gold panning

>>1076521
>I'm a geologist
sure you are, buddy.
at no point in all your studies did anyone mention specific gravity or gravity separation.

I'm an actual geologist and I know how to pan gold. It's a requirement if you're going to engage in statistical sampling to locate a gold source (outcropping).

I have no stories, the method is simple and easy to learn. I've panned pounds of gold in my life. There are some secrets about where to sample, but simple knowledge of gravity, alluvial sorting, and false and real bedrock is all you need. Stuff any real geologist would know.

I grew up in a former gold mining town and tried it a couple of times, didn't find a heck of a lot bit did end up with lots of tiny rubies, zircons and stuff so they're fairly interesting.
Best bets around streams for alluvial gold is where the water slows down, before it goes into a wider section or pool, in between boulders and inside bends of rivers

>>1076527
>sure you are, buddy.
I indeed am, and of course I know
>specific gravity or gravity separation.
That's the whole thing why gold panning works (and will most likely result in black sands for me…). But I mostly went for hydrogeology, so gold is not something I am too familiar with, so I'm trying to catch up a bit on a hobbyist level.

> locate a gold source (outcropping).
I know the outcrops from the literature about the area and I know which creeks could contain some, but I'm not going to start to dig a handmade mine into a hillside that has been deemed uneconomical.

Im not a geologist but isnt it as simple as spotting where the heavy gold particles could exit the "stream" such as bents, waterfalls etc?

And

>>1076532
If you stopped pretending to be a geologist I'd give you some pointers.

Until then all I have to say is this is stuff you would've learned if you were actually a geologist.

>>1076538
> this is stuff you would've learned if you were actually a geologist.
Yeah, I learned it all, 10 years ago in mineral deposits 101 and then I went into a different field. Plus, my university never focused on ressource geology, so I'm just looking for some reading or viewing material to refresh my memory.
Do you even know how big of a discipline geology is? I'd suggest you visit the AGU meeting (or EGU, if you are an Euro too) to educate yourself.

If you're a geologist im a pick up artist

>>1076543
Fine, if it helps you, proceed by thinking that I am not a geologist, since I mostly sit in an office and write code about groundwater flow and I'll regard you as a neckbeard virgin autist.
Good that we cleared that up.

>>1076541
>auto mechanics is a YUGE discipline
>I'm a Chevy mechanic so I never learned how a spark plug works
>If you don't believe me got to ASE and they'll tell you Chevy mechanics don't learn about spark plugs

you're an idiot.

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>wants a gold panning general
>starts a geo-sciences shitfest
good job OP

>>1076546
But op anon ist right (at least with the discipline).
I'm an engineer and we have some lectures with our civil engineering brethren and some of the geologist on advanced materials (hi tech ceramics and such) and they are just an extremely big discipline.

More like:
>mechanics is a huge discipline
>im an auto mechanic and I don't know the details of an electric train engine

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>>1076548
>good job OP
Thanks. It really is a magical place.

>>1076549
>I'm an engineer and... they are just an extremely big discipline
I'm a geologist and I can tell you they didn't make it to the 200 level without learning how gold panning, alluvial fans, and fluvial sorting works.

OP claims he forgot all that stuff.
which means he's either lying or stupid. Take your pick. Personally I sat through my intro geo classes 30 years ago and I still remember what I learned.

>>1076544
where do you work? what program are you coding with? (aspiring hydrologist asking)

>>1076561
>where do you work?
Used to be in consulting for a while, but went back to uni for a PhD a year ago.
>what program are you coding with? (aspiring hydrologist asking)
Probably depends on where you are.
Industry does not care about coding, if you are lucky, you get to use VBA in Excel. And modeling is mostly done with expensive, commercial packages with expensive support (e.g. Feflow or stuff like gocad for some applications).
Research can be different. Of course a lot of folks (mis)use excel for pretty advanced stuff, and commercial stuff like Matlab is widely used and cheap for research, but more and more folks are using FOSS things. Python is pretty common and getting bigger.
And there is still a lot of legacy stuff in Fortran floating around, but I rarely have to dive into the code for that stuff, i.e. MODFLOW.

