gold, platinum, Walhalla?

[XIV]

first Question on here?!
                               i do a lot of fishing at Walhalla and have got the bug for gold. Dew to fish not biting (and needed to do something till they came back on the bite)
now i seem to spend most of my time prospecting and not fishing!
i have found gold and think i have found platinum but cant be shore
have also found Quartz with gold in it
*how do i tell if it is platinum? (as it stays in the pan with the gold)
*which is the best way to remove the gold from the Quartz?
and any new placers in the area worth looking around for gold....

Thx any advice would be appreciated

[mehoose]

Welcome to ALF 
Are you sure you want to remove the gold from the quartz?
I know plenty of cabbers who'd buy them      ....if the quartz is nice and solid(minimal or no fractures)
PICS!!!
There's a few guys on here that chase the yellow, I'm sure they'll chime in soon with some info/suggestions.

[Jamo]

XIV

I've experienced what you have when searching for gold, finding real heavy silver grey grains. What I think you have which is more likely than platinum is gold coated in mercury. In the old days they used mercury on metal plates to stick to the gold as part of the gold recovery process. Inadvertently the mercury found its way into the waterways which still stuck to the gold coating them silver grey.

If you have a large enough piece you could try scratching it to see if you can reveal gold under the grey.

FYI there are gem clubs in both Warragul & Morwell who would be able to help you in your pursuits.

Cheers

[XIV]

thx  mehoose, most of the quartz is very white and dense with small specks of gold
however i do find quartz rock that when broken in half have small caves with some really nice crystals, most r only small ( about 3-5mm ) but i do find the odd one that r about 2-3cm.

 Jamo thx for the info and at first i thought the same thing ( mercury ) but tried the heat test and nothing happened. normally the mercury would burn off ( done outside with protective clothing )

is there anything else up that way i should keep an eye out for?

[The Rock Hunter]

mines 

[harryopal]

Newbie,
This is a dedicated link for gold prospecting.
http://golddetecting.4umer.net/
If you copy and paste that you will find lots of material that ought be of interest.

Good luck.
Harryopal

[jasonr]

and any new placers in the area worth looking around for gold....

lol - placer being a deposit of material from ancient river beds, glaciers, etc and usually have a higher than normal amount of heavy minerals at the bottom of them.
Any new ones found would likely be a closely guarded secret .
Would be the sort of info passed from father to son ... and not, I would imagine, stranger to stranger via a web based forum.
My advise, and I have been prospecting for AU for some time now, is "research, research, research" eg historical mine records, the various state gov geological websites .. etc etc
Once you have all that info on a particular area go out and find it.
Walhalla is in the golden triangle I believe, so chances of finding anything "new" there is slim. The areas that would have a good chance, I would almost guarantee, would be covered by either ML's or EL's and incredibly hard to get access to, if at all

Sorry I dont have a better answer for you ... but ask yourself, if you knew where a "new placer" that was rich in gold, would you be telling strangers on a web forum where it was

Good luck ...
Jason R
 

[jasonr]

is there anything else up that way i should keep an eye out for?

mines 

lol Rockhunter ... nearly fell off my seat when i saw your reply

[Speckee]

and any new placers in the area worth looking around for gold....

lol - placer

I think he meant 'places', not 'placers'

[jasonr]

and any new placers in the area worth looking around for gold....

lol - placer

I think he meant 'places', not 'placers'

possibly ... although placer is something we all look for when hunting gold. Either way, the answer is the same