Precious Metas Flotation

Last summer I found an old river channel, digging down a couple of feet came across a layer of sandstone of which I brought a few pails full with me to the Island. Bored this afternoon decided to grab an handful to play with.

Breaking up the sandstone then panning some out the sample looks promising with little wee gold flakes, I'll be sending a sample out for an assay if this assay comes back with promising results I will return to my summer haunt to work this area.

I left my centrifuge at a friends place, all it need to be operational is a V-belt and a new battery for the gasoline engine.

From the sandstone sample added some soap then made suds, the beautiful colours floating on top of the bubbles are precious metals but only an assay will reveal their species.

On the bottom photo the bits reflecting camera flash are also precious metals, precious metals do not oxide so they retain their brilliance which enables them to reflect light from the bright camera flash.

Wish me luck fellow scrappers as living on a pension sucks.

Alloy, I do always enjoy your next adventure. Hope everything looks promising. I look forward to the next installment.
Hard to put a racing stallion out to pasture.


PS: I have went back and read about the "crane truck" adventure more than once. Not something you hear about every day.

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

Alloy, I do always enjoy your next adventure. Hope everything looks promising. I look forward to the next installment.
Hard to put a racing stallion out to pasture.


PS: I have went back and read about the "crane truck" adventure more than once. Not something you hear about every day.

Thanks Mechanic688, when I built that car trailer from recycled materials I did not have any expectations, the trailer was built out of boredom. I was very surprised that I was able to earn enough money to equip the trailer with a 10,000 lb electric winch within a few short weeks then the grand slam buying the crane truck the following spring all from money earned with that home built trailer.

It took a long time for those planks coming from the hog barn that I used to deck the trailer to lose their smell.

One lesson learned from all the converters I managed to collect and mill into powder is that country roads create dust so fine some passes through the air filter, this fine dust abrades the precious metals wash coat from the cat comb sending it out the tail pipe. My cats assayed half that of a city cat that spent its live on pavement.

If the current sample proves to be worthwhile I'm going to pull the Mitsubishi diesel and transmission from my boat along with a few other goodies then donate the boat to a local non profit looking for boat donations. The tax receipt may come in handy.

On a side note I found an 1989 Toyota 4x4, a California vehicle that is totally rust and dent free for a couple hundred dollars, the only thing I do not like about the truck is the V6 engine and would have preferred the 22R four banger.

The California engine is probably detuned with all that anti pollution crap.

I hope whatever you found turns out to be gold. But it's probably not.

Gold, when found in it's organic, natural state if alluvial, meaning if it's gold that came from a deposit like quartz, and ended up getting washed out into a river, etc. Alluvial gold almost never has hard edges, it's more rounded looking. Also, gold, unless deposited in certain ways, is almost never shiny, but rather almost a dully buttery color. The gold flecks in your pan look more like pyrite, but having the material assayed, not just the gold, will what really tells the story. Gold may sometimes be found with Pyrite ores, it could be gold sulfide which would have to be tested to prove out.

Anyway, enjoyed the story and I hope everything pans out for you, pun totally intended. =)

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

I hope whatever you found turns out to be gold. But it's probably not.

Gold, when found in it's organic, natural state if alluvial, meaning if it's gold that came from a deposit like quartz, and ended up getting washed out into a river, etc. Alluvial gold almost never has hard edges, it's more rounded looking. Also, gold, unless deposited in certain ways, is almost never shiny, but rather almost a dully buttery color. The gold flecks in your pan look more like pyrite, but having the material assayed, not just the gold, will what really tells the story. Gold may sometimes be found with Pyrite ores, it could be gold sulfide which would have to be tested to prove out.

Anyway, enjoyed the story and I hope everything pans out for you, pun totally intended. =)

Scott

So true Scott only an assay will reveal the truth, as a preliminary pre process prior to assay I'm removing base metals from the sample then using a more aggressive leach cemented with copper should the copper show blacks I'll know this material warrants the cost of an assay.

From a previous assay via XRF from the ready mix plant in the same local which showed a significant amount of platinum. I'm not expecting any gold from the current sample but rather metals from the platinum group, hopefully one or more of the three species from the six platinum sisters that refinery's pay out on.

Johnson Mathey is to my knowledge the only refinery that pays out on all six of the platinum sisters but you need to be able to ship large quantity’s of concentrates with some regularity to qualify as a customer.

The current sample is a incomplete formed sandstone that once broken down and washed has a lot of milky white quartz with visible white metallics attached.

