I’m a PhD student from the University of Otago and am trying to track down the claim owner for the Shag River (permit no. 60023). Would anyone be able to provide me with his number? I’m not interested in gold, instead I want permission to sluice or even dredge (if I can find one to borrow) for heavy minerals such as sapphire, zircon and garnets that are known to occur within the Shag River gravels. I would happily give away all the gold recovered. There has been a little bit of research done on these minerals in the past and we (my supervisor and I) may be looking to expand on that if we can secure permission to collect more specimens. Alternatively if anyone has specimens they are willing to donate that would be fantastic.
You can look me up on the University of Otago website, my supervisor is Dr James Scott. This is currently a leisure-time project for me as my PhD research is focused around scheelite but it could be a really fun and interesting research topic for another student, if everything pans out
No, why do you ask? We have been focusing on the magmatic related scheelite at places like Canaan Downs, Barrytown and Kirwans Hill (Reefton). Top Valley scheelite will be orogenic/mesothermal style of mineralisation and similar to what we see at Glenorchy and Macraes. Skinner and Brathwaite published a paper in 1999 describing scheelite mineralisation in the Wakamarina that just over the hill. I’ve had a bit of a poke around Jubilee mine in my own time but I didn’t have the UV lamp with me and the rocks I gathered didn’t have any scheelite in them. We have, however, collected and analysed some samples from Boanerges Peak near the Huxley Valley in the Southern Alps. The scheelite there is quite sparsely distributed and low grade and some work by B.L Wood presented in 1983 shows it is widespread throughout the Otago, Southern Alps and Marlborough schists.
The permit only goes to the bridge above Dunback (not sure why the guy didn’t claim up further as this is where some of the better ground is but anyways) you can readily gain access to the creek at various points above his claim. There is lots of the types of minerals you talk about above here that can easily be picked up with a stream sluice if you know where to look.
Look for areas where old alluvial fans are being reworked by the modern stream bed particularly near creeks that have come of the MSZ.
You also might want to look at Trotters gorge area as there has been a lot of reworking of ancient stream materials along the Waihemo fault which contained garnets. Theres also garnets on the beech as well near shag point
company I used to work had a customer who had a farm not that far above the dunbach bridge. went in one day to ask if I could have a play in the shag with pan and sluice but he had sold the farm and new owner wouldn’t let me on because he had an arrangement with another guy for access. don’t know that he could have stopped me going down mcdonalds rd and panning at the ford but I didn’t think it was worth pissing him off over it. I was gutted though because the previous owner was a really nice guy and im certain he would have let me on the farm.
You might find that that particular farmer is dredging illegally on that stretch of the river. Came through yesterday on that bridge and theres a dredge tied up in the river in plain view above the claim
The creek on the left hand side of the road heading up to Trotters Gorge had a little gold in it apparently. I have never looked and doubt if much if any would be found today. My gold mining partner who would be well over 120 years old now told me about it and he knew a great deal about mining. He also got 8 penny weight (12 grams) one day about 1940 out of a feeder stream that flows into the Shag river and I was once going to ask if I could look in it but never did.
He also got 2 ounces of fine gold near Hyde one day and also 6 ounces out of Deep Stream about 3ks down from Wallace’s Ford. I always carried a single shot .22 rifle there as the eels were as big as strainer posts…well to me they were. Some were truly giants.
