Devon Gold

Crediton Trough Trip - Part 2 / Site 2

Site 2 is shown on this map, as the North Westerly blue square on the Merryland Stream.

Being slightly further down the watercourse, and on the main stream, the river was wider and deeper at site 2, as this photo shows.

Having strolled along a short section of the stream (which is accessible from adjacent to the bridge on the North West side) I decided to sample a few likely spots. The 1st spot was a shingle bar on the inside of a gentle bend. Although this eventually yielded a single tiny speck of possible Gold I moved on downstream.

Round a few corners, and through some deep pools, I came across what all Gold prospectors love to see, exposed bedrock.

As the photo above shows I went to work sampling in the cracks in the rock and around the edges, but as you can also see the rocks are running the wrong way to act as a classic gold trap. Worse was to follow when the rocks proved to be sat in a light grey clay which was full of sparkly gold Mica, making the task of locating any small gold alomst impossible. I took a good sample of this material to analyse later and gave up on this site.

Further downstream I came across a much more promising site (and sight). Bedrock across the flow!

So, I went to work cleaning out the cracks within these seemingly perfect natural riffles, using a trowel, and hand pump where possible, and guess what ... there was no gold at all!

I moved back to the top of the run, where I had noticed a deeper area at the foot of a fall, and started to clear this area (marked by a gold circle below). By the way, I apologise for the murkiness of the water, but the flow was so sluggish to took ages for the water to clear.

It turned out that there was a rock ledge below the rapid, and I started to find increasing amounts of lead shot and small haematite pebbles in this area, which increased my belief that if there was Gold in this stream, I'd find it here.

And then a pan later, I found 2 pieces of gold; not any size though, and a few very small pieces in the next pan.

In all, I think I got about 6 small pieces out of the hole, and that was enough for me as a sample.

Under magnification, it looks much like the gold from site 1, as you'd probably expect; with the same Geology and so close together.

So, what have I learnt from the trip?

1. There is Gold in these 2 streams.
2. There is probably Gold in all of the local streams.
3. The Gold is small and widely dispersed, other than in perfect traps in the streams.
4. Autumn is not a time to prospect small streams, as everything is clogged and covered with leaves.
5. I don't like midges.
6. The views looking South towards Dartmoor were beautiful:

Note the Red soil in the foreground, a product of the Red Sandstone underlying the area.

Anyway, it was great to be back out there.

'Til next time.

Kieron.

Crediton Trough Trip - Part 1

So, it’s been a while since I last posted anything on here, and there is a reason; I’ve not been out looking for Gold since Easter, depressing I know.

Anyway, as I’m currently ‘between jobs’ at the moment, and it was half term, we decided to visit the West Country for a few days, and I was given a green light to spend a couple of days prospecting for Gold.

I’d done my homework, and I was going to spend the time prospecting a few likely sites within the Crediton Trough. For those of you who are unaware of this area, it’s a 10-15 mile wide region in mid Devon, running from near Crediton (from where it gets its name) westwards to near Hatherleigh. Geologically it consists mainly of Permian red Sandstones, underlain and intruded by volcanic rocks. It was this area that attracted all the commercial Gold exploration interest over the past decade.

I’ve updated this Geological map of Devon to show the rough area that we’re talking about here.

Anyway, I had 2 days to ‘go prospecting’, which had shrunk to 1 day once I woke up on the Tuesday with a temperature of 103F. A day in bed, and confirmation from the National Pandemic (panic!) Flu Service that I had Swine Flu, of course led to the fever breaking overnight, and me being fine to set off early the next morning for the streams of Devon!

As my available time had been severely reduced (both by illness and the shorter daylight hours), I decided to forgo my original plan of sampling a number of sites all across the Western end of the trough, and focussed on a single watershed near Hatherleigh.

This OS view of the local area shows the 2 sites, as blue squares.

Site 1, as viewed from the road below, is a small stream that flows into Merryland Stream to the north.

