A Colorful Specimen

Here's an interesting looking specimen I pulled from the claim this past weekend. I was working a deep bedrock crack with my modified DeserDog sucker tube and when finishing a pan of material, I noticed this piece hiding among the black sands. It's almost more quartz than gold, but the back side shows only gold. I wish I could have taken some larger pictures but my camera and I aren't on the same page...guess I'll have to read the instructions one more time.

Here's another view from the same quartzy side. I do believe this chunk hasn't traveled very far before being recovered by the DeserDog sucker tube. In order to get the good gold, you have to use some type of suction device as just scooping or shoveling doesn't get right down to the very bottom where all the good gold hides. Our claim is on a non-dredging body of water so we have to make do with hand tools only. The DeserDog sucker tube is the limit to what we can use as far as suction devices go. It won't move the same amount of material as a dredge but it does a good jog of leaving the bedrock clean and free of gold !!!