I pan a lot.
Im setting up a highbanker soon since it will be more efficient.
>>1076527
>I've panned pounds of gold
Come on now

>>1076638
>Come on now
I've been panning gold about three times longer than the average 4chan user has been alive.

I was panning gold when phones had cords and the internet hadn't been invented. I was panning gold back when Bill Gates was poor.

>>1076704
WTF are you doing on this site? And I thought I was on old fart with my 30 years.

>>1076704
So you're a millionaire?

>>1076821
How many ounces are in a pound? How much was an ounce of gold worth in the 80's? the 90's? the 00's?

and how pure is native gold anyways?

I've made more money flipping burgers in one year than I have panning gold in my lifetime.

any advise for a completely novice? I have very little Geological background, but and interested in learning (and maybe finding a hobby that can at least pay for itself).

I'm in Western Wisconsin if that helps with what you would advise.

Prospector here, I'm also an auto mechanic that knows how electric train motors work. I've panned/sluiced all over the American west but mostly Mother/Comstock lodes in Northern California. My advice is join GPAA and check out some of their claims.

>>1077712
>My advice is join GPAA and check out some of their claims.
this is solid advice. You can learn a lot from them and they have a lot of the best claims.

Another noob here.
I guess I got the basic idea of how gold deposits but I haven't yet found any. How much of this is likely to be due to bad luck, lack of panning skills an due to testing the wrong locations?
How long does it normally take for someone to become "good" at this?
Also, the last days we had massive thunderstorms and thus floods in our small mountain creeks. IS this a good or bad situation?
I'd assume it could be good for large features (bedrock traps and behind imovable boulders) but bad for smaller features like behind small boulders. Correct or stupid?

>>1077913
You're looking in the wrong area.
Water running is good
Luck has nothing to do with gold

In my area i can walk outside, pick up any handful of dirt, and find at least a spec.

>>1077995
>Luck has nothing to do with gold
But it is really rare and I'm in an area that is known for its gold, but it was only commercially mined in historic time, so I'm expecting it to be really hard to find any. So I would assume that there could be some element of luck, but I don't doubt that it is mostly lack of skill.
I think I'm at least getting the hang of panning. Used to "shake" way to vigorously.

>>1078034
>it was only commercially mined in historic time, so I'm expecting it to be really hard to find any.
prehistoric gold mining isn't really a thing, so all gold was mined in historic times.

That doesn't mean they got it all. The richest gold areas I know of have all been mined completely before.

Hard to say without knowing where you're at though.

>>1078135
Yeah, " historic" is a bit of a misnomer. Meant it as in
"Done in the Roman an medieval times, where human labor was really cheap "
Nowadays, it won't pay, but I figured it could be a fun pastimes.
It's the tauern area of austria.

I have garret's gravity trap but so far around my area I've only found silver mines close to rivers (went through historic maps I could find as well), can silver be panned in the same manner as gold?
And is it even worth it or should I just get a detector as a more exciting hobby?

>>1076856
1990.
1lb = $6031.2 = today is worth $11,588.33.

Invested you could of been a millionaire. But you gen xs are too retarded.

I just want gold panning tips and maps or novice advice for hobby panning i don't care about your credentials

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>>1078167 here.
Weather is crappy round this parts, so I combined two autistic solo pastimes.
Took the old narrow gauge railroad for some >>>/n/ cred and went to a new valley that also has been panned in sad historic times according to some books or has only been said to be gold bearing to get higher prices when to copper mine was to be sold by some local lord. So I figured it was worth a try.
Didn't find stuff (I guess. Loads of glittery stuff, but there is lots of mica and pyrite in the area) but I was totally alone due to the weather. Almost meditation like. Gotta do this more often.

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>>1079654
But I wouldn't mind finding some during this meditation.
The whole area has loads of garnet. and those are really dense too. If I get a pan full of garnet, I'd assume I was digging at the right spot, where heavies collect?
But what spots do I best test in a river like pic related? That thing gets reworked every snow melt and every large thunderstorm.
Tried inside bends where ther is a cutinto vegetation and behind large, imovable boulders.

