The Story of Lori, Chapter 2

[ChrissyRyan]

Lori,


Is there much gold in US gold coins of the past?  $5, $10, $20 coins?  Other denominations?
Ever find any with your metal detector?



Chrissy

[Lori Dee ✅]

Lori,


Is there much gold in US gold coins of the past?  $5, $10, $20 coins?  Other denominations?
Ever find any with your metal detector?

Chrissy

Most U.S. gold coins are about 90% gold, I think. I think Gold Eagles were slightly higher, like 92%. I only know of one that is pure gold (99.99%): an Indian Head/Buffalo one-ounce coin. That would have been a commemorative coin. Coins that are intended to be circulated as currency need to be stronger than pure gold, so they alloy it with copper, nickel, or something.

I have never found one with my metal detector. I have found a LOT of modern coins from pennies to half-dollars, and a few lucky finds of silver dimes and quarters (pre-1964). I would love to find a cache of silver dollars buried somewhere, but no luck yet.

[Stottie Girl]

Most U.S. gold coins are about 90% gold, I think. I think Gold Eagles were slightly higher, like 92%. I only know of one that is pure gold (99.99%): an Indian Head/Buffalo one-ounce coin. That would have been a commemorative coin. Coins that are intended to be circulated as currency need to be stronger than pure gold, so they alloy it with copper, nickel, or something.

I have never found one with my metal detector. I have found a LOT of modern coins from pennies to half-dollars, and a few lucky finds of silver dimes and quarters (pre-1964). I would love to find a cache of silver dollars buried somewhere, but no luck yet.

I've heard a few people mention pennies over in the states. Is that from before you got independence from us? I'm assuming there isn't another sub-divsion of US currency I'm not aware of?

[ChrissyRyan]

The US cent was first made in 1787. 

[ChrissyRyan]

Currently, there will be no more cents produced for general circulation except for collector editions. 

[Stottie Girl]

Yes, but a cent isn't a pennie. Where do the pennies come from?

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

A specific rock type is not necessarily a good indicator of gold presence. It is true that gold and quartz often travel together, but quartz is the second-most common mineral on the planet. So finding quartz does not indicate gold. But when you find gold, quartz is often there too.

I wrote a Gold Prospecting Field Guide that explains it. Check out my website, click the globe icon in my profile.)

The way gold is formed deep in the Earth is the same as many other minerals, especially heavy minerals (metals like silver, iron, lead, etc.). These are then forced up through cracks in the rock, and when they cool, they form mineral veins. Quartz is a hard crystal, so it fractures easily, making it a good host for gold and silver veins to form.


😁

I'm pretty sure that tin and copper ore was primarily found in big quartz veins when mining in Cornwall UK. I saw loads of mineshafts and the chimneys from smelting ore when I went years ago. Quartz is definitely very common.

Charlotte 😻

[Lori Dee ✅]

Yes, pennies are 1-cent coins, properly named the U.S. Cent because they are 1/100th of a dollar. That is one per cent.

Chrissy is correct that Trump has ordered the U.S. Mint to stop making them. It is something that has been discussed for decades because it costs more to make them than they are worth.

So it is fair to say that the Trump Administration removed all sense (cents) from the American Government.

[KristaFairchild]

A specific rock type is not necessarily a good indicator of gold presence. It is true that gold and quartz often travel together, but quartz is the second-most common mineral on the planet. So finding quartz does not indicate gold. But when you find gold, quartz is often there too.

I wrote a Gold Prospecting Field Guide that explains it. Check out my website, click the globe icon in my profile.)

The way gold is formed deep in the Earth is the same as many other minerals, especially heavy minerals (metals like silver, iron, lead, etc.). These are then forced up through cracks in the rock, and when they cool, they form mineral veins. Quartz is a hard crystal, so it fractures easily, making it a good host for gold and silver veins to form.

So what you are looking for is rock that has a lot of mineralization: dark, rusty, corroded looking. The more mineralization, the better the odds that gold is one of them. That could occur in igneous (volcanic) rock, or metamorphic rock (like granite). A lot of miners make the mistake of assuming those are the only places to find gold, and that is not true.

As those rocks erode and fall apart, they eventually wind up in a river. Because these are heavy minerals, they tend to collect in the same areas. Over time, they can become a part of sedimentary rock.

When I am scouting a new area, I use my metal detector in and out of the river. It will detect gold flakes, but most river gold is too fine to locate that way. Instead, I watch for lead (bullets, fishing sinkers, birdshot, etc.) or iron. Since they are heavy, the places they collect are the places where gold will settle because gold is twice as heavy as lead.

