May the Hydro-Force be with you!

Father-in-law, Operating, Hydro-force, hydroforce, mine, bedrock

First off I want to apologize for yesterdays post. It was a bit to far out in left field so I will try again today to make a post that is a little more worthy of re-posting.This Photo here is My Father-in-Law operation a very cool Device, it is a dredge nozzle that allows dredging on the dry ground instead of in the water. It is called a Hydro-force Nozzle. It works great for cleaning the bedrock once you have reached it. It works just like a dredge nozzle except there is a little diverter valve so that you can fill your hole with water and initiate suction. Once you have a good suction going in the water then you adjust the little ball valve on the side so your getting a good mixture of water and gravel going through your hoses while supplying water to the hole to keep the nozzle in water. This proper mixture help reduce clogs. There are quite a few you-tube videos on the use of this device, and all you need to do is type in Hydro-force to see it in action. When My Father in law is operating this tool he will say he needs a break, and let one of us take over. Well his break consist of standing directly over whoever is running the Hydro-force until you feel guilty and give it back to him. Usually he only will take a 5 min break. He will operate that thing for a 10 hour day, exhausting work.

Hydro-Force, Nozzle, Photo, dredging, dry land

A Harring, Whats a Harring?

GOLD, quarter, goldpan, mining

It seems that the story post I made was very popular so I think I will continue to tell the story of the mine through the magic of imagination.   As you all know we are looking for gold up here at Quartz creek Alaska.  What you don’t know is that the gold we find is found in smaller flatter pieces.  The gold was created a couple million years ago when glaciers covered this whole area. Well most people think that nothing can live in a glacier.  Well in this area the only place for things to live was either on or in the glaciers.  Glaciers are constantly moving and grinding up the rock it is moving across.   Because of this the glacier becomes embedded with minerals and very small pieces of the bedrock.  This was the source of food for a creature called a “Harring.”  The Harring looked like the cross between a big horned Beetle and an earth worm, the cross being that the earth worm had the horns kinda like the beetle. The Harring used its horns to borough through the glacier and find food as it went. It consumed the minerals and small rocks that it came across. Using the small rocks it would grind up the minerals for digestion. As the Harring digested, it only used from the minerals what its body needed, the rest was waste that would continue to pass through its body. One thing that I had not mentioned was that the Harring had its own heat source, a chemical reaction that would take place inside its body, as the remaining minerals passed through the body of the Harring it would pass through this chemical reaction, Changing the minerals into an new compound, before the waste minerals were expelled from its body.  This waste product is now valued for its beauty and rarity and people will go crazy trying to get at it.   It is what we now call GOLD!  The reason it is flat is because it had been carried through the glaciers for all those years and worn down to a flattened shape.   As the glaciers thawed the rivers carried the GOLD throughout the area depositing it in very randoms spots.  Sometimes you can get lucky and happen upon a concentration of it, but that does not happen very often.   In the picture above we performed a cleaned out after two hours of operating our wash plant.  There have never been any fossils found of the Harring since once they died the glacier took care of grinding them up to powder.

Gold Panning Instruction

Well Here is an example of some gold panning with a couple pieces of the gold we find at the mine. I threw this together real quick without scripting it at all so please don’t mind the misuse of words to describe the process, this was very ad-lib so no judging, I will will make a better video later, just thought I would see if this was something people would like to see on the site.

What is it, that dwells at the Quartz Creek Mine?

Lyra, tree, gold, mine, forrest

The gold mine is a magical place, it is full of wonder and amazement its a place that just draws people in. Is it the mystery and beauty of quartz creek that brings people here? We get a lot of visitors through out the summer months, even during thanksgiving weekend we had some visitors drive up. Usually not anyone we know, but normally very friendly.  So all visitors heed the following warning.  There are some elusive creatures that dwell in the the shadows of the trees up there at our quartz creek mine. Mischievous little creatures. You may find your full soda that you just set down is now half empty, or that shovel that you put next to the rock is now leaning against the tree. So keep a sharp eye out you may even catch a glimpse of one of the mystical beings, in fact I got a picture of one with my camera, it was peeking out from behind a tree and I am posting for all the world to see as proof that there is a reason that your coffee cup is not where you left it.(or maybe you just forgot where you put it.)

Layers, Its All About the Layers

Layers, gravel, gold, mine,

This is a photo from the first hole we started digging in at the gold mine. You can see the different layers in the gravel very well. The almost black layer seems to have a large quantity of gold in it. Other locations that has deposits of gold are found are in the clay layer and in the fractured slate(bedrock). This hole was dug completely by hand, we used a Keene High banker to process the dirt from this hole and we pulled 3/4 of an ounce out of here.