Hello fellow Gold Grubbers,
For the past three weeks I have been collecting random samples from on base sources and out of three dry creek beds within a 30 minute bike ride of the base. The most recent bike trip even took the three of us to a dry creek bed just 300 yards from the Somalia border. It always interesting to see peoples faces and reactions when they walk around the corner somewhere on base and there I am digging a hole or walking off with a one gallon Ziplock bag of dirt.
I have had to become resourceful when it comes to collecting the necessary items to pan out my newly collected material. I collected an old abondoned wooden footlocker and lined it with two 40 gallon trash bags. You would not believe how many gold pans full of water it takes to fill that darned thing up. For a classifier, I found the squeegee part of a yellow plastic mop bucket. The holes are about the size of a small pea and the hopper size is just right for the gallon of material.
So far, I have panned 8 pans of material out the dry creek beds and they have not revealved any gold. The random samples from the base have not faired much better, BUT YET there is gold here. In the samples I pulled from the black sands on from the beach I have found two of the smallest specks of gold you have ever seen. Well I say seen, but the sun has to hit the pan just right and you still have to squint a little. I borrowed a magnifying glass and now everyone that walks in gets to see my Djibouti Gold. The material from the beach is about 50% black sands and the rest is small pieces of coral and basalt. I sure wish this beach would produce like the beaches in Nome.
I have not given up yet and have hit up the SEABEES and the Well Drillers to bring me back some samples from their travels and from the water wells from around the different regions of Africa.
Today I am heading to Addis Abba, Ethiopia for the week and will be doing a lot of traveling. It will be interesting to see if I can collect some smaller samples and then get them back to my gold pan and footlocker.
My days of looking for that elusive Iraqi motherlode are over. Appartently there is an order out that there is no mineral, rock or dirt collection allowed in Iraq. I found that out the hard way, and yes I saw the order in writing. At least I didn't get anything but a good butt chewing....LOL!!
'doc