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New Strike

Fly on the Wall
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Paso Robles, California
Well, the reason I joined this Forum was to research and educate myself on this Platinum. I've hit all of the major websites on it and stumbled into this site. I and some friends have a Association Placer Claim in the La Panza country about 30 miles south of where I live. I'm a country boy raised in this neck of the woods and have been prospecting off and on in the La Panza country since the early 70's. We've had our placer claim for several years now, getting small flour variety of gold. Over the years I've learned alot about the Geology of this area as well as the Early Histories of which the Early Spanish Franciscans and the Mission Period were actively pursuing the Mining in these Mountains. I have found alot of the Old Trails, Carved Monuments and such, and can pretty much decipher what they convey. Then along to about 1878 another Gold rush took place after another discovery which is pretty well documented. Off and On, over the years the Placer Miners have been looking for the MotherLode, which has never been found. I believe, strongly, that it is the *GreenStone Belt that runs N/W, Parallel to the San Andreas Fault. Well, while investigating and digging this Greenstone Bedrock that is on our claim (with Assays to back it up), I hit a Greenstone Shale Deposit that has FREE PLATINUM, about the size of a ant, but loaded. It's the kind that is Flaky, Platy, terribly hard to pick out and to separate from the other minerals, but I do. I made this discovery about 3 1/2 weeks ago and I already have over a ounce of it in vials. On 5/29/14 I got a Assay just on the Cons (I run a 2 Box Sluice System, very slowly), and it came back Positive with ALL 8 NOBLE METALS, Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium, Osmium, Iridium, Ruthenium & Rhodium. The percentage numbers were low but that doesn't mean anything, cause to get a Good Average of the Ounces to a Ton, Takes 5 to 10 Assays and right now I don't have that money to spend on 5 to 10 assays. So, the point here is I know now that there is a mega-load of minable Platinum in these mountains. But you know, it's a funny thing, I just cannot find anyone that would buy the small amounts I'm a getting. Seems like the Major Big Boy Mining Companies have a monopoly on this stuff. Seems like when any new discovery comes out, they want their Mining Engineers to be the one's to discover it instead of some old guy like me, hee,hee...so, anyhow, I'm a interested in finding out more...Darrell
 
Welcome New Strike, and congratulations!

I have a couple of comments that may or may not be of help, but here I go anyhow:

1. The fact that I had a claim on land with a vein[?] of rock bearing every single precious metal would be something I carried with me to my grave, and the last thing I would ever post on a public forum.

2. Giving the location of that claim, ibid. [see above]

3. If you are doing this by hand, the old school way, maybe you should think about allocating resources to acquire some more productive equipment to see if you can increase production.

4. Is this a full time deal, one in which you must not only cover operational costs as well as feed yourself/family and pay bills?

5. You mention that you did an assay. Was it from a borehole or a simple assay on a sample of the material you are working with now?

6. You also use the term placer, which has me presume you are working on or near the surface. If so, how deep can you go before it is no longer considered a small time panning operation and you become a mine, which would place you under MSHA regulations?

7. As far as metals other than Platinum, Gold, Silver and Palladium, those should be easy to sell. The Osmium, Iridium, Ruthenium and Rhodium will be a different story until you accumulate enough to find someone with interest, since I understand these to be primarily industrial metals, and although in demand, I wouldn't know how to even market those. Perhaps an anonymous question or two on some sites.

8. As I understand the process, if these metals are all mixed together in flake/dust form, have you spoken to any small refiners yet to see how thios would work as far as separation during the refining process? I suspect it involves electrolysis, but DCFusor very likely has that answer, but I haven't seen him around for a while. The fact of the matter is that a lot of us are far busier than usual right at the moment and do not have a lot of time to spend on-line.

Either way, this sounds like one of my dreams, because if that was my site, I would be working more than one angle. Good luck to you, and I hope you hit the jackpot.
 
Hey Darrell

I also have an old metal mine with tailing ponds full of ground up waste.

Zinc, lead and cadmium seem to be the things that bother the environment agency most.

Just how to separate the goodies out would be a good start .......

You got any photographs or a website ?

dont ask me how to post pictures here though )-:
 
Well, the hole is 18 inches long, 12 inches wide by 12 inches deep, chiseled out the shale the old school way. The hole is adjacent to a Calcite/Carbonate Vein. I doubt seriously that the MSHA would regard this a mine, hee,hee, but if I can get a ounce out of that little amount, I got the feller's beat out in Africa, if they're a mining 10 tons to get a ounce. Up and down the creek in the alluvial sands, this here Platinum exists, I just hit one spot where it's more loaded than others as far as I can tell right now, but I can tell from the structure of this shale that it dips to a 45 degree, from the geology reports of this area, the greenstone is about 5,000 feet thick and surrounds the Granite Plutons. About 5 years back, I found another place that had this metal in a pyritic pyrite Chimney Formation nestled between 8 to 12 Quartz Veins enclosed on the sides of Decomposing Granite, when I got this assay back recently a light bulb went off into my head and I hurried back to that spot (off the claim, high up on the mountain) last weekend and took more samples of that....more later, Darrell
 
Hi Darrell, welcome to the forum.

Sorry I don't have any experience with prospecting. I just get the shiny at my LCS.
 
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