Once in the stream it became clear that this is a very small stream, with almost too little water to get a pan in. However, I picked a spot just up from the road bridge, with sufficient water, cleared away the leaves and overburden of mud and started to dig down, sampling as I went (my 'area' is marked with a circle in this wider shot).

It was only about 15 minutes before I found my 1st very small speck of gold, and not long afterwards another appeared. As I went deeper I found no more, and having spent about an hour here I decided to move on.

I had only found 2 small pieces of Gold, but the purpose of the trip was to prospect the sites. Upon return home, under magnification, the Gold was quite pretty.

Just a quick note to say that I've branched out and created a 'sister' blog to this one, with a wider remit of South West Minerals. My first project is to explore the possibility of there being Diamonds in the region... interesting stuff indeed.

Have a look here: http://devon-minerals.blog.co.uk/

Cheers

Kieron

Can You Name That Mineral?

Evening all,

Whilst doing some close up imaging of the gold I've collected from a variety of places (which will be dealt with in a later article), I decided to have a look at the contents of a glass vial I had called Mawdaach Oddities. I had given the vial that name because the contents were quite interesting.   All of the pieces that I had placed in there were found within the sluiced & panned concentrates from the Mawdaach River (Afon Mawdaach in Welsh), in North West Wales, during our visit just after Christmas 2008.

The fact that they were still present in the final panned concentrates means that they are 'heavy', at least as heavy as the haematite and possibly as heavy as gold (so all I really know about these small metallic objects is that they have a specific gravity between 5.3 and 19.3) 

At the time I panned them, I decided to keep them as they clearly intruiged me, but I didn't have the necessary kit to hand (other then a hand lens) to analyse them throughly.

Anyway --- here's a magnified photo of the 'Mawdaach Oddities'...

As is apparent from the photograph, they range in colour from bright silver to reddish or black stained, but in all cases there is still an underlying sliver colour to the metal beneath.

So, can you help in identifying the mineral or minerals present here?  Please feel free to make suggestions.

Cheers

Kieron.

Close Up Gold

So, I've got the microscope up and running, and had a first attempt at imaging my gold.

My main area of interest being Devon Gold, I thought I'd give my Dart gold a look first.

This image is a low magnification image of my 0.5g of Dart Gold, with a few small garnets thrown in for a bit of colour!

The largest piece (top Left) is roughly 3-4mm in length in 'real life'.

A Dart Ensemble

One thing that is apparent immediately is that there is a wide variety of colours in there, from quite bright gold to whitish gold.  As explored in previous blog entries, there is a history of silver and other rarer minerals alloyed with the gold in the region, so I'd guess that the silvery gold is a combination of gold, silver and palladium.

The picture below is of that larger piece, It's a very golden coloured piece and very unlike the norm from the Dart (I'm still tinkering with the hue and saturation settings on the scope, so the colour below is not the same as it's shown above, and to be honest neither is quite right).

My Dart Nugget

As I have mentioned above, Dart gold doesn't usually look like the piece above, as it tends to be lighter in colour and often flakey to dendritic in shape.

Below is a photo of 3 pieces that are clearly showing the classic Hope's Nose dendritic shape (the longest is perhaps 2mm long)

Some beautiful dendritic Devon Gold

So, this tells us a few important things... 

1. Visually, it would appear that this gold has been created via a similar (same?) mechanism as that at Hope's Nose.

2. The gold has not been massively altered since coming out of the host rock, which in itself suggests a source not far from where it was found.

3. If it's the same as Hope's Nose, we need to be on the lookout for Devonian Limestones with Calcite veins.

So, what are the chances of finding a hard-rock source in the area?

Here's a close-up on one of the dendritric pieces showing the 60 degree branch structure as described by Sir Arthur Russell back in the 1920s (see previous blog).

A Dart Frond, showing the fern like structure  

Finally, just because I've got the image, here's my 2nd biggest piece of Dart gold (by size at least -  It's 3x2mm, but very thin, so it has no measurable weight), along with another lovely little flake. 

