a single crack! Like hand-stacking,
drywash piles are one of the best clues a
prospector can find. If you find drywash
piles you can be guaranteed placer gold is
nearby; the only question will be if the
particles are large enough to be sensed by a
metal detector.
Raking
is a simple, yet effective method used by
detectorists to clear an area of hot rocks.
Hot rocks are highly mineralized stones
often found on the goldfields which
adversely affect the performance of metal
detectors. Many of these rocks are so
conductive they ring out just like a piece
of metal! These false targets are a
nuisance, but still need to be investigated
which costs the detector operator precious
time. In places such as this, detectorists
are faced with a decision. They can work
around the hot rocks digging only the most
obvious signals and collect as much gold as
possible before abandoning the patch. Or,
clear away the surface hot rocks with a rake
to get at the newly exposed ground beneath.
For many, leaving behind the yellow metal is
not an option, so they pick the latter. The
process of raking leaves behind little
“windrows” or lines, where the rocks were
moved to clear open pathways. This was a
popular practice in the 1980-90’s and is
still carried out by modern VLF users. Any
area that has been raked is definitely worth
checking, especially if you are swinging one
of the high-end pulse induction detectors.
These PI machines not only ignore a majority
of these hot rocks, they also punch deeper
into the soil. This means a careful search
may yield nuggets from the rakings
themselves and from the undisturbed ground
out on the fringes.
The clues outlined above are just a few that
I have learned to watch for while tromping
the backcountry. Although there are
exceptions to every rule and none of them
are an absolute guarantee, they have very
rarely let me down. I like to think of these
clues as puzzle pieces. The more you can
find and assemble the clearer the “big”
picture becomes. By learning to recognize
and interpret the signs left behind by the
old-timers, the modern day prospector can
increase their chances of success and save
precious time by focusing their efforts on
the most likely ground first. There is
plenty of gold still out there for those
with a positive attitude, quality equipment,
and a keen eye. I wish all of you the very
best of luck with your prospecting! For more
information on nugget hunting with a
detector, please visit the author’s website
at:
www.ArizonaOutback.com.
Sources:
Straight, Jim (1989). Successful
Drywashing. Rialto, California,
self-published.
Straight, Jim (1996). Advanced
Prospecting & Detecting for Hardrock Gold.
Rialto, California, self-published.
Author’s own personal field experiences |
