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Colorado Prospector - Gem and mineral prospecting and mining forums _ Prospectors and Rockhounding Field Work _ is GOLD RUSH salting there clean up's?

Posted by: AXE Mar 3 2017, 10:53 PM

HOLY SMOKE!!!? Did anyone see the GOLD that the Hoffman crew were pulling out of Fairplay? Seriously massive nuggets the size of nickles and quarters.Colorado has all ways been know for the fine gold .I have seen a few good pickers hear and there like in Clear Creek, but what they had was ridiculous!!

Posted by: Bryan K Mar 25 2017, 10:04 AM

Most of the gold that makes its way into the streams and rivers here has been eroded out of the lode veins. It then has been pulverized in the current, and thats why we are left with the flour gold with a rare picker here and there. If you want bigger gold you have to get into a placer deposit, usually a glacial outcropping and get down into bedrock. When you have heavy machinery it makes life a lot easier. but for us little guys with picks and shovels this is not an easy feat. Sometimes that bedrock is 15-20 feet down. Big gold is extremely difficult to find. I have read stories of people in Colorado sluicing in some smaller mountain streams finding nuggets though. It is possible but I would imagine its like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Most of the stuff we are getting into off this site is flood gold. Still fun, but ya I'm right with you and would love to get into some nuggets. I'm going to really give that a shot this summer and see if I can locate some nice stuff. Not sure if the Hoffmans are salting their cleanups or not. Last I knew they were using a Miller Table to seperate. Good luck this season.

Posted by: GeoMatt Mar 25 2017, 02:51 PM

QUOTE (AXE @ Mar 3 2017, 11:53 PM)

Wait... you think half of that show is real?

Posted by: ASTROBLEME Mar 25 2017, 06:46 PM

Gold placers on Pennsylvania Mountain (where Todd Hoffman tested) does produce large nuggets and I hope he is successful in opening an operation up there in season 8. The largest nugget was recovered in 1938 and was more than 11 ounces. Just back in 1990, Shane Dodge (don't know if he is related to Freddy) collected a 7.8 ounce specimen named the Turtle Nugget that is on display in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Perhaps the glaciation that cut deep across the gold bearing Great London Fault, forming the present day South Mosquito Creek, delivered larger gold masses into the valleys below. This would be a potential source for the large nuggets being deposited when the glaciers formed the terminal moraines that the Hoffman crews were mining near Fairplay.

ASTROBLEME