I hope you enjoy seeing these close-up images of English gold, and it's hopefully made it clear that the mechanism that formed the gold at Hope's Nose has probably also been at work elsewhere in the South Devon area, so the intruiging comment made by Sir Arthur Russell (see previous blog)  is very pertinent. 

All comments are welcome!

Kieron.

The West Country Hall of Fame

In general terms, gold is scarce in the counties of Devon and Cornwall, particularly when compared to more renowned UK locations, and even more so against some of the classic sites elsewhere in the world.

However, despite this, back in the days when Cornwall (in particular) was still peppered with working mines and the ground rich in interesting minerals, some exciting finds were made.

Cornwall

The Carnon Nugget, (also known as the Carnon Valley or Carnon Downs Nugget) is the largest gold nugget known to be found in England. Measuring roughly 56mm in length, and weighing in at just short of 2oz (1oz, 18dwt, 6grs) it was reported as being found in January 1808, as part of a Tin streaming operation at Perranworthal, on the Carnon River.

Unlike many potential specimen nuggets from the past, this one has escaped the desire to melt it down to make jewellery, although prior to their wedding, it was rumoured the Prince Charles was going to use the nugget to make a wedding ring for Camilla Parker-Bowles. Fortunately, this did not occur.

It now resides on the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro, as part of the Rashleigh collection.

Also, another report from 1802 claims that the largest gold nugget to be found in Cornwall was discovered in the River Ladock, and is now in also in the Royal Cornwall Museum. Once again, this was discovered as part of a Tin streaming operation.

Of course, as this find preceded the Carnon Nugget by 6 years,it is likely that ‘in their day’ both finds were the largest in Cornwall. Sadly at present I do not have any further information about the Ladock Nugget (A trip to Truro is very much needed I feel).

Devon

In South Devon, near Torquay, we have the world famous Hope’s Nose gold. This occurrence appears as a fine crystalline gold, in calcite veins within Devonian Limestone. The ease of access to the gold bearing veins means that today there is no gold left at Hope’s Nose, much of which was sold on to private collectors (which also means that there are many specimens in private hands and museums, having survived the urge to melt it down into jewellery).

Sir Arthur Russell, the eminent mineralogist (after whom the Russell Society is named), was one of the first people to properly investigate the reports of 'small gold grains' here, in the late 1920s, and he described it thusly:

The gold is nearly always present as delicate dendritic or arborescent forms, which are extremely beautiful when partly freed from the enclosing calcite by immersion in dilute hydrochloric acid. Many Of these growths are sometimes contained in quite a small piece of the vein-stuff, and in one or two cases attain a length of 5 cm. In general they consist of fern like structures formed of a central rod with graduated branches and sub-branches all at 60° each branch and sub-branch being usually terminated by a more or less distinct crystal.

In colour the gold varies from a bright rich gold to dull yellow ; while in one vein it is almost silver-white, in this case being thickly distributed in dendritic form through a nearly white calcite.

The following assays, which were most carefully made for me by Mr. A. W. Dannatt of the Royal School of Mines, are interesting in that they show the gold to be of very exceptional fineness, and that even the silver-white gold (nos. 2 and 3), which from its appearance led one to suspect a high silver content, contains only a comparatively small amount of silver, far below that variety to which the term electrum has been applied. Metals of the platinum group are absent.

Set 1 ---- Bright Rich Gold ---- Gold 98.11%, -- Silver 1.89%
Set 2 ---- Silver White Gold --- Gold 91.59%, -- Silver 8.41%
Set 3 ---- Silver White Gold --- Gold 92.53%, -- Silver 7.47%

Altogether the occurrence is an interesting one, as, apart from the exceptional beauty of the arborescent forms in which the gold occurs, the fact of it being present in calcite veins in Middle Devonian limestone is I believe unique. Conjectures as to the origin of the gold would be futile. The finding of a mineral such as gold in so unexpected a quarter is moreover an object-lesson to the mineralogist in the field and impels one to look for similar occurrences in other of the Middle Devonian limestone tracts of the west of England.

