Where to Dredge

Page 5

As long as the water pressure is high enough to move the gold, it will continue to move. We've talked about curves and their effect on water pressure, and we've also talked about objects that water must flow around, like boulders. We've also talked about the fact that gold crawls along the bottom of the river bedrock. It will continue crawling along the bedrock as long as the water pressure is high enough to push it. Two conditions can present themselves to stop the gold from moving down the riverbed.

• The river bedrock can be rough, jagged, and craggy where gold will "hide" from the high water pressure.

• The river bedrock will have cracks and crevices that the gold will drop into.

Click the Picture to Enlarge

Once the gold has found one of these locations, it will remain their until either the bedrock is broken up by water action, earthquakes, or the pounding of large boulders as they are moved down river.

Smooth bedrock give the gold no place to hide from the forces of the water pressure, and so it will continue down river until it does find a hiding place.

So, if you dredge in a location and reach bedrock, but the bedrock is smooth, move to another location. It's always possible you may find the occasional nugget, but more than likely, your wasting your time. If, however, the smooth bedrock has cracks and crevices for gold to drop into, work them.

A crack in the bedrock does not have to be large. Wafer thin pieces of gold will work their way down into even the smallest cracks. It is well worth your will to open these cracks and clean them out. In fact, clean them out two or three times. Use both the high pressure water jet tapped off the water pump and crevice cleaning tools. 

Cracks that look very thin can also open up farther down making a large pocket for gold to accumulate. An amazing amount of gold can come out of a crack that doesn't look like it could hold any. Do Not pass up any cracks or crevices in the bedrock.

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