Have just received copies of three more Idriess books. Two are about prospecting, one for gold and the other for everything else called “fortunes in minerals”.

Even before starting to read these, I have three crazy ideas.

1. I’ve head of prospecting using gold pan and geological hammer, and I’ve heard of prospecting using satellite imagery and flying magnetometers. But is there an intermediate technology, something that could be attached to a 4WD or trailer or motorbike that could survey the ground as the vehicle drives over it at speed? In addition to minerals, it might be the fastest way to find meteorites, or even fossils.

2. In some places at some times, water is more precious than gold. Could air be used instead of water in separating out heavy minerals? As in for instance side to side shaking (utilising the muesli effect). Or as in winnowing. Or both together.

3. Prospecting in a scrap metal yard instead of in the outback. Metals (such as lead) contain impurities, sometimes these impurities can be worth a lot of money because they’re so rare, so prospect in a scrap yard.

mollwollfumble said:

Have just received copies of three more Idriess books. Two are about prospecting, one for gold and the other for everything else called “fortunes in minerals”.

Even before starting to read these, I have three crazy ideas.

1. I’ve head of prospecting using gold pan and geological hammer, and I’ve heard of prospecting using satellite imagery and flying magnetometers. But is there an intermediate technology, something that could be attached to a 4WD or trailer or motorbike that could survey the ground as the vehicle drives over it at speed? In addition to minerals, it might be the fastest way to find meteorites, or even fossils.

2. In some places at some times, water is more precious than gold. Could air be used instead of water in separating out heavy minerals? As in for instance side to side shaking (utilising the muesli effect). Or as in winnowing. Or both together.

3. Prospecting in a scrap metal yard instead of in the outback. Metals (such as lead) contain impurities, sometimes these impurities can be worth a lot of money because they’re so rare, so prospect in a scrap yard.

For number 1, the possibilities seem endless. For example:

1.1. Plant a sensitive seismometer at a likely spot. Have a vertical axis accelerometer at the vehicle’s centre of gravity. Link the two by a differential GPS to get the exact difference in position to the nearest cm. Drive around. The time lag between the vehicle’s motion and the seismometer’s motion gives the speed of sound in the ground, reflections off substrata, and cohesiveness of the soil. After a bit of driving around it gives a 3-D map of the subsurface.

1.2. Dial in the colour of meteorite or gold or opals into an imager to detect either at speed.

1.3. UV light at night to detect fluorescent minerals. eg. red for calcite, agate, fluorite etc.

1.4. Magnetometer and metal detector at speed.

1.5. Ground penetrating radar.

1.6. Neutron moisture meter. When water is a precious commodity.

1.7. Hyperspectral imager.

Examples of fluorescent minerals

Example of minerals from hyperspectral imaging.

Then there’s the issue of what to prospect for. Nearly everything has a value, it’s more a matter of finding something close enough to a market to justify the cost.

For instance,
Pure sand – glass, concrete, brickies loam, fullers Earth.
Clay – for lining dams, pottery, drilling mud.
Limestone – cement, fossils, tabletops, tombstones.
Granite – tabletops, minerals.
Basalt – road bluemetal.
Scrap iron – nails, horseshoes, wire.
Salt – table salt, hydrochloric acid, halite lamps, magnesium, lithium, barium.
Broken aboriginal artefacts.
Plants and animals.
Water.
Historical rubbish.

What a lot of things to prospect for, and that’s even before starting with minerals.

mollwollfumble said:

Then there’s the issue of what to prospect for. Nearly everything has a value, it’s more a matter of finding something close enough to a market to justify the cost.

For instance,
Pure sand – glass, concrete, brickies loam, fullers Earth.
Clay – for lining dams, pottery, drilling mud.
Limestone – cement, fossils, tabletops, tombstones.
Granite – tabletops, minerals.
Basalt – road bluemetal.
Scrap iron – nails, horseshoes, wire.
Salt – table salt, hydrochloric acid, halite lamps, magnesium, lithium, barium.
Broken aboriginal artefacts.
Plants and animals.
Water.
Historical rubbish.

What a lot of things to prospect for, and that’s even before starting with minerals.

I wonder if there’s a market for bones. eg. kangaroo, wallaby, rat kangaroo, bilby skeleton or skull. I could prospect for bones.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Then there’s the issue of what to prospect for. Nearly everything has a value, it’s more a matter of finding something close enough to a market to justify the cost.

For instance,
Pure sand – glass, concrete, brickies loam, fullers Earth.
Clay – for lining dams, pottery, drilling mud.
Limestone – cement, fossils, tabletops, tombstones.
Granite – tabletops, minerals.
Basalt – road bluemetal.
Scrap iron – nails, horseshoes, wire.
Salt – table salt, hydrochloric acid, halite lamps, magnesium, lithium, barium.
Broken aboriginal artefacts.
Plants and animals.
Water.
Historical rubbish.