As any other prospector I would love to find my Eldorado, in the meantime I have learned to cope with disappointment.

A fool and his money are soon parted, prospecting keeps me broke but happy.

Originally Posted by alloy2

So true Scott only an assay will reveal the truth, as a preliminary pre process to assay I'm removing base metals from the sample then using a more aggressive leach cemented with copper should the copper show blacks I'll know this material warrants the cost of an assay.

From a previous assay via XRF from the ready mix plant in the same local which showed a significant amount of platinum. I'm not expecting any gold from the current sample but rather metals from the platinum group, hopefully one or more of the three species from the six platinum sisters that refinery's pay out on.

Johnson Mathey is to my knowledge the only refinery that pays out on all six of the platinum sisters but you need to be able to ship large quantity’s of concentrates with some regularity to qualify as a customer.

The current sample is a incomplete formed sandstone that once broken down and washed has a lot of milky white quartz with visible white metallics attached.

As any other prospector I would love to find my Eldorado, in the meantime I have learned to cope with disappointment.

A fool and his money are soon parted, prospecting keeps me broke but happy.

Well, there is only one place in the entire United States where you might expect very little gold, but are expecting more than one of the PGMs. Not that they are not often found together, because that's what PGMs just are, often together, but the deposits around the world are very few in number. If you are expecting your ore to have PGMs, then I might guess where you are, if in the United States.

If that is where you are currently finding your material, then it could possibly be very interesting indeed.

Johnson Mathey doesn't want to get caught up in the "tweeker" business, where people are stealing catalytic converters from cars, and then selling them directly to Johnson Mathey by the singles or doubles. Requiring people to have an established business, and able to prove it, and having a certain minimum amount before they will even talk with you weeds out certain customers. But there are plenty of Refiners on GRF that would be interested in refining it for you I'm sure. It's not often some of them are exposed to geologically virgin PGM ores. You might find there would be a lot of interest.

Be careful with XRF, it's only as good as the technology, but it can also lead you the wrong way. For example, Pb has a few closely related isotopes with Pt, and so does Tantalum and a few others. You can easily get a false hit on Pt, Pd, Rh, etc. To get a better view, and understanding of your ore, you might want to ask the operator to explain the graph of the isotopes for you. A good operator can show you where one hit is closely related to another metal totally different. And also remember that the XRF is only reading the very first atomic layers of whatever you test with the technology. Fire assay is probably best. But then again, you probably already know all this. =P

If you find any PGMs, will you please post it here. I would be particularly interested. Please post anyways, now that I am caught up in the story, I would love to see you prove out PGMs. It would make for an amazing story.

Just as an explanation, PGMs = Platinum Group Metals, those would include Pt (Platinum) Pd (Palladium) Rh (Rhodium) usually. Hit one and there is almost certainly very small amounts of the others. But it could also mean Ru (Ruthenium), Os Osmium and Ir (Iridium). XRF is a type of technology where an x-ray beam is shot at material, and the results read. Some are very sophisticated, some are built for exploration, some are just cheap knock offs. Some really good, and some not so much, but it is used commonly to quickly assay material for values or even toxic metals, etc.

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

Well, there is only one place in the entire United States where you might expect very little gold, but are expecting more than one of the PGMs. Not that they are not often found together, because that's what PGMs just are, often together, but the deposits around the world are very few in number. If you are expecting your ore to have PGMs, then I might guess where you are, if in the United States.

If that is where you are currently finding your material, then it could possibly be very interesting indeed.

Johnson Mathey doesn't want to get caught up in the "tweeker" business, where people are stealing catalytic converters from cars, and then selling them directly to Johnson Mathey by the singles or doubles. Requiring people to have an established business, and able to prove it, and having a certain minimum amount before they will even talk with you weeds out certain customers. But there are plenty of Refiners on GRF that would be interested in refining it for you I'm sure. It's not often some of them are exposed to geologically virgin PGM ores. You might find there would be a lot of interest.

Be careful with XRF, it's only as good as the technology, but it can also lead you the wrong way. For example, Pb has a few closely related isotopes with Pt, and so does Tantalum and a few others. You can easily get a false hit on Pt, Pd, Rh, etc. To get a better view, and understanding of your ore, you might want to ask the operator to explain the graph of the isotopes for you. A good operator can show you where one hit is closely related to another metal totally different. And also remember that the XRF is only reading the very first atomic layers of whatever you test with the technology. Fire assay is probably best. But then again, you probably already know all this. =P

If you find any PGMs, will you please post it here. I would be particularly interested. Please post anyways, now that I am caught up in the story, I would love to see you prove out PGMs. It would make for an amazing story.

