BLACK GOLD MATTERS!


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Finally got a chance to go out and hit the desert for about three and half hours yesterday and finally found gold. I have been on a dry spell for months and been quite frustrated wondering what I am doing wrong. And yesterday I find out what I was actually doing wrong and that was looking where the gold was not. I even went out with Rob last Saturday and the skunk was there. What makes yesterday so cool is that I found only black gold. Now I had written about this manganese coated gold earlier this year when I found few nuggets in an undisturbed area. So this time I headed downstream about five hundred yards and then went up the side of the hill to where this ancient river once ran. It was about 150 feet higher than where the present day dried up creek ran eons ago and it looked like a good place to detect. Then lo and behold the first nugget came and then others soon followed. It made me wonder about what it takes to make the gold turn black and since this place where I found them was so ancient, I came to the conclusion that time matters and that black gold in not something that happens overnight.

So when I had to leave I told myself that BLACK GOLD MATTERS  and so do BLACK GUNS as my shirts says. In fact, in my life as I have traveled the world I have come to the conclusion that ALL LIFE MATTERS, especially the unborn. Now this may be controversial and If this upsets you I say go find the closest college campus where they have a safe space or a cry room and spend some time trying to figure out why you are so sensitive. And when you feel like you are ready to go back and join the human race, go out and find some gold

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Hey Afriscot,

  The Black Gold sure is interesting.  Weird how it's isolated in certain areas, but others areas don't have the Black Gold.  I'm still searching for one that is over one ounce, as I think the biggest we found so far is around 1/4 ounce with lots of little 2-3 Gramers.

Congrats on your recent finds.  Looking forward to our next hunt!

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That stuff sure is cool. Wish I had more of it in my collection.

A small sub-gram black gold nugget from Greaterville was posted on Bill's forum but it's not the bacteria coating like this stuff. Once cleaned up it was as a gold/quartz specimen under the iron manganese coating.

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Hey Dave,

  I don't think it's practical at this location to do this, but funny you mentioned it.  Several years ago a partner and I looked at a very rich placer mine in California that was up for sale.  Since the ground was so rich, but the depth was crazy, they actually tunneled like hardrock under the pay layer and worked it from bedrock up, rather than digging 30-100 feet down through ancient gravel to get to bedrock.  We are talking miles of placer tunnels like this, which was pretty amazing to say.  

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 That mine Rob' was talking about was crazy as we took the little train into the mine the first 1700 feet you could see a little dot of light at entrance  and then it turned a corner and you've never seen a blackness like that. We were 3 to 400 feet below the surface  looking at old placers underground and there were even trees if you can imagine trees in the sidewall and if you take them outside the air hit some and they disintegrate    From there we climbed up to another level that was another placer stream from the ancient days. We were told back in the day they were getting nuggets the size of dinner plates. the volcanic eruptions  over the millions of years would keep adding a layer  of new mountain  then the  rivers would run filled with gold then it would erupt again and one level was an ash bed from the volcanoes nearby. It was quite an experience 

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Hey Wes,

  Yep, that was the mine! :D  My partner and I were fortunate enough to get the grand tour several years back from the owners and geologist.  It was a full day worth, exploring the tunnels and listening to the mine geologist show us places were the nuggets in the picture were found.  

The maps we got to see, dating back to mid 1800's were worth the entire trip.  The mine has been mapped dozens of times.  Seeing some of the gold was also a bonus!!

I have a lot of pictures, but was asked not to share them, so I have to respect the mine owners request.  

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If you are talking about the Ruby Mine, there was a lady that worked at the Grubstake Restaurant in Downieville whose husband had passed away unexpectedly and they were the owners of the mine. This was probably around 2006-2007. She could not run the mine on her own and did not have the funds to hire somebody to manage it either. She was looking for locals to purchase it before she lost it. If I recall, it was comprised of more than just the Ruby. There were several claims and properties that were all really good gold producers.

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