Quiet gold

G'day, had an unusual occurrence yesterday whilst out detecting and wondering if anyone else has had the same thing happen to em.
Found an area where there's a bit of small shallow gold about and a few sunbakers sitting on a ironstone/laterite flat. Some of the bits I've been getting are down to 0.1 of a gram.
Using a 17 elliptical n/f coupled to a 5000 yesterday I specked a nugget on the deck and then put coil over it, obvious screaming signal followed.
After walking a further 10 metres I specked another nugget sunbaking and put coil over it but no signal!
Picked nugget up, rubbed it on coil, still no signal!
Took it to a mate detecting nearby, he has a 5k also but using an 18 elliptical n/t coil. Dropped nugget onto his coil and still no noise.
The two sunbakers I got are almost identical in size but one has more mass so is a little heavier (.90 grams)
The other nugget is porous, same size as first sunbaker but weighs .30 grams. Yet can't produce a signal.
Tried using a 14 by 9 coil on the quiet nugget and it finally produced a signal. But only just.
I've never had or seen this before.
Settings I used with the 5k were fine gold, 18 gain, 12 stab , audio type normal, search mode general.
I tried using sharp as a soil timing to get a signal but still nothing.
Took some video footage which I'll try to upload over the weekend but will get a pic up for now of the two pieces of gold.

trying to load a pic of the quiet gold Jase found, but having problems. shouldnt be long mate

good one to test on the new Garret, should try it next time your in a shop Jase.

Thanks for that Martin. The bit on the coin is the one that didn't produce a signal

I can tell ya what's wrong.
Ya got the nugget sitting on the Queens head and there's nothing in there to get a signal     
Yeah I know, I'm a bastard       

UTBN & Martin,
This is one reason I don't believe in wasting time air testing etc. If either those bits were in the ground you would have got a signal. Firm believer in the halo effect while gold is resting in ground in its natural state.

When I had the 2100, dropped the ladies fine gold chain on the ground for a test, no signal resulted. Crunched the chain up in a ball still no signal.
Must try again with 4500 and see what happens.

G'day nightjar yep air tests are not accurate. But that nugget on the coin is not detectable with the 17 eliiptical or the 18 elliptical.
The 17 should pick it up very easily but in this instance it simply won't even with nugget being rubbed on coil.
Over the weekend I'll get a video up which will show it.
Anyone wanna place a wager with me who could get a signal via a 17 with it?
I'll bet 20 bucks a go

you didnt have the 5k in "leaveright" mode did ya Jase?   

Leaverightalone, she's the queen    
sorry Jase, I can't say I've picked up a piece like that.  It looks like gold but if a signal was hard to get maybe get it analyzed for content.
it'll be interesting to see the result.

PS.  I can see it now, the queens an air head and doesn't give off a signal    

Would also be interesting to see what is left after leaving that one in acid, may be gaps all through it.
I have come across gold that the 5000 won't pick up, yet a vlf will, usually in specimens with fine bits of gold in it though.

It is weird when you can find match head sized gold with the 5000, yet something like that nugget doesn't register  

We've had the same thing happen, a nice little nugget that didn't give a signal, June thought her detector or coil were playing up but it was just the gold as  my detector also wouldn't pick it up.

Bignuggs wrote:I can tell ya what's wrong.
Ya got the nugget sitting on the Queens head and there's nothing in there to get a signal     
Yeah I know, I'm a bastard       

Oh well... there goes your knighthood  

Robert

UTBN wrote:G'day nightjar yep air tests are not accurate. But that nugget on the coin is not detectable with the 17 eliiptical or the 18 elliptical.
The 17 should pick it up very easily but in this instance it simply won't even with nugget being rubbed on coil.
Over the weekend I'll get a video up which will show it.
Anyone wanna place a wager with me who could get a signal via a 17 with it?
I'll bet 20 bucks a go

Sorry if ive misread the posts & its a silly question .......

Have you buried ( 1" or 2 ) the targets & waved over them ?

you should sell that nugget to Minelab Jase. (for millions lol) then they could then make a frequency that detected that type of gold for there 6000, same as those species.

martinjsto wrote:you should sell that nugget to Minelab Jase. (for millions lol) then they could then make a frequency that detected that type of gold for there 6000, same as those species.