Just as an explanation, PGMs = Platinum Group Metals, those would include Pt (Platinum) Pd (Palladium) Rh (Rhodium) usually. Hit one and there is almost certainly very small amounts of the others. But it could also mean Ru (Ruthenium), Os Osmium and Ir (Iridium). XRF is a type of technology where an x-ray beam is shot at material, and the results read. Some are very sophisticated, some are built for exploration, some are just cheap knock offs. Some really good, and some not so much, but it is used commonly to quickly assay material for values or even toxic metals, etc.

Scott

The ready mix sample from the wash plant settling ponds was tested by a major player buying and de canning cats in British Colombia who ship directly to Stillwater. They calibrate their XRF once a week not to say it not without faults. They shot three individual buttons from the sample provided,, parts per million varied from a low of 14ppm to a high of 17ppm.

The XRF report revealed something in the nature of 23 elements, iron was out of sight with 44,000 ppm with a good showing for titanium at or near 6,000 ppm but not enough to refine as titanium refining titanium is a very expensive process which is why titanium is so expensive to purchase.

The owner of the ready mix plant is past retirement age and does not want to invest in the necessary equipment to recover the precious metals and for the very same reason I'm retired with little to no funds to invest in a project where one of us may soon expire or new management taking over the ready mix operation. I choose to abandon the project.

The material in the wash plant pits is fine silty stuff no milling required, I did find a flotation cell located in Kamloops BC that could be had for $22,000.00, the initial price is all right but after you add in three shifts to keep the plant running plus other cost factors it made sense to let this deal die a natural death.

B.C. is well known for platinum especially in the Tulimean and Colemont area naer Princeton BC with the river water from the watershed flowing east then south at Keromeios into the USA. Then we have the Coqahalla River watershed flowing west into the mighty Fraser at Hope BC.

From this google map, look for Haig then follow the larger river ( Fraser ) towards Dogwood in the middle you will see a lake which is a remnant of our glacial period, also directly behind Hiag you will notice a valley cut from the glacier. once the mighty glacier began to melt this became river channel now that the river has receded there are riches to be found in areas such as this.

I believe Highway 1 on the map is built on old river channel, directly below the landfill site nearby a few guys were getting a lot of gold from the Fraser until the railway refused them a rail crossing to access their claim.

Recently a hard rock claim was staked up the Silver Skagit Valley and is now producing. I wanted to visit this mine but never made the trip perhaps next spring or summer.

The ready mix plant gets its gravel from the Coqahalla area,I can picture an ancient glacier grinding away at the mountains leaving treasure behind during its advance towards the pacific ocean.

I not only tested material from the wash plant but back tracked to the source, it's a beautiful pit made up from glacial till, I would love to get to bedrock.

The old channel I'm excited about is not from the Coqahalla, but from the Fraser.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.39650.../data=!3m1!1e3

Well you certainly know what you are talking about. Thank you for explaining all of that, it's very interesting. I was assuming you were in the United States, I was totally discounting Canada.

I'm currently working with a concentrate, where the PGMs are locked up in another mineral, I'm showing good results and getting ready to send out samples for ICP analysis. I already have a basic process in place where established smelters, and/or other processors might be used for parts of the process, there are a lot of people who would happily do this type of work for you. It can be expensive, but you don't have to do 90% of the work, specially employing the right people which can be a huge mess.

If you can prove out the metals, specially if they are PGMs, I would like to talk with you about what your options might be, and who knows maybe there is an opportunity there.

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

Well you certainly know what you are talking about. Thank you for explaining all of that, it's very interesting. I was assuming you were in the United States, I was totally discounting Canada.

I'm currently working with a concentrate, where the PGMs are locked up in another mineral, I'm showing good results and getting ready to send out samples for ICP analysis. I already have a basic process in place where established smelters, and/or other processors might be used for parts of the process, there are a lot of people who would happily do this type of work for you. It can be expensive, but you don't have to do 90% of the work, specially employing the right people which can be a huge mess.

If you can prove out the metals, specially if they are PGMs, I would like to talk with you about what your options might be, and who knows maybe there is an opportunity there.

Scott

Thanks Scott I wish you the best with your current project, contact Stillwater in Montana for your PGM's they'll want a hefty sample for an in house assay. I use American Analytical for my ICP assays the price is reasonable at $25.00 for gold and each pt element and the turn around is very fast, they will email your results.

