Jim, I have been following your thread with interest. I am a geologist with a bit of an interest in quartz mineralization. My specialty is karst geomorphology, but I have done some work on quartz mineralization as we have some iron ores here in the Ozarks which are associated with low-grade hydrothermal quartz. I look forward, with anticipation, to your mining operation! I think it would help folks appreciate the type of landscape you are working if you could post some photos of the mine site. I have a pretty good idea of the type of ground you are working just from your detailed descriptions--and I also think your choice of equipment is probably the right one. There's not going to be a perfect solution (unless you could invest a fortune, and not a small one!), but a combination of excavator and dozer will certainly be a good one. In years past, it would have been a track loader and dozer, but excavators have usurped loaders in many applications.
I'm curious--have there been any reports of placer deposits downstream from your place? If there were any, they were probably worked out a long time back, but I would be curious if there were any records.
Best of luck! --Cavin'
Dear CavinJim:
If I had known how much I would love geology, I would have went a different direction as a kid.
These hills rise up off of what was once the Great Lahontan Inland Sea. The basin was once a giant backwater bay - hundreds of miles square. The USGS has taken soil samples in the basinal terrane that originated in the Texas and Oklahoma Craton from ancient rivers that once ran from east to west - before the poles moved and they started running generally from north to south. Several land masses that separated from the incoming Pacific Plate during subduction, accreted to the north American plate not 18 miles away. Then, as the Sierra batholith began to form, the sediments on the ocean floor were crowded into wavy ribbons and began to overthrust one another. They were eventually completely overturned which created the cracks along the folds. During this time, there was mild metamorphic exposure along with low temperature heat and that is what created the shale, schist and phyillites. Granodiorite intrusives followed up the folded cracks and made it to the surface on several of the small hills.
Miners found these outcrops and followed the largest veins starting in 1892. Things were still quite productive up through the early 1940's but, with the advent of WWII, the feds outlawed all mining that was not supportive of the war effort (War Production Board Law 208). Mining ceased and did not resume. First one partner died and then another and it was all held up in the courts for years.
I came upon an almost identical scenario on the edge of the Russian Wilderness in Northern California. Same story. The formation was found almost 55 miles from the nearest town. They packed everything in by mule team but the formation was worth it. They took out over 12,000 OZ of Au before the same War Production Board Law 208 shut them down, too. Everything was blasted shut. Earlier this year, I was the first one up there. After 4 days of digging, we gained access into the main tunnel. It was all caved and the timbers (which were actual sawed logs) were somewhat intact and were mostly still in place. It was a very wet mine which is an extremely dangerous place to be pokin' around. We climbed over several rockfalls and little stuff was coming down the whole time. I whipped out my 3-pound and a chisel to take some samples and my son who was with me about shot his pants full. "Dad....DAD!!!! Dammit, you're gonna get us killed," he hissed in a whisper. I replied in a normal voice, "Jim, if it hasn't caved anymore than this in 71 years then, I think we're okay." My son closed the distance between us like a Ninja Warrior and put his hands over my mouth and whispered in my ear, "Dad, don't talk. Your low voice will cave the rock." I started to laugh out loud and he put his hands over my mouth again. About that time, a small rock bounced off my hard hat with a good plastic clank. His eyes got as wide and white as two Melmac plates. "Seeeeeee!" And so we left. We saw a California grizzly on the way in near the mine and I thought that scared him as much as anything. He was rollin in a snow drift when I said to the fellas, "Look!" He stood straight up when he heard my voice. Sucker looked 9-foot tall if he was an inch - standing above us on the snow drift. There were more of us than him so he took off on a run. But the mine - the mine was the worst for my son.
That is really a great mine but the area is administered by the U.S. Forest Service. Moreover, the property abuts the Federal Russian Wilderness Area and the Pacific Crest Trail goes through the edge of the claim. There's one of those Birkenstock wearin', alfalfa sprout farters up that trail every 15 minutes or so during the summer. Can you imagine the look on their faces after walking for 4-5 days through the wilderness - coming around a turn in the trail to see a big yeller Cat blowin' black diesel smoke and digging into the hillside? It would be "game on," for sure. I thought it over and realized the hell it would truly be to deal with the feds and also the environmentalists tokin' up their bongs full of Mary Jane and bein' half nutso. Discretion being the better part of valor, we left the property to the grizzly and headed back home to look elsewhere. Not-with-standing, that was God's Country. Big virgin Cedar trees, Blue Spruce, creeks, huge grassy glades and Mule deer everywhere. There was even a spring-fed lake. If I were younger, I would've went for it because there's a lot of serious gold right up next to the batholith on the southeast side of the restricted area. Even though it's a legal claim, about the time you walked a Cat up there, there'd be a lot of arrows in the air coming at a guy.
Found another spot in California right off the Yuba river. 52 acres and it's smack dead in the middle of where they found all the gold in the gravels at the Malakoff Works. Forest Service runs an Interpretive Trail through there with uniformed guides to show touristed flat-landers all the bad things the 49er miners did in the late 1800s. I just couldn't figure out a reasonable way to sneak a piece of yeller equipment onto that property either.
There's still lots of gold out west. All the easy stuff's been picked off the top of the ground. Now, you gotta dig for it - but it's still there. A guy just has to stay out of California . . . . you know, "
The Golden State" where they don't allow mining anymore. Better end this before I show my skirts.
Kindest Regards,
Jim Mitchell
DLOG Finders