Haha geez I'd take a carton for it. Was hoping to take some bets with this bit I've showed a few prospectors the bit that's undetectable with a 17 and 18 in coil and so far each person has said the same thing.
'Your settings'. I've let em try their settings and still nothing.

i found a good explanation on how bunching fine gold together in a vial doesnt produce a signal but nothing on a nugget, a nugget has enough mass to generate a field where as each individual piece of fine gold doesnt so adding those fine bits together wont increase its individual fields therefor no signal. strange that there isnt a signal with that piece, i  have seen the pieces you have detected smaller than that Jase, i have a piece less than 0.1g detected with the standard 11 inch mono on the 5k. very puzzling..

from Steve Herschbach on the AKmining forum

Quote:
It is best to think of metal detectors made for prospecting as "nugget detectors" as that is the truth of the matter.

Metal detectors are electromagnetic devices, and as such can detect items that are conductive and non-magnetic, like gold, or non-conductive but magnetic, like magnetite. Or both, like metallic iron.

When dealing with gold you are dealing only with conductivity. The more conductive the mass, the easier it is to detect. In general what this means is bigger is better. Any detector has a limit to how small an item it can detect.

Here is the kicker. Multiple undetectable targets do not add up to create a detectable target. I do not know how many times I've seen or been told of people throwing a vial of small gold on the ground and running a detector over it and declaring the detector will not find gold because it does not pick up the vial of gold.

Let us say that on a scale of 0-10 zero represents an undetectable piece of gold, and 10 one that really beeps. 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 still equals zero. So lots of tiny gold is just as undetectable as a single piece of tiny gold. You need a single conductive mass.

Fine gold usually has a coating, and putting a bunch of fine gold in a vial still results in little or no signal. If the gold is super clean and packed tightly you will get a weak signal. Melt it all together, and now it goes beep.

Another way to look at it is take some fine gold and pour it in a pile. Get a multimeter and test your little pile of gold for conductivity. It is hard to get much current if any through a loose pile of gold.

So bottom line is you might have 5 ounces of fine gold right under your feet, and you will walk right over it with your metal detector.

Jewelry hunters run into this when trying to detect lost necklaces. A fine chain is very hard to detect as each link is undetectable and the connection between the links is poor enough the signals does not add up to much. Often all you can detect is the clasp.

Now once an item is detectable, it does add up. Two large nuggets in the same spot are easier to detect than each by itself. If each link in the gold chain can be detected, then it will add up into a more detectable target.
End Quote:

MMM maybe a 6" coiltek or a 8" commander will nail it.

then u should try the Gold Bug 2 or the Eureka Gold which are clean up machines that find gold were the rest can not.

regards
oneday

Yep ray small coils will get it as we tried a 14 elliptical yestday. But it only just made a signal rubbing nugget on actual coil.
I'll try the gb2 and couple other coils once I'm in town.

I picked up a gold chain at the beach with my 3030, only reason i got it was it had charms on it.
One of the best detectors on chains is the very underrated Tesoro Compadre, by all accounts it is deadly on chains.

cheers
Darren

This little piece is quite porous - must be some sort of inductive theory issue.

My guess maybe the 5000 is generating a number of circulating currents within the conductive nugget opposing themselves thus cancelling out any strong return signal generated by the pulse injection it receives compared to a more solid piece of a similar size.

or maybe the 5000 is only picking up return signals out of phase with each other (-++-) which cancel each out through its ground balancing circuit

Definately one for the techo boys at ML to give us all an idea is happening.

MAYBE TURN OFF THE iNVERTED SIGNAL--

regards
Oneday

Heya oneday, I put response from inverted to normal but still nothing. I also tried me pro patch finder coil and nothing from that coil too. I'll prolly take nuggiedreamers advice and just send the nugget into minelab if they care to take a look.

Jase There is a write up in the latest ggt mag from our old mate cat about the same thing he had a whole patch of fine speci gold that the gpx could not detect but the vlf machines could also reckoned that the new pi garret could ping them.
Might be worth running over your patch with a vlf?

Cheers Tom

Ahh was that the leonora patch? If so, the initial finder a tassie fella told me bout that. Ggt shoulda got his story too.