So how do glaciers fit in? North of the area I am looking at are many mines that were the state's top gold producers. They are under claim, so I can't mine there. They are mining the gold veins in the rock. When the glaciers came through long before those mines were there, the ice scraped those rocks and the bedrock below, and pushed that material into an area where I can prospect. So, I look for the edges of the moraine and where that till was piled up. It turns out that people have been digging gold out of that ground since the 1870s and are still doing so today. I want to be one of them.

😁

Totally geeking out on geology in this post. Thinking about placer mining that was common in my area and hydraulic mining. Forgive for this, but I have to dig into igneous rich science (see what I did there? 😉)

I love extrusive (volcanic) igneous rock that I never saw when I lived in areas previously covered with glaciers. Nearby we have an obsidian mountain and I often drive to a place with 33 cinder cones and mounds of basalt in all forms. Yet there is something magic about the crystals that form in intrusive (plutonic) rock when it cooks underground and is later exposed by weathering and erosion. The slower it cools, the bigger the crystals. I once climbed over a crystal as big as me. 

Then if that rock is squished under tremendous heat and pressure from tectonic or volcanic action even more magic happens. It's so gneiss!

Gold. Whatever. It's just another mineral to me, but I do like the searching part. Seeking out rare minerals or fossils is fun and always brings rewards! 

[Stottie Girl]

Yes, pennies are 1-cent coins, properly named the U.S. Cent because they are 1/100th of a dollar. That is one per cent.

Chrissy is correct that Trump has ordered the U.S. Mint to stop making them. It is something that has been discussed for decades because it costs more to make them than they are worth.

So it is fair to say that the Trump Administration removed all sense (cents) from the American Government.

Well I never knew 1 cent was called a penny. Bit weird given that's our currency.

[Stottie Girl]

There is a massive igneous intrusion of Dolerite in Northumberland and Durham called The Whinn Sill. A lot of our fortifications were built along it's length including the Roman Wall plus Bamburgh , Lindisfarne and Dunstanburgh Castles.
There was a lot of lead mining in the area and some of the rare crystals found during the mining are on display in our local natural history museum. They are quite beautiful.

[Lori Dee ✅]

One formation that has always fascinated me is Devil's Tower in Wyoming. If you are old enough, you might remember it as Mashed Potato Mountain from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It was a volcano at one time. As @KristaFairchild describes, the inner tube of lava cooled very slowly, forming very hard granite. Over time, the softer rock of the mountain eroded away, leaving only that granite tower.

In South Dakota, they found huge crystals of spodumene. One "log" found at the Etta mine is described as 42 feet long. The Black Hills School of Mines in Rapid City has a Geology Museum, as @Stottie Girl mentioned. It took me four hours to go through it, and I still didn't get to see it all.

[KristaFairchild]

One formation that has always fascinated me is Devil's Tower in Wyoming. If you are old enough, you might remember it as Mashed Potato Mountain from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It was a volcano at one time. As @KristaFairchild describes, the inner tube of lava cooled very slowly, forming very hard granite. Over time, the softer rock of the mountain eroded away, leaving only that granite tower.

In South Dakota, they found huge crystals of spodumene. One "log" found at the Etta mine is described as 42 feet long. The Black Hills School of Mines in Rapid City has a Geology Museum, as @Stottie Girl mentioned. It took me four hours to go through it, and I still didn't get to see it all.

That exactly where I climbed the huge crystal, in pegmatite in the southern Black Hills. I've also climbed Mato Tipila (Bear Lodge), renamed by Europeans Devil's Tower. At the top we found a great view, deep satisfaction, and swarms of flying, biting ants. 🐜 

[ChrissyRyan]

Yes, but a cent isn't a pennie. Where do the pennies come from?

Pennies is the plural of penny.  Each penny is worth one cent.  One hundred cents to the dollar.

Not to be confused with the chain store J.C. Penney.

Not to be confused with the peony, a flower.

[Lori Dee ✅]

Not to be confused with the peony, a flower.

My ex's favorite flower. She had a strange way of pronouncing it. It sounded like she was saying "panties".

Imagine the look on my face when she told me to go outside and smell her peonies.

What?

😧

[Stottie Girl]

My ex's favorite flower. She had a strange way of pronouncing it. It sounded like she was saying "panties".

Imagine the look on my face when she told me to go outside and smell her peonies.

What?

😧

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Peony's are lovely. There is a private garden near me that opens up for charity a couple of times a year and it has a stunning 30 yard Peony border along with many smaller ones. The colour and variety is stunning, every bit as beautiful as a rose garden.