Metal Detecting Misadventures

The grey streaks in my Quartz rocks might be graphite, it’s a thing.

Here is some high quality Anthracite coal from my 10kg bag.


Even left behind some giant Anthracite chunks (very hard higher quality) as I thought it was perhaps a rock. I might return to grab those, even just to add to my specimens collection.

I’m building a furnace, going to see if I can get it hot enough to melt gold & silver. Video up once the weather clears a bit.

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Finally.

So tides came right, and then they give the whole country heavy rain warnings!
On Monday the whole sky was grey, and it rained a bit so I flagged it.
Tuesday, I was up earlier, tide was not yet out. Even though the sky was nasty, I decided to man up.

If I go at lower tide I’ve got to drag my kayak through several metres of mud to get it in the water, and then have a restricted path to go up river due to shallow bottoms. And the path has raging outgoing currents… more on that later.

Sandflies decide to have a go straight away while kayaking, some deciding to make a home in my ear holes! Another had no mercy when it went for blood of my eyelid!
Sure I had repellent in my bag (probably), but once I was waste deep in cold river water & reaching down to my neck for retrievals I was probably too numb to feel their bites. Because I certainly saw blood spots on my arms later on.

Otherwise the day was relaxing, the river had it’s normal colour back, and was calm. (will take pix next time)
I decided to go far up the river past my silver ring spot for some quartz ore samples. Then detect low tide spots on the way back.

Had to stop where too many tree trunks prevented me from paddling further.
Began to pick up some amazing jasper, interesting clay clumps (pure white, grey), some quartz, these greeny rocks - likely manganese ore (nothing important as far as gold indicating).
Did that for too long, I had to restrain myself my ore collection is turning into a hoard. Found some bricks and crockery from the ancients. Pulled a large dark rock from the river which turned out to be an 8kg piece of coal! Have you seen bigger?

Tried to push my kayak back in from side to row up further and nearly got washed over!
So took my giant coal off the back and even detector - if I was going to swim I did not want it going with me.
With some huculean paddling I managed to get to a large stone bank, there was also an old river route there too - time to get some gravel to pan.
Looked like a good area, some glass from the ancients, found more coal aswell, had to stop myself - I’ll return to collect the coal another day.
Will need to row up at full tide to get past all the trees, keen to detect that rock bank.
On my way down, it was crazy because more tree trunks were exposed limiting the route back and the current was mad fast.

Only found fencing wire, a few old nails.
Where I initially parked was a small bank, detected it, and moved my kayak to detect under, that’s when I found my cast lead. Always do a full sweep.

Happily the river bottom was quite firm and rocky, wheres the sides had a metre of mud.
Will return one day when my detector is waterproof and I can dive the deeper water flow areas - thats probably where the goodies have moved to anyway.

A piece of cast lead from a toy, front of train engine?
B Black rock too heavy for Jet, has quartz veins
D Interesting slate like quartz piece
C Lots of yellow sulphides

Got a nice thick fluro work shirt (previous pic)
Only found 1 sinker.
Picked up a stack of cream chargers, ferals decided to empty their car rubbish at the water side, nice. Found lots of car parts in river aswell.
Nice flat piece of coal too.

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nice work gold pandemic you have certainly got rocks on your mind,you must be a budding geologist ,my son has a geology degree from cantabury uni.he;s over here earning fortunes,i hope you score gold soon.

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Thanks. I did not expect to find the high quality jasper. Definitely good signs. I fully intend to explore further up the river. Found a piece of red scoria too, volcanic activity close by.

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Sorry for the probably obvious question, as I understand it, volcanics usually means precious metals? How do you determine if the area you are in is worth further investigation?

Jasper is only one key, as far as I can see (according to [The Almighty] Google)

Kate

Intrigued by a whole new world of metals…

Well the first thing you want is Quartz - that comes up as a liquid through harder rocks such as granite. When it is bursting through the granite it precipitates out gold & silver (and other elements).
This can be caused by earthquakes, and volcanoes can cause earthquakes, and earthquakes can cause volcanoes :slight_smile:

Jasper is a form of Quartz that has a lot of iron, it’s not an indicator for gold, but it means that the temperatures were correct for forming pure crystals.

Other good indicators are large clear crystals - if they can grow then gold veins can grow, these may be tiny, or large, but they are often leeched by rain into the river. Iron Pyrites are a good sign.
Also sulphides (yellow) are also an indicator that gold bearing quartz may be in the area.

Volcanoes by themselves don’t mean much, it’s usually hot springs that have leeched out gold over many centuries.

Another way is that rain has washed over granite and leeched small gold particles into rivers over time, forming nuggets - as is the case with much of the south island.
The Ice Age glaciers ground the earth and sped up this process, also the grinding of the two techtonic plates in the south island speed this process up.
But the granite needs to have gold in it to begin with - not all rocks have a high amount.

