For those of you that haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing
gold fever, let me tell you it is for real. If you get it, it is damn difficult
to get rid of it. When I experienced it, took me three years of gold mining
every weekend to break it.
Gold is found in two places, in a river/stream/creek or in a
hole in the ground.
Placer
gold is found in the river/stream/creek. This is the gold you’re familiar with
and the gold you mostly find in rings, pendants, earrings, etc.
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Placer Gold |
Gold found in “hard rock” mines is usually crystalline and imbedded in quartz.
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Crystalline Gold |
Gold has been around for Eon’s. For you geezers out there,
that’s even longer than you’ve been alive, although you feel you’ve been around
for Eon’s too. Gold is the heaviest metal around and in the case of Placer
Gold, is on the bottom (way below any sand or rocks) in a river/stream/creek.
Gold will sift through sand and rocks all the way to bedrock and that’s where
it will sit until found. That’s the short version.
Mother lode is a principal vein
or zone of veins of gold
or silver
ore. The term probably
came from a literal translation of the Spanish veta madre, a term common
in old Mexican mining. The Motherlode stretches from about Auburn, California
in the north to a place called Mormon Bar in Mariposa County to the south, a
distance of about 182 miles.
Enter winter in the Motherlode. You might look at the
American River, Mokelumne, Cosumnes, or many of the other un-named streams or creeks
in the area. Winter snows accumulate on the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the
depth of 20, 30, maybe 40 feet, anyway a hell of a lot of snow. Then the spring
thaw comes and all that snow turns into a lot of water running down the rivers
and creeks I mentioned above. As all this water gouges out the hillsides, any
gold (usually crystalline) will drop into said rushing water and be beaten into
the nuggets you now know as placer gold.
I’m not talking about the current day and time, but this has
been happening for Eon’s. Here you have all this gold dropping into rivers,
being beaten into nifty nuggets, and sitting there awaiting James Marshall to
discover the first nugget at the saw mill in the little town of Coloma, just outside
of Sacramento. Maybe you’re not aware of the full story, but the short version
is that James Marshall couldn’t keep quiet, went to San Francisco, and told Sam
Brannan who subsequently blabbed to the whole world (to his financial benefit I
might add, but that’s another story) starting the California gold rush.
So you have all these guys panning and sluicing every river/stream/creek
in that 182 miles of Motherlode and pretty much cleaning out the joint. The
next winter, more water, and more panning, more sluicing and so forth and so on.
You get the picture.
Then you have the hard rock miners, the guys that tunnel
into the mountain looking for the vein. In my wanderings I’ve been in several,
but I have to be honest, not very far as I’m a bit claustrophobic. I did manage
to go about 50 feet into the Derby mine, up the hill out of Auburn (all these
places are obviously in California so I’m going to stop adding that). This mine
was dug by the Chinese (another whole story) and was only five feet high and
five feet wide, so you can see how it would affect someone with claustrophobia.
Some of these hard rock mines went miles into the hill or
miles down into the ground. My oldest son worked for a mine called the “Original
16 to 1” in Allegany. This mine descends to a depth of 3000 feet. A miner
by the name of Mark Fussell, 36, was killed Nov. 6,
2000, when his head hit a protruding ore chute, breaking his neck. My
son was sitting in the chair next to him when it happened.
Eon’s ago when the earth was in its upheaval stage, a lot of
the rivers filled with gold, were “tossed” up with the ground and are now known
as “Ancient Riverbeds”. Sometimes these can be accessed from the surface;
sometimes it takes hard rock mining to find them.
Another way of finding gold is open pit mining. There is a
mine (I believe it was called the Goldstrike Mine) out in Nevada that processes
thousands of cubic yards of dirt to retrieve the, almost microscopic, gold in
the ground. Years ago I worked for an oil company and we made deliveries to the
mine. You wouldn’t believe the security around that big hole in the ground.
One last way of retrieving gold and it’s just a side
benefit, is gravel processing. When river gravel is run through the
“separator”, the biggest rocks fall, then the smaller, and smaller until all
that’s left is basically dirt. This dirt is run through a sluice box and any
gold is captured. I won’t name names, but there are a couple of them locally
and rumor has it that there is a bunch of gold in the company vault.
According to Gold Fields Mineral Services, as of 2012, there
has been 5.6 Billion Troy Ounces (174,100 tons) of gold mined in human history.
50% is used for jewelry, 40% for investments, and 10% used in industry. Most
claim that 80% of the world’s gold is still in the ground.
So hopefully you have a little idea what this crazy gold
mining thing is about. Our next stop on the tour is Chili Gulch. See you then.
So do you personally sift streams for gold yourself? Any big finds?
ReplyDeleteI had the "fever" for 3 years and we found around 3 ounces. One nugget being about 1/2 oz. Gold fever is like alcohol or drug addiction. Now I don't go near a gold pan.
DeleteHmmm, I have the same problem with dollar bills. I can't get enough of them...it is a fever!
ReplyDeleteI've done some gold panning in Maine. Found it quite interesting, and profitable.
ReplyDeleteHi Alan. Out here, it's a lot of work for very little payback.
DeleteI think you may want to see a doctor. It sounds like you still have the fever!
ReplyDeleteTrust me Tim, I don't have it, BUT I don't want it to happen again.
DeleteMark
ReplyDeleteOn those slow days fishing, does the gold fever come to mind again???
Never.
DeleteWait a minute... has this blog gone from fishing to mining??? Hmmm... I'm thinking that even No. Cal. has warm enough winters to fish... So, you must have a real passion for finding the "gold"!!!
ReplyDeleteFishing in the winter, yes. Gold mining, never more as the Raven said. This was just a little background for the Historical Markers Tour every one seems to like.
DeleteI am thinking you had better catch a fish and do it quickly before you give any more thought to your past addiction. However, if you take up your addiction and strike it rich, hope you remember some of your favorite blogging friends.
ReplyDeleteOff to New Melones this morning. Gold mining will never make you rich. You probably have a better chance winning the lottery.
DeleteVery interesting, and that placer gold sure is pretty. I can see how one could get the fever--and we fisher folk have addictive personalities to begin with.
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