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Our Gold and Meteorite Collection Methods
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We mostly look for placer gold fines, gold nuggets and Gold Basin chondrite meteorites on club claims and verified unclaimed BLM land in the Gold Basin Placers and Lost Basin/King Tut Placers areas of Northwestern Arizona with occassional trips to the Stanton/Rich Hill & Black Canyon gold placer areas in west-central Arizona.
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We start by doing extensive sampling collecting 5 lb. samples from each potential site.
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The samples are classified and then run through a RCM Enterprises 'Black Sand Concentrator' mini-sluice. Quantities of gold nuggets and gold fines that collect in the mini-sluice ribbed mat are noted in a log and these notes are compared to determine which sites might be the most productive.
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Once we have an area selected that we believe will produce placer gold fines & gold nuggets we then proceed to the digging stage using picks, shovels and a gas-powered vacuum (vac-pac) to thoroughly clean bedrock/false bedrock of its placer gold fines & gold nugget bearing material.
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When the gold bearing material is dry enough we use a pair of Keene 140 Vibrastatic drywashers to produce concentrates at the digging site. Drywashers allow us to process more tons per day but are not as effecient at collecting the really fine gold dust. If you are going to work desert placers and can only get one piece of equipment , a drywasher is the way to go. The concentrated placer gold fines & gold nugget bearing material that is produced from the drywashing process is collected and brought home for further processing.
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When the material is too damp to work with the drywashers it is classified 1/2"- into 5-gallon buckets using a pair of Angus MacKirk Bucket Grizzlies. Then it is further classified to 8- mesh (1/8") using Jobe or Keene Classifying Sieves util we have 20 buckets full (approximately 1/2 ton). By classifying in the field to 1/4"- we get material that is already partially concentrated as most of the gold in these areas is smaller than 1/8".
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All oversize material is scanned with our Fisher Gold Bug II metal detector to make sure we don't miss a big gold nugget or a Gold Basin chondrite meteorite before we leave the dig site. We then load the buckets of placer gold fines & gold nugget bearing material into our truck for the trip back home. |
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Once we return home the drywasher concentrates or placer gold fines & gold nugget bearing material is run through our 8' recirculating power sluice system. Our power sluice was modified from a JOBE 12 Volt Magnum Power Sluice with a JOBE 45 Yellow Jacket Stream Sluice added to the tail end.
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The riffles from the upper sluice section have been removed. The original ribbed carpet has been replaced with 3M Nomad (miners moss) with a full-length v-rib rubber mat underlayment. On top of the miners moss are three sections of different sized expanded metal giving us 5' 6" of Popandson style fine gold recovery with a 2' gold nugget trap (lower riffle section) at the tail end. This setup will catch gold nuggets and fine gold down to 40+ microns reliably.
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The Mayfair 2200 GPH 12 volt pump is provided with consistant power using a Pyramid 110 volt to 12 volt regulated power supply, this eliminates surging and underpowered situations common when using a battery alone.
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A 500 gallon kiddie pool, a livestock tub and a series of interconnected Sterlite storage containers are used to settle and recirculate the sluice water supply. The sluice tailings which have been liberated of their placer gold fines & gold nuggets are collected in 3-gallon buckets with holes drilled in the bottoms. The wet tailings are drained back into the recirculation sytem to reclaim as much water as possible and then dumped into 5-gallon buckets to be returned to the dig site (remember, fill your holes!).
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The placer gold fines & gold nugget bearing concentrates collected from the main sluice are further classified and then either hand-panned (12+ mesh) or run through our Gold Genie 'Miner Model' 18" spiral panning machine run on high speed and at a shallow angle to produce "super-concentrates" of black sands, platinum group metals (PGM's), and fine gold.
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Finally the placer gold fines & PGM bearing "super-concentrates" collected are then run through the Gold Genie 'Miner Model' 18" spiral panning machine on slow speed and at a steep angle to get the gold as clean as possible. The remaining black sands and PGM's are saved for future refining.
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Final placer gold fines & gold nuggets processing
The gold nuggets and +50 mesh fine gold that has been collected is soaked in a mixture of vinegar and salt to remove iron oxide stains and caliche deposits.
-50 mesh gold is very difficult and time consuming to get cleaned thoroughly (not to mention there is no retail market for it) so it is smelted into gold dore bars and buttons or sent to a refiner.
We are currently checking into getting our fine gold refined into certified .999 pure gold bullion bars with serial numbers and custom logo. If and when these certified .999 pure gold bullion bars become available it will be announced on our Home page.
The gold nuggets are weighed and numbered, photographed and placed on the Natural Arizona Placer Gold Nuggets For Sale page where they are offered for sale to the public.
The fine gold is classified for size, given a final inspection to remove any remaining non-gold material and a specific amount (generally 5 grains to 1 troy ounce) is photographed, placed in a plastic vial, sealed, numbered and placed on the Natural Arizona Fine Gold in Vials For Sale page where they are offered for sale to the public.
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Once processed fully, all of the tailings/muck material is returned to its original site to fill the holes. Since the soil is still damp from processing we will usually spread some seeds from nearby plants (when available) to help speed up the reclamation process.
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DesertDrew.com is not affiliated with any of the companies linked in the above text and only provides these reference links as a satisfied customer. The Popandson style fine gold sluice is a concept, not a product, very detailed info on how to design and build your own Popandson style fine gold sluice is available by clicking the link which takes you to the Alaska Gold Forum page on which it is discussed.
(NationalAdventurer.com)
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