The last sentence is an interesting one, which could mean that this form of gold formation mechanism has been in operation in other parts of south Devon.

Overall

Simon Camm, who has done more than most in documenting the occurrences of gold in the region, states in his book (Gold in the Counties of Cornwall and Devon) that it is likely that the vast majority of gold in the region went unreported, much of which was due to the collected copper and tin concentrates having a good gold content that only the smelters knew about, who literally kept it to themselves, both in terms of the gold and the information!

Quite amazingly, in his book, Camm states that:

It is therefore possible that the total gold raised in both counties, from stanniferous (containing tin) and non stanniferous ores, could have exceeded 6 tonnes.

Let no-one tell you that the gold in the West Country can only be seen under a microscope... at least history tells us this is not the case.

Food for thought indeed!

Kieron.

Related Links:

The Russell Society http://www.russellsoc.org/about.htm

Camborne School of Mines http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/geomincentre/

I was planning on putting up a new blog about the history of gold finds in the West Country, but that can wait.  I have a new toy!!
 

 It’s not arrived yet, but it will be with me by early next week.  The picture is of a Veho table top USB microscope.  As it would suggest, it plugs straight into the USB port on my laptop or home PC, and will allow me to take magnified images of the gold that I have found.

Once I’ve got it up and running, I intend to do some ‘close –up’ analysis of the form and possible constituents (at least visually) of the gold from different localities (at least once I’ve finished looking at dead flies and other such interesting things around the house!).

Not that I’m on any commission, but they can be purchased from Amazon in the UK

Veho on Amazon

Cheers

Kieron.

Back to Basics

I know, up to now, a lot of this blog has been about trips to Wales, but the purpose of this blog is to share with you all my experiences of Gold Prospecting in South West England.   I am aware that there are numerous people who do prospect for gold in the Counties of Devon and Cornwall, but I am looking to contact as many fellow West Country Panners as possible.

The Geology of Devon and Cornwall

I have no hidden motive for this, just an interest in gold in the region, and meeting like minded people. We all know that with a very few exceptions the pursuit of the most noble of metals in our neck of the woods is never going to make us rich, but in my own personal case, it's the mere fact that gold can be found in streams and rivers in the region that drives me on.  Although gold prospecting is by its very nature a hobby that suits itself to a certain amount of secrecy, I never cease to get a kick out of showing a passing tourist, dog walker or canoeist a small speck of gold in the pan.  The marvel I see in their eyes is what I feel every time I find gold, be it the tiniest of specks or (sadly not yet) a large nugget. So, are you a 'West Country Panner'?  Or perhaps you're interested in giving it a go in the south west.   Either way, get in touch, I'd love to hear from you.

Cheers

Kieron.  

Hello from Mr Happy!

Having had a good old moan the other day, I though it was time for a little balance.

I'm not going to go into blow by blow details of my panning trip to Wales; that can wait for another day.  However, what I want to talk about now is possibly the biggest plus that I got from the recent trip, and that is meeting new and interesting friends. 

Although I knew him pretty well from email and telephone conversations, I had only briefly met Kit in the flesh, not long ago in Wales.  However, by the end of my trip, the generosity and kindness displayed by both him and his good lady, Caroline, will cement them as great friends with me forever. 

Furthermore, having met them for the first time on this trip, I hope I can also count Vince and Mary as friends.  

It's meeting people like these that make what is for me already a deeply satisfying and mentally relaxing  hobby all the more interesting and enjoyable.  The advice I received from both Kit and Vince was always very much appreciated, and I look forward to the chance of meeting and panning with each of them again.

Enjoying the Sunshine

From Left to Right: Caroline, Vince, Kit and Mary take a break in the warm spring sunshine.