Here's another surprise, I recommended to another fellow to use AA he wanted to know the value of a certain catalytic converter group, when his assay came back it had shown positive for gold. Knowing the source material thought this can not be, the sample had to have been contaminated or AA screwed up, he once again contacted AA with his concerns, AA keeps the remainder of the client sample on file in case of a dispute. They ran the sample again and I'll be ****ed the gold was there in cat comb,

AA did not charge to assay the second referee which was also done by another technician, I like the checks and balances they have placed upon themselves, truly a professional laboratory. .

The only logical conclusion I could arrive to was that the OEM is using a very poorly refined PT liquor from e-wast as the wash coat in the manufacture of new cats.

Had a few more finds last summer that had showed positive for gold one site had selenium and arsenic, the other site the gold was tied up with tellurium an element no refinery will take on.

I tried to refine a small lot myself and found out why, the tellurium willingly goes into the leach liquor but freezes or rather becomes jello like upon filtering then eventually turning the liquor in the catch vessel below the filter into jello. From the reluctance of any refinery I contacted to process this material I can only surmise that a little bit goes a long ways into fouling the refining circuit.

I'm told that roasting the ore will volatilise the tellurium, I have no desire to mother nature or my neighbours to toxic fumes any more than I would cut into a fully charged air conditioner to evacuate freon or spill oil all over the ground we have to work within our means in q responsible manor or farm the job out to those who are capable.

It was a very trying summer, glad I purchased the motorcycle riding helped me forget what I had to abandon, prospecting can be fraught with a lot of unforeseen problems with money being the least of your worries.

Just when you think your found the mother load something like tellurium can kill your dreams of riches, I no longer count my chickens before they hatch.

A hundred years ago roasting out tellurium may have been an acceptable practice.

I love prospecting more than working e-waste, best advice I could give is to sell your material.

Just before last Xmass I purchased 276 pounds of gold fingered ram one 45 gallon drum full to the brim, I ball milled the ram boards with chips whole any gold on the boards was abraded free leaving the nickel underlay unscathed, the surface mounted caps and ram chips all into dust.

it took me three months to process, my precious metals recovery 1 gr per pound of ram, I'm holding onto the blacks in hopes the precious metals market will recover, it would have been in my best interest with the most financial gain to have sold the ram on ebay in 20lb lots.

Scott I enjoy your presence and willingness to jump into this thread, if you would like to contact me in a more private manor my email address is gelmgren gmail

As for refining I'll only generalise on what I'm doing other than that I will give specifics on recovery such as I mentioned above by abrading the gold free from ram boards. I've researched using a water soluble abrasive to remove the gold and found that a borax derivative may work. If the borax derivative worked it would be way cool to liquefy your spent abrasive in warm water then pass the liquor through a filter capturing the gold.

The abrasive could be reused over and over via evaporating and drying then recrystallising.

Originally Posted by alloy2

Thanks Scott I wish you the best with your current project, contact Stillwater in Montana for your PGM's they'll want a hefty sample for an in house assay. I use American Analytical for my ICP assays the price is reasonable at $25.00 for gold and each pt element and the turn around is very fast, they will email your results.

Here's another surprise, I recommended to another fellow to use AA he wanted to know the value of a certain catalytic converter group, when his assay came back it had shown positive for gold. Knowing the source material thought this can not be, the sample had to have been contaminated or AA screwed up, he once again contacted AA with his concerns, AA keeps the remainder of the client sample on file in case of a dispute. They ran the sample again and I'll be ****ed the gold was there in cat comb,

AA did not charge to assay the second referee which was also done by another technician, I like the checks and balances they have placed upon themselves, truly a professional laboratory. .

The only logical conclusion I could arrive to was that the OEM is using a very poorly refined PT liquor from e-wast as the wash coat in the manufacture of new cats.

Had a few more finds last summer that had showed positive for gold one site had selenium and arsenic, the other site the gold was tied up with tellurium an element no refinery will take on.

I tried to refine a small lot myself and found out why, the tellurium willingly goes into the leach liquor but freezes or rather becomes jello like upon filtering then eventually turning the liquor in the catch vessel below the filter into jello. From the reluctance of any refinery I contacted to process this material I can only surmise that a little bit goes a long ways into fouling the refining circuit.

I'm told that roasting the ore will volatilise the tellurium, I have no desire to mother nature or my neighbours to toxic fumes any more than I would cut into a fully charged air conditioner to evacuate freon or spill oil all over the ground we have to work within our means in q responsible manor or farm the job out to those who are capable.

