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Sluicing with tons of garnet sand

Posted by Bob Drake on September 28, 2012 at 4:43pm in Questions and other things

Where I like to go prospecting there is a lot of red garnet sand. After 1-5 gallon bucket the riffles are bound up with this stuff. Here is a vid and pic of this headache.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH8J57qFWtw

[IMG]http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss237/SaltyDawg_2009/IMAG0165.jpg[/IMG]

 

My question is...will speeding up the flow through the A52 to wash out the red sand be enough to wash out the fine gold also? Or what is the best way of dealing with the red sand. Doing a cleanup after every bucket is a pain in the....

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  • scott September 28, 2012 at 7:39pm
    Wow! I have never seen anything like that. What is the density of the garnet sand as opposed to gold? I wouldnt have any idea of how to deal with that. I wonder though, if the sand was kept in a constant state of straification if the fines could find their way to the bottom. Eg) a fluid bed at the end of a sluice?
    • Bob Drake > scott September 28, 2012 at 10:04pm

      scott, I believe garnet has a specific gravity of 4.3 which made me wonder that if hematite and magnitite had a SG of 5+ if I up the water to blow out garnet and hold black sand that I wouldn't lose gold. This is my thinking...If I blow out of the sluice a 2 grain garnet and garnet is 4 times lighter than gold.....that the same water could blow out a .5 grain piece of gold. Or am I just thinking too hard? lol

      • scott > Bob Drake September 28, 2012 at 10:37pm
        Bob, i really have no clue about garnet sands, where im at in ca, all i deal with is an extraordinary amount of heavy black sand, which i just leave be. As long as the sands are exchanging out and not packing the riffles in my drop riffle sluice im good to go. I think if the garnet sands ar less dense than the black sand you should be fine running as normal. Treat them as if they are black sand. Just prettier. I cant say with 100% positivity but thats what i would do. Definately interesting though, im glad you posted this.
    • Bob Drake > scott September 28, 2012 at 8:44pm

      If you have seen the Gold Fever episode where Tom comes to Maine, this is the same place. Swift River. Even Tom was amazed at the amount of red sand. I run 2 buckets and I see a red streak behind the sluice so I wonder if I'm wasting my time by not cleaning up after every bucket. This part of the state is also known for tourmaline. But like I'm gonna see a pink tourmaline in that stuff lol. I tried to blow up a couple pics to show all the little garnets. Some are a little bigger than the diameter of the wire in the exp metal.

      [IMG]http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss237/SaltyDawg_2009/IMAG0167-Co...[/IMG]

      [IMG]http://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss237/SaltyDawg_2009/IMAG0167-Co...[/IMG]

       

  • Flour (Indy Jones) Mike September 28, 2012 at 5:42pm

    Washes it out right away. If it has any mass thats ok and it stays, but if its fine or dust it washes right away when the garnets go. The garnets will actually lift up the flour and kick it out in the water because of all the facets spinning around together. Where im at, when the garnets are like that its almost always because someone has banked there before and there was just enough time and rain to make it look  fresh. Can be good if they didnt set up right and washed all their flour out into that pile. Some people do it on purpose to run faster and try to get chunkier pcs. Sample all the concentrated piles. If you have flour caught in that stuff the only way i have found to get rid of the garnets is to dry everything out completely. This means as soon as they start stacking up, you put the box in a bucket and wash them out as cons. Then take a wide piece of card board about 2'x4' with the accordion part going from side to side, and put a row of bends in the top portion like mini drop riffles. then halfway down add a couple more so you end up with two flat spots about 1.5' wide and the mini drops at the top and in the middle. bend the sides up, set it at 30-40 degrees incline, and pour out about a pint of the dry at a time and move it right to left gently with your hand. The garnets will roll way to the bottom and whats left at the top can be concentrated and panned.  The bad news is you might end up with 3-5 gallons of cons to work later at home vs panning out at the end of the day.  If all there is is fine gold you have to adapt, and many times find all new ways, depending on where its coming from and the cons, in order to get it.

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