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My sulphides is probably Limonite - form of Iron oxide, same thing really.
Good gold indicator still. Quite excited to get back up that river.

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Yeah, definitely becoming a bit of a geologist - got to rescue that gold & silver from the ground :grin:

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I’ve been trying to get in a few little detects. Hoping for some minerals at a hill side rock outcrop, only found some toadstills.
toad

Then I visited a sandy beach :wink:


Saw a young detectorist on the main strip, over heard him say he found nothing.
Later I did a veteran detect and found the $4 he missed :sunglasses:

Found a sea cave, no loot though.


Couldn’t help myself and collected some Fishing Bunnys.


And some cool sponges which I’ll try to rehydrate for curiousities sake.

Copper nails and bolt with some melted lead in the rocks near shore, possibly a boat fire long while back. The large Alumium is harder than expected, some type of boat Alloy. Bit off a modern time piece, diving watch? Hopefully Titanium (my detector doesn’t tell me). Scored nearly 100g of copper.


Too much sand really.

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Good to see you back on the prowl.
Love that wee cave.
Haven’t seen a tea infuser come up before - definitely an odd one for a beach, makes a change from the usual cutlery though :grin:
Did you have a crack up on that headland?

Yeah the tea infuser is still usable, though I’ll probably make it into some type of ore filtering gauze.
Yes the ends of the “well detected beach” were my most productive areas.
Just at the base in the sand is where I found the melted lead and such.
Right at the tip of the rocks in a tiny rock pool I found most of the sinkers, swivels and some rusted hooks. I’m thinking someone forgot their gear.

I detected the main surfing/swimming sandy waterline at low tide, without a peep. About 50 people out at a time, so at least 100 per day. If anything gets dropped it is swallowed by the sand or drawn further out.

I could see Whananaki from there and felt like walking up, perhaps next time.

I don’t drink, but right now I’m drunk :rofl:

Detected a gravel rest area with a fishing spot.


Two hefty sinkers on top of the gravel.
Saved someone’s tyres, or childrens feet from the hook and fencing staples.
Found a curious rock, not magnetite, dark grey, very light.
Then rummaged around in a box of alcohol and the drunks had left me two cans :sunglasses:

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Classic… years ago I was surfcasting at sth head of the manakau harbour I used to walk for miles looking for spots…funny thing I lived on the otherside at langholm but didn’t have a boat took 2 hrs to drive anyway I was walking around the rocks and there lying in a rock pool was a full quart bottle of beer sun glistening on the Amber glass well I sat down cracked the beer it was warm DB but tasted bloody good …now all I find are f $#&ng bottle tops😁

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I found a bit more, have to clean it up tomorrow. Picked up a fair amount of beer caps tonight too.
Heard of someone finding a bottle full of Mercury floating in Auckland harbour!!! Aparently that stuff will make you immortal :joy:

I’m seriously considering hitting the coast and whangarei hard shortly, my drunk mind is formulating big plans :slight_smile:

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good look.wheres theirs sand and people there has got to be some gold just got to find it …good luck

The first booze I found was a steiny tucked in the grass. Carried it lovingly all day, got home stuck it in the fridge. Later that evening cracked it, had a sip and Bleaaagh! Checked the BB date, it was about 4 years old, and had obviously been marinating in the sun for a couple of summers.
Took a few whiskeys to wash the taste away :nauseated_face:

Just leave 'em now, unless it’s still chilled.

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lol, yeah mine was kind of chilled, though I washed and chucked them in the fridge. I did check the dates :slight_smile:
Then in my drunken state I decide it wasn’t enough alcohol, so found some hidden stash of hard stuff.

Now I’m charging my detector batteries. I might hit both low tides tomorrow. No sleep!
I may put my wetsuit to use after all, no one wants to buy the damn thing cost me $800+, shame my detector can’t go below aswell!

A warning about beer that is found - many moons ago before my uncle went off to WWII he left his home in Waimate to go as a cadet to a Government Department in Wellington. He and his flat mates enjoyed a few drinks BUT the empty beer bottles were accumulating so what to do with them?

Finally someone got the idea to remove the caps carefully and then when they wanted a pee just pee in the bottle, put a cap back on and put the bottle back into an empty crate.

When the crate was full they would take it up the road in the dark of night then retreat a safe distance to observe. My uncle told me that the longest a crate ever sat there was thirty minutes before some passer by spotted it and took it home.

I have always been a bit dubious of any bottles of beer found and think that I would examine it carefully before imbibing…a can of beer would be safe though…or would it!

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Cans aint safe either - Back in my caving days, we raided a fellow crawlers 6 pack.
Carefully popped a hole in the base, imbibed contents, refilled with water and sealed with wax.

The look on his face as he went from can to can was priceless - Would have loved to read the letter he wrote to the brewery!

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Ha; a mate and me as early teenager’s exploring mine shafts around Alex found crates of some weird beer, which we promptly sold to the local rugby boys…

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