North Carolina creeks - I'm doing something wrong
Prospecting on my own land in NC, Carolina Slate Belt area, northeast along strike from a historic gold mine that produced back in the 1800s.
On the hill: Multiple old prospect mounds. Tons of quartz on the surface, some iron-stained, some with pink/purple staining.
In the creek: Exposed layered argillite bedrock with natural crevices. Gravel-clay contacts. Weathered rusty material that I think is saprolite/gossan.
When I pan:
Massive amounts of black sand, maybe 30% magnetite
- Lots of small red/brown garnets after magnet
- Using Jet Dry
- Digging to bedrock, cleaning crevices, screening carefully
Barely finding gold. A few tiny flakes once, then nothing on follow-ups
With this much black sand and this much iron-stained material, what am I missing? Wrong spot? Wrong technique? Should I be crushing saprolite instead of quartz?
I want to also say that I just started. All the fancy names are from research and YouTube videos 😅
Photos: creek, bedrock, dig spot, sieved material, gossan chunk