>>1079616
I am a millionaire, I just didn't make it panning gold.

You're literally the first person I've met after over 10 years on 4chan that knows there's a generation between Boomers and Millennials.

>>1079616
also there's only 12 ounces in a troy pound. Or if you think I'm talking about avoirdupois you need to convert troy ounces.

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>>1076521
I've done some panning, just remember to classify everything. A piece of granite 5 times bigger than a piece of gold will push the gold aside, maybe knock it out of your pan, but if everything's the same size the gold pushes its way right to the bottom while you're shaking it.

You can make your own cheap classifiers out of metal screen and 5-gallon buckets that you've cut the bottom half off of. If they're all the same size they'll stack together neatly for storage and transport. I used a circle cut out of an old plastic milk crate for the first step, ~1" holes and tough enough to dump rocks on, then 1/2", 1/4", 1/8". I have a frisbee I cut the middle out of and glued in stainless window screen for sifting black sand, which is cool to use in projects like a zen garden or something.

Buckets are around $5 apiece at hardware stores, and you'll need at least two whole ones. Screen really depends, but make sure you get tough metal. Just carefully bend it into shape and rivet/ziptie it through holes drilled in the bucket, like yogi.

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>>1079657
The biggest deposits will have been laid down during the largest recent snowmelt, and will take some serious equipment to reach. In that pic there's not quite enough water to run a dredge bigger than a backpack one, but if there was more water I'd do sample holes across the span between the purple lines, until I found the line the gold travels on. It's usually just the shortest route to the next corner. If you're just panning, I'd start digging in the orange circles until you can get a few shovels of dirt from between the rocks. I haven't found very much gold though. I might be bad at this.

Also, if you start finding rusty metal things and fishing sinkers, birdshot, those indicate you're in the right spot. Gemstones aren't usually much heavier than the rest of the gravel.

>>1080012
>Gemstones aren't usually much heavier than the rest of the gravel.
garnet is about as heavy as black sand, so if he's finding garnet but no gold that just means there's no gold to find there.

>>1080029
Most rocks have a specific gravity of 2.5 to 3. Garnet is 3.5, hematite black sand is 5.2 to 5.5. Gold is 19.something, while lead is 13 I believe and steel is 8 or 9. I've found one small garnet, and it was only because I dried out a bucket of gravel and one rock didn't lighten up when dry. Maybe it's my panning technique.

>>1080030
>Maybe it's my panning technique.
probably just not panning in areas with garnets.

I get lots of them.

>>1079666
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, kiddo.

>>1080739
Some amusing arithmetic for you from a millionaire:

The US has 15.7 million millionaires.
It also has about 7000 Navy Seals, former and current.

Meaning you're approximately 2,243 TIMES MORE LIKELY to meet a millionaire than a Navy Seal. You will meet on average Twothousandtwohundredandfortythree millionaires for every single Navy Seal you meet.

This also means more than 1 in every 10 US adults is a millionaire. And while 4chan is by no means a normal cross section of US adults, if it were you'd expect at least one poster in every thread to be a millionaire, including in this one. A full 15 out of every 100 4chan users would be a millionaire.

so don't be all flabbergasted when you meet a millionaire. The fact is you meet us every day and don't know it.

>>1080774
the other obvious takeaway from these amusing facts is that A MILLION DOLLARS is not an impressive thing anymore. Over 15% of US adults have it.

the only reason kids here think it's a big deal is because 4chan is populated by millennials who are much, much poorer than average for US adults.

>>1076552
its time to stop posting

>>1080774
you aren't a millionaire your math is fucked
15.7 million millionaires
300 million people in the U.S
15.7/300=.05
that is 5%
1/20 not 1/10

age demographics as well, I doubt there are very many millionaires under 30

>>1080837
>This also means more than 1 in every 10 US adults is a millionaire.
>US adults

you'll never be a millionaire if you read this poorly.

>>1076550
No, that would be /k

Are there any differences between the different gold pans?
Everything seems to have some special features and notches, but most youtube vids, folks just use the smooth side. Can I just get whatever is cheapest on amazon and go out and get rich?