I recently joined the club (last month) and finally got out to get some sampling done. I'm sure this question has been asked before, but here goes again. When I start the agitation/stratifying process there seems to be a relatively large quantity of very fine (salt size) "gold". It does not completely sink to the bottom and some washes over the side of the pan during clean out. I'm not losing it since I built a panning station from the on-line plans. How can I tell if this is really gold or is it mica or ????? Will a blue bowl help with this?

Hi Mucker,
A Blue Bowl will shoot it up through the cone if it's not Gold.... so yeah, that would sort it out if it's Mica or other. That stuff is very lightweight in comparison.
You can also test it by trying to crush it with a pin, knife, or something similar. If it cracks and flakes it is not Gold.
If it's "salt" sized and not eagerly sticking to the bottom of your pan, it's probably not the good stuff. Do you use a pan with riffles by chance? I like the ones with riffles.... it's really hard for Gold to get past those even with aggressive panning.

Thanks for the input. I use a Garrett bowl with riffles. I'm going to try the BB when I get it and hope for the best. I liked your post on the BB use and will follow your guidelines.

First, welcome!

Second, salt sized gold is condidered by most in Colorado as "big" gold. Very fine would be more like talcum powder and will float on water.
Leonard

Thanks. I'll continue working it.

BigMucker if you have to much material to proccess, just send it over to me and ill do it!:):):) and welcome to the site! i know youll enjoy it here!

Here's a good 15 minute video worth watching.
It's made by Doc from Goldhog and shows an excellent technique for separating very fine Gold from black sands with a pan. Doc's videos are great. This is similar to the "Blueberry Tap" and he also uses a little bit of the "Georgia Swirl" for those that are familiar. These techniques work very well for pan separation of -50 stuff typically found in Colorado. He calls it the "quick cheater method".
Hope you find this helpful.... I did!
Panning Cleanup Techniques

Never too much...but I do appreciate the offer

yup Chris, Doc has some good videos/advice! i dont own any of his matting but it looks good!

All I find is the fine stuff..... some +30, a little more +50, but mostly -50 and below. Getting good at panning it out, though..... in my dreams!

Good video. I never was a big fan of the Blueberry Tap because for the stuff I was panning it wasn't helping any. The Georgia Swirl worked ok, but the Shaker Table Tap I havn't done yet, and I think it'd work fine.

Because of the ultra fine gold I was finding, I made it a point to pan specifically for the black sands. I wouldn't waste time going after "just" the gold, because if I pan specifically for the black sands, I know I'm gonna get the heavier stuff as well. get the blacks and process it further later on. I recall processing black sands off the Colorado River after a college field trip I took, and just using (I forget the chemical name) to remove the oxides (it's not an over the counter chemical, BTW), and the mercury, I found that for the teeny weeny amount of gold found I also had about a gram or so of silver. I think I still have that sample somewhere. Hmmm.

And in all practicality that should have been expected as a water course not far from where I was sampling at also drains an area with Cu & Ag mines.



dude, come on! It's so easy that even a caveman can do it!

HEY!!! I resemble that remark.........