What a lot of things to prospect for, and that’s even before starting with minerals.

I wonder if there’s a market for bones. eg. kangaroo, wallaby, rat kangaroo, bilby skeleton or skull. I could prospect for bones.

Get a bowerbird to do it for you.

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Then there’s the issue of what to prospect for. Nearly everything has a value, it’s more a matter of finding something close enough to a market to justify the cost.

For instance,
Pure sand – glass, concrete, brickies loam, fullers Earth.
Clay – for lining dams, pottery, drilling mud.
Limestone – cement, fossils, tabletops, tombstones.
Granite – tabletops, minerals.
Basalt – road bluemetal.
Scrap iron – nails, horseshoes, wire.
Salt – table salt, hydrochloric acid, halite lamps, magnesium, lithium, barium.
Broken aboriginal artefacts.
Plants and animals.
Water.
Historical rubbish.

What a lot of things to prospect for, and that’s even before starting with minerals.

I wonder if there’s a market for bones. eg. kangaroo, wallaby, rat kangaroo, bilby skeleton or skull. I could prospect for bones.

Get a bowerbird to do it for you.

Oh, that’s brilliant. Would these all be wallaby bones?

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

I wonder if there’s a market for bones. eg. kangaroo, wallaby, rat kangaroo, bilby skeleton or skull. I could prospect for bones.

Get a bowerbird to do it for you.

Oh, that’s brilliant. Would these all be wallaby bones?

Or human bones?

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

Get a bowerbird to do it for you.

Oh, that’s brilliant. Would these all be wallaby bones?

Or human bones?

Mostly kangaroo. The spotted bowerbird.

As for air pros[pecting, the Aboriginal women sit there blowing the dust away though a grass stem, drinking straw or biro sheath. As the dust goes the small nuggets are revealed.

roughbarked said:

As for air pros

Wow! With ground like that you would have another gold rush.

PermeateFree said:

roughbarked said:

As for air pros

Wow! With ground like that you would have another gold rush.

From memory, it was a gold rush but there was no water. The prospectors also used wind to sieve.

Was gold valued by Aboriginals before colonisation.
Seems like an indulgence to be interested in shiny stuff but numerous are or where when it served little purpose except as decoration (bar modern technology usage)

Cymek said:

Was gold valued by Aboriginals before colonisation.
Seems like an indulgence to be interested in shiny stuff but numerous are or where when it served little purpose except as decoration (bar modern technology usage)

No.

It was known that nuggets were thrown into deep water to avoid the waypalla finding them.

roughbarked said:

Cymek said:

Was gold valued by Aboriginals before colonisation.
Seems like an indulgence to be interested in shiny stuff but numerous are or where when it served little purpose except as decoration (bar modern technology usage)

No.

It was known that nuggets were thrown into deep water to avoid the waypalla finding them.

Waypalla?

roughbarked said:

Cymek said:

Was gold valued by Aboriginals before colonisation.
Seems like an indulgence to be interested in shiny stuff but numerous are or where when it served little purpose except as decoration (bar modern technology usage)

No.

It was known that nuggets were thrown into deep water to avoid the waypalla finding them.

I still find it weird gold is dug up mostly for jewellery because it’s rare but serves very little actual practical purpose

Witty Rejoinder said:

roughbarked said:

Cymek said:

Was gold valued by Aboriginals before colonisation.
Seems like an indulgence to be interested in shiny stuff but numerous are or where when it served little purpose except as decoration (bar modern technology usage)

No.

It was known that nuggets were thrown into deep water to avoid the waypalla finding them.

Waypalla?

Oh come on witty, even I managed to work out that one….

Say it aloud. It’s sort of pidgin. But not really.

Witty Rejoinder said:

roughbarked said:

Cymek said:

Was gold valued by Aboriginals before colonisation.
Seems like an indulgence to be interested in shiny stuff but numerous are or where when it served little purpose except as decoration (bar modern technology usage)

No.

It was known that nuggets were thrown into deep water to avoid the waypalla finding them.

Waypalla?

Whitefella.

Cymek said:

roughbarked said:

Cymek said:

Was gold valued by Aboriginals before colonisation.
Seems like an indulgence to be interested in shiny stuff but numerous are or where when it served little purpose except as decoration (bar modern technology usage)

No.

It was known that nuggets were thrown into deep water to avoid the waypalla finding them.

I still find it weird gold is dug up mostly for jewellery because it’s rare but serves very little actual practical purpose

You couldn’t be talking to me now without gold.