It was a very trying summer, glad I purchased the motorcycle riding helped me forget what I had to abandon, prospecting can be fraught with a lot of unforeseen problems with money being the least of your worries.

Just when you think your found the mother load something like tellurium can kill your dreams of riches, I no longer count my chickens before they hatch.

A hundred years ago roasting out tellurium may have been an acceptable practice.

I love prospecting more than working e-waste, best advice I could give is to sell your material.

Just before last Xmass I purchased 276 pounds of gold fingered ram one 45 gallon drum full to the brim, I ball milled the ram boards with chips whole any gold on the boards was abraded free leaving the nickel underlay unscathed, the surface mounted caps and ram chips all into dust.

it took me three months to process, my precious metals recovery 1 gr per pound of ram, I'm holding onto the blacks in hopes the precious metals market will recover, it would have been in my best interest with the most financial gain to have sold the ram on ebay in 20lb lots.

Scott I enjoy your presence and willingness to jump into this thread, if you would like to contact me in a more private manor my email address is gelmgren gmail

As for refining I'll only generalise on what I'm doing other than that I will give specifics on recovery such as I mentioned above by abrading the gold free from ram boards. I've researched using a water soluble abrasive to remove the gold and found that a borax derivative may work. If the borax derivative worked it would be way cool to liquefy your spent abrasive in warm water then pass the liquor through a filter capturing the gold.

The abrasive could be reused over and over via evaporating and drying then recrystallising.

You're doing some very interesting things!

What did the tellurium ore assay at? If it's recoverable, and the cost//benefit is right, we might be able to work something out. I run a dry fume scrubber, industrial size for a factory, that very well might be the answer to roasting the ore if it is worth the effort.

If the cons I'm currently working on prove out to be anything close to what XRF reads, then it will be one for the books. Personally, I am not seeing some of the things I would like to see, so I think some of it is mis-reads. It has assayed all over the place, but considering where the tailings are that the material comes from, it might be possible because they are so concentrated. Tons of iron in a mineral form that requires roasting, and I'm still getting 0. So if you have a high recover/ton ore, I might have a solution and might even have the right people to put together to fund something like that.

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

You're doing some very interesting things!

What did the tellurium ore assay at? If it's recoverable, and the cost//benefit is right, we might be able to work something out. I run a dry fume scrubber, industrial size for a factory, that very well might be the answer to roasting the ore if it is worth the effort.

If the cons I'm currently working on prove out to be anything close to what XRF reads, then it will be one for the books. Personally, I am not seeing some of the things I would like to see, so I think some of it is mis-reads. It has assayed all over the place, but considering where the tailings are that the material comes from, it might be possible because they are so concentrated. Tons of iron in a mineral form that requires roasting, and I'm still getting 0. So if you have a high recover/ton ore, I might have a solution and might even have the right people to put together to fund something like that.

Scott

Scott

Nice offer Scott but I'm committed to working with my own funds any loose is bourne to me alone.

The old river channel that has captured my interest had a nice gravel deposit on it, the gravel was used on a highway project many years ago, when the pit owners got down to the sand layer underneath the gravel the pit was considered to be of no further use. A friend of mine purchased the property, he had a water well drilled, the driller went 15 ft before hitting bedrock at his chosen location.

This is not to say the entire area has 15 feet of over burden, some of which may contain values as fines, the real value if any exists will be laying on bedrock. Always the dreamer.

I would use a centrifuge to recover values from the fines, then after some money has been banked purchase a flotation cell to add into the flow circuit to capture what the centrifuge is not capable of.

The 12 inch centrifuge I have almost completed can process 160 lbs a minute.

From the collected concentrates I would then process via pyrometallurgy - smelting. The end results would be humongous and consistent making this material excellent refinery material.

We already have a Bobcat with a hoe attachment, and I have already expressed my interest in purchasing an older excavator from the ready mix plant owner. It's a neat old GSW with a Deutz air cooled diesel, I used this machine free of charge at my scrap yard for five years. The engine is strong and the hydraulics are good the undercarriage is well worn. Did nicely at my scrap yard as the machine never had to move any great distances and I figure the same situation working this project applies. Besides I'm expert at putting a track back on.

I never had an assay done on the tellurium gold complex as I knew the source, the complex came from a CN heap leach pond of which there were four, the liquor tested with silver nitrate for free CN which proved to be safe to proceed.

The black sludge used in the test sample was sucked from the bottom using a bilge pump my biggest fear was drowning which may have influenced me to post that crazy youtube video of those guys jumping into the wild ocean.

