| Rock Run gold Potomac, MD US Uploaded By Scott (webmaster) Uploaded on Friday, September 4, 2009 at 12:40:08 PM Viewed 5151 times |
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| For more information, go to the Travel Channels Treasure Wiki for Maryland page. Here is what the page used to say: "General description: Gold was discovered in southern Montgomery County during the Civil War and the first of many mines and prospects began operating in 1867. There were 5 gold mines along Rock Run, including a placer mining operation using water under high pressure to wash the stream and flood plain sediments through long California-style sluice boxes. How to get there: Rock Run is a small stream in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, that originates just north of Potomac Village and flows about 9.1 kilometers (about 5.5 miles) in a generally southeasterly direction to the Potomac River at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Grade this location: (A to F): GPS coordinates: Handy to bring along: 1. Shovel 2. Screen 3. Gold pan 4, Hand Pick Maryland - Travel Channel Cash and Treasures Helpful notes to newcomers: 1. Most of the richest gold mines were in a few gold-bearing quartz veins that had a higher concentration of gold than most of the others in the area. 2. All of the gold-bearing veins run roughly parallel with the general direction of the Appalachian Mountains, which trend a little east of north in this area. Some veins vary in their strike (direction) by as much as 25 to 30 degrees to the east or to the west of north. 3. Nearly all streams and smaller tributaries have been explored in the past by miners who were quite thorough in their recovery methods, so most stream sediments have been pretty well cleaned of gold. 4. Therefore, I have learned to use a compass to determine the approximate strike of a stream's bedrock, which, in this area, is generally a nearly vertical quartz/mica schist. Then I search for exposures of the bedrock or dig deep enough in the stream's alluvium to reach the upper levels of the bedrock. Most of the upper levels of the bedrock encountered in this fashion are either chemically altered to a soft consistency (saprolite - disintegrated rock that lies in its original place), or nearly so and can be removed and broken up in the gold pan. By exploiting the altered areas of the bedrock, I increase the chances of finding gold. Most of what I find in this fashion is lode gold (freshly broken out of the rock it formed in) rather than placer gold (naturally eroded out of its host rock and then stream worn). Needless to say, finding the gold in the pan is exciting since the finder is the first person to see it since it was first formed here about 200 million years ago through the actions of tremendous tectonic forces From Mineral News, Vol. 16, No. 3, March, 2000. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. This article may be reprinted or copied as desired for other mineral publications " | For directions go to the Travel Channels Treasure Wiki for Maryland page. These are vague directions for me looking at google earth, so I borrowed the GPS coords from mindat. I'll give them back later. Here is what the treasure wiki used to say: "How to get there: Rock Run is a small stream in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, that originates just north of Potomac Village and flows about 9.1 kilometers (about 5.5 miles) in a generally southeasterly direction to the Potomac River at the Naval Surface Warfare Center " |