Gold deposit renewal in heavily worked streams.
Aug 29, 2009 18:58:37 GMT 12
Post by Dredger89 on Aug 29, 2009 18:58:37 GMT 12
Just wondering what opinions you dredgers have on:
A gold streams ability to replenish gold deposits with flooding over time.
In my experience it seems that many locations do not renew as quickly as some miners think. To give you an example, last summer me and a friend did a great deal of sniping. We spent a considerable time in the Heavily worked sections of Big River & Upper Goulbourn River plus Gaffneys crk. We found very little gold for our efforts? The locations we were working in produced substantial amounts of gold to both the early miners and eductor dredge operators more recently ( over 20 years ago ). Despite some dramatic flooding in years since, it seems not much renewal has occured. I know that many variables come in to play when comparing the different streams plus different flows and material etc.
Also worth noting that many eductor dredgers who worked the Big River said the gold they recovered had come from the bank side workings and was up higher in the material? The river was rushed in the 1860s and had alluvial mining on it right up to 1930s after that things died down a little till the dredging boom of the 1980s. So there seems to be an absence of the entire stream bed being turned over by the frequent flooding?
I remember dredging in the Goulbourn River and the majority of the gold came from of the slate bedrock, there was often many heavy metallic items right through the stream bed dating from the gold rush (old tools) to modern times ( bullets & sinkers ), perhaps the river had been subject to more dramatic flooding?
Also another dredge operator i know spent the last season (1990) on the Tanjil river, he said he often found a concentration leaves and other organic plant material on bedrock under deep gravel deposits? Could he have been working previously dredged material, or had the stream been constantly turning all the material each and every year.
Rod
A gold streams ability to replenish gold deposits with flooding over time.
In my experience it seems that many locations do not renew as quickly as some miners think. To give you an example, last summer me and a friend did a great deal of sniping. We spent a considerable time in the Heavily worked sections of Big River & Upper Goulbourn River plus Gaffneys crk. We found very little gold for our efforts? The locations we were working in produced substantial amounts of gold to both the early miners and eductor dredge operators more recently ( over 20 years ago ). Despite some dramatic flooding in years since, it seems not much renewal has occured. I know that many variables come in to play when comparing the different streams plus different flows and material etc.
Also worth noting that many eductor dredgers who worked the Big River said the gold they recovered had come from the bank side workings and was up higher in the material? The river was rushed in the 1860s and had alluvial mining on it right up to 1930s after that things died down a little till the dredging boom of the 1980s. So there seems to be an absence of the entire stream bed being turned over by the frequent flooding?
I remember dredging in the Goulbourn River and the majority of the gold came from of the slate bedrock, there was often many heavy metallic items right through the stream bed dating from the gold rush (old tools) to modern times ( bullets & sinkers ), perhaps the river had been subject to more dramatic flooding?
Also another dredge operator i know spent the last season (1990) on the Tanjil river, he said he often found a concentration leaves and other organic plant material on bedrock under deep gravel deposits? Could he have been working previously dredged material, or had the stream been constantly turning all the material each and every year.
Rod