I have no further interest in pursuing this project. It has become just another tall tail, a memory to add to my book of adventures.

The xrf assay from the ready mix plant, then a photo of the wash plant and pit.

Years ago the Ready Mix plant got gravel from the river bars during low water, fisheries stopped issuing permits so the owner of the plant purchased the property from which the gravel is now extracted to make ready mix concrete. In order to make a quality product the fines clinging to the gravel are first washed off in the wash plant.

The coarser heavier stuff settles out in the first pond with the finer silt flowing over to a second pit which is much larger the larger size allows the finer silt to settle out before the water flows into a third pit to be recycled through the plant.

Looking at the face of the gravel directly in front of the loader you can visualise a valley filed with glacial till, would love to see bedrock. Also to further investigate the pit property core samples should be taken from the rock face to the left of the loader, this face has promise.

The assay is from the coarser heavier material from the first pit.

You can learn more from an assay than just how many part per million, you can back track. For instance the watershed from which this gravel pit is located also has a mine further up the Coqahalla called Caroline. The Caroline is perhaps 15 miles from the gravel pit site but both have one thing in common, the Caroline was well known for its high arsenic content in the ore.

Now we will notice from the assay arsenic reports from a low of 23 ppm to a high of 26 ppm, since the gravel pit was deposited by glacier we can safely assume the ice sheet traversed from east to west scrapping hard rock along the way liberating values.

I was not able to obtain a sample for assay from the second wash plant pit until a week later when the plant was shut down and allowed to drain so that the ponds could be cleaned out, Once I was able to access the second pond grabbed some samples to play with in a make shift flotation cell, what I found is that yes there is some visible gold


With out relying on an assay on the 2nd pit, we'll have to rely on experience, gold is a very soft metal the glacier would have ground the metal into a very fine powder, the fine powder is in prospecting terms called flour or float. In other words light enough to travel over to the second wash plant pit.

To further support my theory the glacial deposit in the gravel pit we can assume did not travel some 15 miles from where the Caroline mine is located of which arsenic is documented, From the assay we are able to see both the gravel pit and Caroline have one thing on common arsenic.

If I were younger and more ambitious I would be out there investigating the 15 miles mountain range between the gravel pit and Caroline.

traveling up the Hope Princeton Hwy towards Sunshine valley which by the way has a separate watershed the water travels from east to west eventually meeting up with the Fraser. Just before the Hope slide another gravel pit, from which I took sample and had an XRF assay done on the results no arsenic at all with a very high titanium content five time higher than the Ready Mix assay.

The Sunshine Valley is south of the Coqahalla valley from where the gravel pit is located, from the Hope slide gravel pit assay we know were off the gold trail.

Now you know why assays are not shared with outside interests. Gleaning information from the minerals and tittles office IMHO a waste of time as most claim owners hold on speculation.

The earth vibrates, every time a tectonic plate shifts or an earth quake or volcano makes its presence known the earth reacts.

Have you ever stood on a beach rapidly changing your weight from one foot to the another the sand soon becomes fluid if you kept it up you would be soon be down to your knees.

It is through these earth vibrations that cause the heavier metals find their way down to bedrock.

Another well documented fact the gold deposits along the west coast are predominantly north to south the tectonic plates pushed up from beneath the ocean travelled from west to east creating the various mountain ranges running north to south . Over the eons mother nature with her various forms of erosion liberate the precious metals within the plates.

If your able to read the mountain sides and rocks you could very well become a wealthy hard rock miner as not all the metals of value have yet been liberated.

I have one question to which I'll never receive an answer to, this is a generalisation of my thoughts form the time our earth was born the tectonic plates and other forces such as volcanic have all made their precious metals deposits in what we see locally as mountain ranges. A great majority of the metals from these ranges have been ground to a pulp, the pulp finds its way back to the ocean to settle in the lower reaches covered with silt and other debris until enough weight has been applied to create a new tectonic plate.

How many times have these metals been recycled, if civilization ceased to exist eventually everything would end up in the oceans to be recycled.

The only unrecoverable material man has created is all the space garbage which is mostly metal upon re-entering earth’s atmosphere is burned up.Perhaps not lost forever the gas's from combustion will perhaps travel to far off places to create a new sun or star.

An earth quake can turn soil into a fluid mass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_liquefaction

BASF lists spot price on all the sisters. BASF Catalysts - Metal Prices

This url opens up a five year chart, pick your metal then update the chart