The weather also made a huge difference, as despite the poor forecasts the week before, the Easter period turned out to be sunny, settled and for the most part warm for the duration.  I say for the most part warm, because on the Sunday morning, the tent I was sleeping in had ice on the inside when I woke up!

It was no surprise that I didn't fancy leaving my sleeping bag until the sun had risen above the hill, and had started warming the tent up a little.

Firstly, the bad news…

I arrived back from Wales late on bank holiday Monday, pretty tired after 4 days in the rivers of North West Wales.   Was I refreshed?  Yes, but it almost didn’t work out that way.

It is my intention to give a full account of the trip over the next few days, but I need to make one important point for anyone who gets into this hobby, there is more to prospecting and panning than simply the technique and necessary skill for locating likely spots, and that comes down to the etiquette to work in rivers where other prospectors may also be working. 

There are a lot of these points I could cover, but there are a few that are salient to my long weekend away…

1. If you have been working a spot and you move off to start somewhere else, you do not retain any rights over the previous spot. If it’s that good, stay and finish it. You do not own the flipping river!!  

2. When a fellow panner has a sluice setup perfectly at the head of a pool, it’s just not the done thing to move rocks next to that sluice and lower the water level by an inch or 2… it tends to affect the setup of the sluice.

3. If a fellow prospector decides to put in the necessary hard work to develop an likely area, involving moving large quantities of gravel and boulders, AND you have recently worked that area, please please please mention it to them at the start and not after they’ve put in 2 ½ days of effort developing the area.  After all, what’s the point of attempting to get gold from someone else’s tailings?  Take it from me, it’s extremely frustrating (especially when you find out that the large boulders you spent a lot of time moving had been put there from the area covered by point 1 above!).

I’m not going to go into specifics, but gold fever can make normally sane people act in odd ways, and part way through Sunday I was ready to pack it all in and come home, thoroughly p*ssed off with the hobby I love.  Luckily a couple of friends on the river persuaded me to go for a stroll and find somewhere else to work.  Good advice indeed.

A day and a good session later I was calm and relaxed – just in time for the 6 hour drive home J

Thanks to Kit and Vince for helping me in my time of need.  I’ll report back later with the good news!

Kieron

So, tomorrow I'm off to Wales...  and some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen.  For example, cast your eyes over this wonderful setting, taken on Dec 29th 2008.  Admittedly it was bloody freezing, and in fact that morning it was -7C when we got into the river, and it never got above freezing.  

It was so cold that not only did we have to break the ice in places to prospect, but if you put your (gloved) hand on a rock, it would freeze to it immediately.

Despite that it was still a beautiful place to be.

Another lovely photo

This does look very tranquil, but as the sun set the temperature plummeted.  It was hard work carrying on in those conditions, so we were forced to retreat to the warmth of the pub...  life is sooo cruel :)

Anyway,  this time tomorrow I hope to be in my tent at the Vanner Campsite... so I'm hoping for good weather until Monday; and despite some poor forecasts it's look not so bad at the moment...  fingers crossed.

I'll report back when I get home early next week, and I'll show you all the gold I found...  have a good Easter.

Kieron.

Well,

I'm very lucky that i've got a full 4 day window over Easter for a Gold Prospecting trip to Wales, and I've got my very kind family to thank for that - it is very much appreciated.

To be more precise, I'm off to an area just north of Dolgellau, in North West Wales. I think a map is necessary at this point:

I will be meeting up with Kit Andrews, and no doubt other fellow gold prospectors for what will hopefully be an enjoyable and refreshing break from work etc.

I've bravely decided that a tent is the most appropriate form of accomodation for an Easter trip into the Welsh Mountains, so I have a huge pile of warm gear to wear in bed!!

The weather forecast is rather mixed for the whole Easter weekend, so I'm not likely to need my sunglasses or sunscreen much

Kit and I have made a pact - he will provide me with breakfast and an evening meal, and I will provide some 'refreshment' for at least the 3 of us (me, Kit and his good lady), but probably more as gold prospectors tend to gravitate together. Luckily I have a selection of homemade wines available, plus I'll take along some purchased wine for those who's tastes a a little 'more refined'... I just need to work out how many bottles to take.

