OzGeology @[email protected]
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OzGeology is all about geology, mineralogy, volcanoes, and t
Welcoem to posts!!
in the future - u will be able to do some more stuff here,,,!! like pat catgirl- i mean um yeah... for now u can only see others's posts :c
I Canāt Believe Iām Out Here Prospecting for Bacteria Nowā¦ š¦ āļø
So, Iāve officially crossed into weird prospector territory. I used to think chasing fine gold in arsenopyrite was already obsessive. But now? Iām hiking through creeks, staring into puddles of orange slime, and asking myself: āIs this the good kind of rust, or just iron-stained disappointment?ā
Why? Because apparently, the only way for me to safely liberate gold from refractory sulfide oreāwithout turning my backyard into a toxic roasting pit, or spending tens of thousands on the machineryāis to enlist the help ofā¦ acid-loving bacteria.
Thatās right: Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, aka the microscopic miners that oxidize pyrite and arsenopyrite like itās their full-time job.
Wait, What Even Is Refractory Ore?
If youāre new to this madness: refractory ore is gold-bearing rock where the gold is locked inside sulfide mineralsāusually pyrite (FeSā) or arsenopyrite (FeAsS). You canāt pan it out. You canāt leach it with chemicals. It just laughs at your attempts to get the gold unless you chemically or thermally destroy the sulfide cage itās hiding in. Now to be clear the recent gold discovery I made contains a lot of free gold. In fact itās the richest ore Iāve ever worked with. But thereās more goldā¦ and I kinda want it all yāknow.
Roasting worksābut itās smoky, dangerous, and I canāt expose my neighbours to the toxic fumes that are released from arsenopyrite. Itās just not right. Grinding it ultra-fine can help, but not everyone has a micron mill. Which brings us back toā¦
Bacteria. Literal Bacteria.
These extremophiles thrive in acid, breathe iron, and spend their lives munching on sulfide minerals. If you give them some air, water, warmth, and just the right pH, theyāll slowly break down the sulfides, exposing the gold for later leaching.
The kicker? If I want to buy them, I need to fork out over a grand for a freeze-dried lab culture. So instead, Iām out here in gumboots, collecting creek mud and sniffing rocks like some kind of microbial gold whisperer.
And the funny part? Itāll actually work. These little bacteria might be slow, but theyāre doing the jobāquietly breaking down sulfides, no fumes, no drama. So Iāll use chemicals to dissolve and precipitate all the free gold from the crushed ore, then place the material in a little bacteria pool Iāve constructed, wait eight weeks for them to feast on the pyrite, and use chemicals again to dissolve the now liberated gold.
So if you see a slightly unhinged person crouching by a rusty puddle with a pH strip in one hand and a sample jar in the otherā¦ say hi. I might just be bioleaching my way to the next gold find š
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šØ Big news, gold hunters! šØ
After a lot of hard work, Victoria's goldfields are now fully covered on my website ā 66 historic goldfields mapped, researched, and ready for you to explore!
Whether youāre chasing nuggets in the Golden Triangle, panning creeks in the High Country, or tracing deep leads near Creswick, it's all now in one place.
Iāve put together detailed guides for every major Victorian goldfield ā and you can access the full set here:
š ozgeology.com/pages/victorian-goldfields-maps
If you're into prospecting, detecting, or just love Aussie gold rush history, youāll find everything you need to get started or level up your adventures. Real ground, real history, real opportunity.
Thanks for all your support ā and good luck out there! šš
Let me know which goldfield youāll be hitting first! āļø
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š WE HIT #1 ON SPOTIFY! š§ŖāØ
I canāt believe Iām saying this, but the OzGeology podcast just hit #1 in Top Science Podcasts in Australia on Spotify... overnight! š¤Æ
This is what I saw when I logged in today.
š£ #1 Top Science Podcast ā Australia
šµ #8 Top Podcast Episode ā New Zealand
šµ #29 Top Podcast ā New Zealand
š£ #37 Top Podcast Episode ā Australia
šµ #78 Top Podcast ā Australia
Iām absolutely floored. This started as a passion project to make Aussie geology exciting and accessible, and now it's ranking across the whole region. THANK YOU for listening, for supporting, and for making science something we celebrate together.
