rock hounding and old friends

[buckshotbob]

With 7 months to go to retirement and finally enough time to chase rocks again.  I haven,t been on here in a while but I miss a few of you guys.  Spent a little bit of time tracking down a elusive carbonite deposit last summer.  Huge silver birches being one of my indicators with little pink roses growing nearbye . Strange looking at plants to find a rock but hey whatever it takes.



hi all cliff
 

[mentalcoincoin]

Welcome back !   Long time .

[mcbain]

Hi.Bob.welcome back. Plants can be a great indicator for minerals.I have been studying this.Research shows that the Spaniards relied on plant life to find minerals as far back as a thousand years or more and those guys did find the deposits in the areas they workedGood topic.Luck,Mcbain.

[DharmaSoldat]

Any source material on this? Botany acadmic papers maybe? Sounds like fascinating reading.

[mcbain]

Hey Steven.There was a young gal from Alberta on here a couple years back.She worked down in aussie land for a while.Point is sher learned that plants are great indicators.Ex. cottonwood trees suck up quite a bit of fine gold.In warm temps a adult cotton wood will suck up a 1000 gals. per day.Thats a lot of water that can contain fine gold..I have also been told that Horestail is a good inticator.You can simply google this stuff.Luck,Mcbain.

[sunshine]

Wild leek is a good indicator for apatite crystals.   They like the phosphate. 

[buckshotbob]

Lost a good friend down in zona that showed me how to witch gold on greasewood plants. Thought he was nuts the first time but out of 55 lbs of branches we recovered 53 grams of metals. it blew me away that root structures suck up gold dust that can be recovered.

[sunshine]

Hi.Guys.I have one small patch of Horsetail on my claim,only covers about 10x12 ft.It is growing on the side of a bar about 5ft. above normal water level.What is strange about this is that bar is about 30 acres and there is no horsetail any where else.Acouple years back I did go there and do a couple test pans.The black sand is well over a foot deep there so I did not waste my time.Now on second thought I am thinking I should set up my hibanker there and do some serious digging.
#1 the black sand should have been a kick in the noggin. But to hard to deal with just panning.so I left it alone.Time to get serious and check it out.I can only get to that spot in August when the river is super low.Luck,Mcbain.

Horsetail is not attracted to gold.  (1) It can be an indicator of an old channel, because it likes sandy soil and wet conditions.  (2) It is not averse to arsenic.  Since gold and arsenic are sometimes found together in the source rock, horsetail can be an indicator, because it will grow in arsenic conditions where some other plants cannot.   

As such, I would suggest that it would be the back sands and not the horse tail would be the best indicator for a potential gold placer paystreak in your spot on a known gold creek.  Also, since black sand and gold have different size and densities, it would probably be best to test around the transition (edge) of the black sand and (if found) follow the paystreak from there.

[buckshotbob]

hey metal  email a contact number on my old email. three phones past I had your number. my youngest is moving around the corner from you in august. thinking about maybe a vacay out your way withn the wife.