All the equipment I referred to in my previous blog will be going with me http://devon-gold.blog.co.uk/2009/04/05/necessary-equipment-for-gold-prospecting-and-panning-5895935/ and I'm sure all of it will get used at some point in the trip.

Anyway - that's the plan - and the aim is to get some of this stuff:

This is the roughly 0.5g of Gold I got from my previous trip to the Mawdaach river between Xmas and New Year 2008. As I'm hoping to pan for 3 perhaps 3 1/2 days, I'm hoping for more than that, but the river can be cruel at times, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that I'll come back with nothing... here's hoping.

Anyway - I will be posting an article about the trip, when I get back; and I'll tell you just how well a tent is suited to the early spring conditions in the Welsh hills.

Until next time

Kieron.

What kit do I use for Prospecting and Panning?

Please note this article is shown over 3 pages

With a big Prospecting and Panning trip on the horizon, I took the opportunity to do a quick check and inventory of my panning equipment... so here it is, all the kit I have for prospecting, processing and collecting Gold.

The most important piece of kit I carry..

The Pan

I actually take 2 of these with me, as I like to have a spare one handy... either way, this is the one piece of kit you need to have with you. I'm not saying you need to use this exact model, as you can get all sort of colours and shapes of pan.

Prospecting Tools

The tools shown above include:

Telescopic Rake and trowel for working in a hole in the river – these go out to about 3 feet in length, to allow for deeper holes.
Hand rake
Small Trowel
Foldable Shovel
I also have a normal rake (no photo of this).

These tools are mainly for removing overburden and developing a hole, so it's either a case of simply moving lots of material, or clearing larger stones from an exisiting hole to allow the pumps to come into their own.

Pumps

If you're in the job of locating and then processing gold rich sediments, then a pump is of vital importance, as it allow you to quickly move large volumes of small stones, gravels, sands and smaller grained sediments from the river bed into a pan, sluice or bucket.

I have 3 different pumps. The one on the left was made by a prospecting friend of mine, Mark.

The other 2 are a commercially manufactured one made by Guldstrom in Sweden, and the other is a proper Alf Henderson classic.... which was the one I got when I started panning about 12 years ago, and despite some breakages (and repairs) is still going strong.

As you develop a hole in a river you need to be able to reach deeper, and for much of the year the water is too cold, and the material too rough to do this bare handed. Therefore I have a selection of gloves at my disposal. In the picture below, I have a pair of pond gauntlets (which come up to my armpits) some back up rubber gloves, and a few pairs of cotton inner gloves to provide further protection from the cold and also another layer of 'cushioning'.

Despite all of this, it's rare for me to come back from a good session without numb fingertips from moving pebbles, rocks and the odd boulder all day.

Pages: 1 2 3

Gold Prospecting in the Not so Wild West

For me, Gold Prospecting is one of the most exciting parts of the hunt for gold. The research done at home being the most important aspect in many cases, which can yield ‘new’ sites where gold can be found. Myself and Mark had decided that instead of visiting known sites, we’d try a new site within the Crediton Trough, The reason we chose this particular site, was because it had been identified by the British Geological Survey as having anomalously high gold values, both in fines and visible gold in panned concentrates. Before we go any further, for those of you who operate in Scotland, Wales or further afield, we are talking Devon here, so anomalously high gold values don’t mean quite the same as it would in many more well known gold regions!

A bit of background

This is taken from the 1st of 2 BGS exploratory studies of the region:

The distribution of gold anomalies in the drainage samples indicates that the source is probably associated with the early Permian sediments, the boundary faults between the Permian and Carboniferous sequences, and structures in the Permian, especially where they are underlain by volcanic rocks.