To every single one of you who listened, shared, supported, and believed in this crazy science journey, thank you from the bottom of my nerdy heart. š§ š
This wouldnāt be possible without this amazing community, and Iām beyond grateful. Weāre just getting startedāmore mind-blowing science, curious questions, and deep dives are on the way. šš¬
This is OUR win. More to come! Much love to you all! š
If you haven't already, be sure to follow us on Spotify by following this link: open.spotify.com/show/4howU18jTk2yYIJ18JNGuW?si=1Sā¦
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Things are getting seriously interesting out here. Iāve now confirmed three separate hard rock gold sources within just a kilometre of each otherāall part of what appears to be a localized fold-hosted gold system within a small-scale fold belt. The structural complexity is incredible, and itās been an absolute treat to explore and experiment on.
I recently roasted that silver-grey material from one of the finds, and it's now almost certainly arsenopyrite. Roasting helped liberate fine visible gold, which was a big win. Honestly, Iām thankful it wasnāt actually silverāI really canāt be bothered dealing with the chemical separation process again like I have to do for my alluvial silver/gold mix. Plus, thereās no antimony in this system either, which makes it even better to work with.
The other day I pushed further into the area and came across a dome-shaped anticlineāless of a U and more of a gentle arch. It had some quartz veining, but no gold in that spot, likely due to the fold geometry not being ideal for gold concentration.
This project is shaping up to be one of the most promising and educational ones Iāve tackled so far. A video is in the works, but Iām still deep in the field, mapping and sampling. Stay tunedāthereās more to come.
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Okay, Iāve run into quite the conundrum on two levels with this recent gold find.
The first: Iāve now sampled the majority of the boxworks quartz formation and have found gold in every single section tested ā even in some of the tiniest quartz veins. But I kept noticing silvery-colored, non-magnetic, heavy metals alongside the gold at the tail of the pan. You might think Iām silly for not starting with the main quartz vein ā the largest, most visibly auriferous one ā but since I already knew there was gold in it, Iād intentionally left it alone so I could focus on tracing the extent and concentration throughout the system first.
Well, I finally crushed up a few pieces from that main vein today ā just a handful of small rocks through the jaw crusher ā and the results were wild. The amount of gold recovered from such a small sample is insane. But you know whatās really messing with me?
Thereās something silver in there too.
And not just a tiny bit ā itās abundant. Itās non-magnetic, shows a brilliant white shine under light with a strong metallic reflection, and itās heavy. It consistently stays right at the end of the pan with the gold.
Now surely I havenāt stumbled on yet another native silver deposit ā especially one hosted in hard rock. Thatād be ludicrousā¦ right?
Iām trying to be rational here, so my first guess is arsenopyrite, especially considering the overall geological setting and how common it is in reduced gold systems. But part of me keeps asking: could it be galena? Or even antimony (maybe stibnite)? Antimony seems a bit light to sit with gold that cleanly, though. Galena or arsenopyrite would make more sense. Itās definitely not mica ā way too dense, and behaves nothing like it in water.
Iāll do a roast test in the next day or two and see if it loses the silver-white metallic luster. If it is arsenopyrite, roasting oxidizes it to form iron oxides (usually hematite or limonite), which are reddish-brown to yellow-brown. Either way, Iāll be releasing a video soon because this whole experience has been crazy ā from the astonishing amount of visible gold to this silver-coloured metal thatās throwing everything into question, to what I'm about to mention now.
The second conundrum: Today I went back out to the site and brought my sketchbook. I mapped the anticline that hosts the gold reef, and just meters away at the same structural level, thereās a syncline. The proximity of the two features at the same elevation suggests the area has undergone intense compression ā possibly tight folding. That got me thinking: if the structural pressure is that high, could there be another anticline nearby?
I went for a walk, and sure enough, I found another fold ā not as well-exposed, but it had that unmistakable dome-like shape. Then it got weirder: because another freaking anticline appeared right beside it ā no clear syncline in between. So now Iām wonderingā¦ what the heck is going on here? Is it parasitic folding? Could be. I mapped it out either way, then checked out the talus slopes below.
Boom. Quartz veins and boxworks present in the scree ā but I couldnāt locate the exact outcrop source in the limited time I had. So I took what I could from the talus and headed home. Crushed that material too, and guess what? Gold. Again.
So now Iāve got:
Two potentially separate gold-bearing reef systems,
Structurally complex folding (possible parasitic anticlines),
And a silver-coloured metal I need to properly ID.
This is my storyā¦ so far. Hahaha. I did take a picture of this on my phone, but the quality is so bad, it left me wondering whether or not to even bother uploading it. The video will be out when I have some time to roast whatever this silver stuff is so it doesn't keep me awake at night like it most likely will do tonight. Geology's wildddd.
