This is a picture of the results of a hard rock quartz ledge seam I discovered in 1988. I was stripping some ground that I was sure was underlaid by an elluvial placer.
An Elluvial placer is the concentration of gold right over where the mother lode vein comes to the surface.
Little erosion had taken place. A bit of old fashioned geological investigation and I was one of the lucky few on the planet to have found a high grade hard rock gold vein as good as any that was found by the first prospectors that found the rich deposits of gold bearing quartz on Grasshopper creek.
Literally chunks of gold was coming out in the sugar quartz as we mined this section of elluvial property I had on Grasshopper Creek.
That piece of octahedral gold was the largest octahedron nugget of gold I have ever found.
Old Gosta Miller my mentor at the time, absolutely had to have this and I gave it to him for his collection. While I found many smaller specimens this was truly the biggest.
I hope someday his family donates this huge specimen to the Butte school of mines here in Montana as it is one of Montana's true treasures and I discovered it!!!
I donated some smaller pieces of Dendritic and Octahedral gold to the museum and they are currently on display.
You are the man Rob!
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