There has been quite a bit of press coverage of the area over the last 12 years, as there was the real prospect of a commercial gold mining operation being setup in the area by Crediton Minerals, but things have gone quiet on that front of late.

So, with books, maps and aerial photos in hand (and prospecting kit in the boot) we met up in a lay-by in mid Devon early one morning. Our plans soon began to un-ravel, as we failed to get permission from the landowners to access the stream. We were restricted to having a walk along the stream and imagining the vast quantities of gold that lay beneath our feet.

Mark Walks the stream

As an aside the land is owned by a local family business, and they have a shop selling their local cheeses nearby. Having determined that the family were not available, Mark made a tactical purchase of some local mature Cheddar Cheese, which I’m sure went down well at home!

So, what to do next? Well, not too far away (according to the BGS) was another site where gold had been found in panned concentrates, so armed with maps and a satnav we headed off in a 2 car convoy towards Thorventon. Once again access was hard to get, as of the 3 roads that crossed out target stream, 1 had no opportunity to park our cars and the 2nd yielded a completely deserted farm. We were left with 1 more accessible area, and at last we got what we were looking for, permission to check out the stream.

Where next? Here next...

the blue dots represent our sample sites.

Now, this is another point where prospecting mid-Devon style differs from some of the classic upland sites, there is no bedrock available, and instead there’s plenty of mud, drifts of fine silt and from time to time gravels. I’m sure there is bedrock somewhere down there, but probably well below the streambed, and beyond the reach of a shovel or gravel pump.

In our first prospecting spot we went to work sampling the stream, trying differing depths at number of likely spots; be they inside of outsides of bends, behind tree roots and surface gravel layers in the centre of the stream. What seemed to emerge was that the gold was present at specific depth on the inside of corners, in the lee of the low banks, where presumably the flood waters flowed off the higher mud banks and back into the main channel, creating local eddy currents and depositional areas.

Me in the stream - sampling away

We tried 2 specific areas on the stream, 1 in a lightly wooded area (as per picture above), and another further down-stream where it passed through the edge of an open field (see below).

The 2nd site - down stream in a field

Despite the 2nd site having much more gravel, much of what we were processing was still very muddy. The clay and mud needed to be broken down before we could pan the material, as this would trap the gold

Both areas yielded small quantities of these small gold grains (we got about 20 between us in 4 hours work).

Mark working away - by this point he had very cold feet, and wasn't at his happiest!

So, there was gold, but in very small grains, and these grains appeared to be quite rounded, as they tended to roll around the pan readily and were hard to isolate from the rest of the heavies.

Concentrate - the Gold is just visible in this rather poor photograph as 4 golden points of light, towards to back of the pan.

Later, under magnification, the gold was found to be rounded and slightly flattened (imagine little (<1mm) golden minstrels, with a roughened surface) and ranging from bright gold to reddish in colour, reflecting an iron or perhaps copper content.

My gold in a glass vial

As an aside, the gold found to the South of Dartmoor, is for most part high in other metals, such as Silver, Palladium and the rare mineral Poterite, and quite coarse and at times dendritic; but this gold was very different, being seemingly Palladium free and more rounded, which would indicate it being produced by a different mechanism to that further South.

So, we have a new location, but it’s not a place where you could make your fortune.

Thanks for reading this blog, and if you enjoyed it leave a comment, and come back for more of the same later.

Kieron.

References:

1. Exploration for gold in the Crediton Trough, Devon. Part 1 — regional surveys D G Cameron and others (1994) http://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/exploration/potential/mrpsumm131-140.html#133

2. Exploration for gold in the Crediton Trough, Devon. Part 2 — detailed surveys R C Leake and others (1994)
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/exploration/potential/mrpsumm131-140.html#134

3. Gold in the Counties of Cornwall and Devon: Geology and History of Gold Occurrences Author: Simon Camm Publisher: Cornish Hillside Publications (Jun 1995) ISBN-10: 0951941976 ISBN-13: 978-0951941973