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Exciting news! After meeting with the team at Spotify, I'm happy to announce that OzGeology is now officially available on their platform! Spotify is making a big move into video content, which means you'll be able to watch my geology adventures there as well. One of the best perks? Unlike YouTube, where background play is locked behind Premium, Spotify lets you listen to videos with your screen minimizedāperfect for enjoying OzGeology while you're on the go. Make sure to follow OzGeology on Spotify for easier access to all things Aussie geology!
open.spotify.com/show/4howU18jTk2yYIJ18JNGuW?si=cbā¦
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For the past 3 months, Iāve been on the hunt for a hard rock gold deposit. I had great luck in December last year with my gold and silver findāthat one was alluvialābut anyone who knows me knows my heart lies in hard rock mining. I needed something to balance the alluvial workā¦ something that truly scratched the itch.
Iāve sampled over 100 different reefs, driven countless hours across Victoria, from goldfield to goldfield, searching endlessly for the one. All of it was barren, or had one or two specks. Nothing worth chasing.
But four days agoāI finally struck gold.
The sucky part? I broke my rock crusher about a month ago. So right now I can only crush samples down to small chunksānot quite dust. Luckily, Iāve got a new crusher on the way, better than the last one, and in the meantime Iāve been hauling back as much ore as my poor car can carry.
But hereās the wildest part: the geology.
This is a saddle reef deposit. I was following stringers when they led me to a quartz vein, and after staring at it like a lunatic for way too longā¦ it finally hit me: I was looking at an anticline. There's a reason it took me so long to realize this, which I won't go into because I want the deposit to be unidentifiable for as long as possible.
But it's the literal holy grail of mineral deposits.
Because saddle reefs form in the hinge zones of folds, right where the pressure, fluids, and space all come together perfectly to trap gold. They often occur in antiforms (anticlines)āarched rock folds where the gold-rich fluids had room to pool and precipitate as quartz and gold veins.
These structures can form multiple stacked reefs along the fold hinge, which means you're not just dealing with a single veināyouāre looking at the potential for a series of parallel gold-bearing quartz veins, sometimes over incredible vertical continuity. Historically, some of the richest and deepest gold mines in the worldālike those at Bendigoāwere saddle reef systems.
So when I realized I was staring at the hinge of an anticline, and the quartz was thereāI knew what I had. But I had to contain my excitement until I crushed it up a little just to see if this was a bust or not. Thankfully, it wasn't.
This isnāt just another stringer. This could be a system. And Iāve only scratched the surface. The material is literally strewn with gold, and gold is present on freshly exposed surfaces of the quartz too, in ridiculous abundance. I've never found something quite as incredible as this. I would show pictures of the anticline, but I can't risk it being tapped out by someone else before I'm finished with it. If you look closely on the first pic, you'll notice it's not just the main one in the middle showing signs of gold. It's all of the pieces around it too. I attached two pics of the ore, too. If you look closely, you'll see the gold. On the second ore pic, there's a ton of fine gold at the bottom near my thumb, tracing up towards the exposed quartz surface.
I can't stop staring at the ore or the crushed pieces with gold strewn within them hahaha. I'm going to hand crush some of these and do a roast to see if sulfides are holding onto more gold tomorrow.
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Yesterday's video performed well, and it has opened up a new avenue of interest that I'm excited to explore for this channel. I have a bunch of ideas centered around hypothetical scenarios, such as "What Would Happen if Every Supervolcano on Earth Erupted Simultaneously?"
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this direction! If you have any ideas for a "What Would Happen" scenario you'd like to see, let me know in the comments. Topics like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, tsunamis, mega-tsunamis, and environmental disasters are all perfect for the channel.
I've already finished the script for another "What Would Happen" video, and while these take more effort to produce than my usual content, theyāre a blast to make! Plus, they'll be longerāsomewhere between 15 to 30 minutes each.
Let me know what you think! š
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Iām a big believer in the saying go big or go home. On the days when Iām not running my trommel Iām smashing out gravels on this massive sluice with a long tom extension and an inbuilt classifier. Just bought myself a new one so I can run two at the same time š
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Check out these shots of gold and silver under a microscope. I captured them using my microscope camera. The first image is from my gold precipitates and the second are from my gold and silver precipitates. Aren't they absolutely beautiful? I shot a few videos of it too, and I'll be making a video on the both of them very soon so I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I do!
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OzGeology is all about geology, mineralogy, volcanoes, and the many natural disasters that have shaped and continue to shape our world.
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