Gold prospecting holiday in West cork

bogwalrus wrote: »

I know Absolutely Nothing about geography or anything about where would be an ideal spot to start a gold panning holiday in west cork with my mates. I just want to do this for fun and a bit of a bonding session/hiking/camping trip with the lads before some of them move off and get married.

I always find there needs to be a good reason to go wandering up mountains and hills and gold panning seems a great idea and were all up for it.

I have done a bit of research namely here

http://www.mineralsireland.ie/NR/rdonlyres/03E171C9-4C17-46F0-8A9C-9B73F416CD4B/0/golda4pd.pdf

It seems devonian areas near deep stream and rivers where there is paleoplacers would be ideal.

If anyone would like to pick a few spots they might think would be worth a check I can take loads of pics for them of that area (post them here) to show what all the geography is like for them. Also if i find a load of gold i can cut yee in :pac:

Cheers,
boggy

So you're not one of those ''I climbed it, because it was there'' types?

That PDF mentions the association of gold with the gossans of the copper lodes.
Allihies and Mount Gabriel both had ancient copper mines, so they might be worth a trial, although I've not heard of gold found in either.
Mind you, the great G.H.Kinahan firmly believed that the gold resource was generally underexploited.
Croghan mountain in south Wicklow would be a safer bet if you wanted to find a few grains.

I'd love to see any pics of the Mount Gabriel workings

AFAIK, you have to find the biggest mofo boulder in the stream - one that's been there since the ice age and has caused a deposit to sit undisturbed for millennia.
Then you have to find black sand underneath it, and that's the stuff you have to pan.
There are lots of good youtubes on gold panning.
Best of luck with your adventure.

I doubt there'll be much soil.
Erosion will have taken most of that away, and that's the course you need to follow.
If there's any gold there, it'll be lower down the ridge.
It'll be in areas where heavy soil deposits were protected from thousands of years of erosion, like under the mofo.
Other than that, it might be worth targeting areas where gold carried out of the quartz veins might have been deposited.
Them's my (bullshítting) uneducated guesses anyway.
Hopefully there's a more educated lurker about who might share their wisdom with us.

How potentially auriferous/cupriferous areas were located in times past, is a subject of great personal interest.

Of course, a lot of the guesswork could be eliminated by doing a little historical research...
G.H.Kinahan was an eminent C.19th geologist (amongst other things) with a great belief in the underexploitation of gold in Ireland - well worth a persistent Google

El Siglo wrote: »

Anywhere there's a sulfide deposit you should have a look into. Keep an eye on plants and how healthy they look (i.e. certain metals will affect plant metabolism through discolouration of leaves). So when you're looking for gold, the pathfinder element you want to bear in mind is arsenic. So, if you see plants check out their roots they'll have stunted growth and appear in a sort of brownish colour. Overall the growth of the plants will be reduced with arsenic concentrations in the soil of >2 ppm.

The Avoca mines in Wicklow (sorry), still have colossal spoil heaps full of sulphides and arsenic too.
The mines ceased commercial operation in 1982, but still precious little grows on the most exposed heaps, and those few that manage to eke out an existence, are more like bonsai than mature trees.
A walk around the mines (which you're not supposed to do :rolleyes:) fills the nostrils with sulphur especially on a warm day.
There was an outbreak of cholera in the surrounding area towards the end of the C.19th - Avoca was largely unscathed, and this has been attributed to the quantity of sulphur in the air and water.

I heard fairly recently, that a joint Irish/Canadian venture has found gold nearby in commercially viable quantities.

Ha - now I have an expert to quiz.

Seriously though, it must be one of the most studied sites in Ireland from many points of view.
Geologists, ecologists, historians (too few), hydrologists, biologists (and more 'ists than I can think of), have all studied the place.

I've been very fortunate to know two mining experts who brought me on a tour of the 850 level. It turned out to be a five hour journey up ladders, through C18th levels, C19th levels and all around the raises and stopes of latter years.
It was one hell of an experience, but tinged with sadness, knowing those levels will probably collapse long before the loss of heritage is recognised, or the public ever gets to see a truly remarkable and extensive feat of engineering.

El Siglo wrote: »

It's an interesting site to have alright, great history to it as well. From the Roman traders to the Associated Irish Mine Company and the Cronebane halfpenny and the use of it as a rubbish dump by Wicklow County Council! A lot of work has been done out of TCD on it, but that's the stuff I'm more familiar with.

The problem with Avoca is that when it shut down it wasn't economic (i.e. for it to be economic you'd want to be getting a 5% copper yield out of the rock extracted and they were down to about 2%). However, with better technology and copper prices rising (along with gold and all the other sulphate minerals), Avoca will be economically viable in a short space of time (at least that's what a few people in the GSI hope anyway, they have the property rights to the site as far as I can recall). So the will to clean up the site isn't there as the site may be used again shortly, hence why the place is such a mess. Not great form since some of the vertical adits were 'sealed' by dumping a few Ford cortinas and datsuns with some gravel and soil on top, the cars have corroded (AMD groundwater) and the shafts are unstable at the top entrance. This is a great article to read on some of the monitoring work carried out on the site: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0043-1354(97)00449-1

Apologies to Bogwalrus.

The EPA has a more recent report (2007) available to download here
There have been some significant changes since Gray's 1998 report: most notably, he observed a river devoid of fish life down to the estuary, and a predominance of diptera, which are a biotic index of pollution.
Migratory fish have returned to the river - indeed, the record sea trout for Ireland was caught below Woodenbridge last year.
The intensively polluted stretch is now much shorter. I'm not aware of any biotic indexing work carried out lately, but I'll bet the diptera are less predominant.
I think the pace at which the river is recovering has surprised many observers.
Undoubtedly, the deep adits continue to discharge heavy mineral deposits directly into the river. I saw amazing 'copper flowers' which had precipitated onto ferrous fragments when I was in the deep adit.
However, I don't think anyone predicted the phenomenon of concretion.
My knowledge of this is just from bits and pieces I've heard locally - one man told me about trying to move what looked like loose spoil - he said it nearly broke his JCB!
If this concretion thing is true, it could reduce runoff from the spoil heaps.

There was also a joint Welsh/Irish project to test the viability of treating the discharge from Ballymurtagh using crushed limestone (I think) - after treatment the water was potable, and the plant was not expensive in terms of how it could contribute to the economy. Nothing ever came of it unfortunately.

I'd better drag myself away from the screen or I'll never shut up.


(One more thing - where did you see or hear the reference to Roman traders?)

Interesting vid.

Here's a view inside a Wicklow adit. It was driven in to 700 fathoms just before the famine.
Every inch of it was cut by hand, just using a pick.
The adit was driven in search of gold but not a single particle was found.






I can't find any evidence for the existence of this trial adit, but I'm nearly sure it's later. Note the pyrites or Fool's gold above, and to the right of the bore mark at the top of the portal.