Vallon VMH3CS Mine Detector

[Mdtoday]

Yes keep at it Kingswood, you can't be far off now

Brian

[Carolina]

Kingswood:
I wish you luck my friend and be sure you use the proper method of auto or manual soil compensation and as you move I would, if becomes chatty, I would use soil compensation again. Good luck. As Eric mentioned earlier, raise your coil and see if things calm down. Look for EMI. My guess is the soil.

Carolina

[kingswood]

Yes, the geo map would be right. Maghemite is an oxidised form of magnetite which would be more prevalent on the surface. One of the causes of oxidation is high temperature and when I was in Australia I found higher levels of ground response in areas where there had been recent bush fires. When you think that bush fires have been happening since time immemorial (often started by lightning strikes) then it is no wonder that much of Australia has this ground problem. The darker black/brown colouration on the surface of pieces of rock is mainly maghemite.

On a weaker scale of ground signal, ancient sites of human occupation can often be determined by sudden changes in the ground response due to the conversion of magnetite to maghemite even in normal soils. In the iron and bronze ages in the UK, people had fires for one reason or another which left their mark in the soil mineralogy.

Eric.

Thanks Eric, very interesting. I know magnetite often is associated with gold
I am heading back there tomorrow (as I know there is gold there as evidenced by the 2 small nuggets!). It is in a largely minimally detected area.
I will take the Vallon and try it again....But will take the 2300 and the 2000 just in case

[Ferric Toes]

The other guy who took us out there said it was magnetite, but it could well be maghemite. The ground was littered with it!! I have attached pics
[ATTACH]40083[/ATTACH][ATTACH]40084[/ATTACH][ATTACH]40085[/ATTACH][ATTACH]40086[/ATTACH]

EDIT: Looked at the geo map of the area and it does say magnetite.

Yes, the geo map would be right. Maghemite is an oxidised form of magnetite which would be more prevalent on the surface. One of the causes of oxidation is high temperature and when I was in Australia I found higher levels of ground response in areas where there had been recent bush fires. When you think that bush fires have been happening since time immemorial (often started by lightning strikes) then it is no wonder that much of Australia has this ground problem. The darker black/brown colouration on the surface of pieces of rock is mainly maghemite.

On a weaker scale of ground signal, ancient sites of human occupation can often be determined by sudden changes in the ground response due to the conversion of magnetite to maghemite even in normal soils. In the iron and bronze ages in the UK, people had fires for one reason or another which left their mark in the soil mineralogy.

Eric.

[Mdtoday]

Hi 6666,

Thanks for the info and pictures.
Good looking country, looks like maybe around Tibooburra?
Interesting to hear about how the Vallon has performed by both yourself and Kingswood.
My unit is still having a bit of surgery and face lift but I hope to finish it off and get it out to my favorite area and see if I have the same issue.
I have just been given permission to detect by a good mate who owns a station in NSW with a holding of around a million acres. He doesn't give permission to just anyone now because of rat bags trashing and damaging bores etc
There are some old workings and plenty of fresh ground with heaps of ironstone and quartz and no leases. Its hot ground so a good test.

Brian

[Ferric Toes]

PS There's a VMH3CS now being sold on ebay uk for 112GBP plus shipping in the UK (parts and repair).

Not any more .

Eric.

[kingswood]

Yeah but that roo knows!

hand that Roo a Vallon !!

[eclipse]

Yeah but that roo knows!

[kingswood]

You are being watched!
Nice place for hunting, very different from up here, right now there's a 1m tall grass & bushes all over the place.
Hope no snakes are being "detected".

PS There's a VMH3CS now being sold on ebay uk for 112$ plus shipping in the UK (parts and repair).

Ha ha...good luck figuring out where the gold is from the photos...A big place is Australia
No snakes...to cold at the moment!

[eclipse]

You are being watched!
Nice place for hunting, very different from up here, right now there's a 1m tall grass & bushes all over the place.
Hope no snakes are being "detected".

PS There's a VMH3CS now being sold on ebay uk for 112GBP plus shipping in the UK (parts and repair).

[kingswood]

Well last week I cured my EMI problem I drove 1200 KM into the Australian outback of North West New South Wales, right were the borders of NSW, SA and QLD meet,
the only thing out there are idiot prospectors, roos, emus and goats and rocks, , anyhow tried the Vallon with the 1" foil, NO GO, the 1.5" was detectable at about 2-3 inches, tried a quick ground balance on the horrible gold field ground but it was doing strange things, lots of hot rocks, as I was on the top of a hill in a bitterly cold wind, I had no patience for messing about, and gave it a miss, and went on detecting with my 4500 and various coils which handled the ground OK, even got a little gold.
Should have tried again but didnt.

BTW a 7000 will find the "invisible" nuggets a 5000 will not and vice versa, also had to use my 4500 and sadie coil to pin point a very small bit that a 7000 could not, he could have dug a lot of dirt to get it, but that was not the point.

[ATTACH]40088[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]40089[/ATTACH]

can you spot the roo ?

[ATTACH]40090[/ATTACH]

Sounds similar to my Vallon experience yesterday ....Good in milder ground..
Great photos!....And yes, I just found the roo

[6666]

Well last week I cured my EMI problem I drove 1200 KM into the Australian outback of North West New South Wales, right were the borders of NSW, SA and QLD meet,
the only thing out there are idiot prospectors, roos, emus and goats and rocks, , anyhow tried the Vallon with the 1" foil, NO GO, the 1.5" was detectable at about 2-3 inches, tried a quick ground balance on the horrible gold field ground but it was doing strange things, lots of hot rocks, as I was on the top of a hill in a bitterly cold wind, I had no patience for messing about, and gave it a miss, and went on detecting with my 4500 and various coils which handled the ground OK, even got a little gold.
Should have tried again but didnt.

BTW a 7000 will find the "invisible" nuggets a 5000 will not and vice versa, also had to use my 4500 and sadie coil to pin point a very small bit that a 7000 could not, he could have dug a lot of dirt to get it, but that was not the point.





can you spot the roo ?

[kingswood]

Kingswood

If I were you I would practice at home the auto and manual compensation procedure, keeping in mind it will be stored in the detectors memory and will need to be adjusted again in the field. It's quite a procedure for me to remember. Then i would search the forty channels you have available to help quite down the detector and if this does not work try and search in mineral mode.

Carolina

Confident that it wasnt EMI related....
I was in mineral mode and it GB normally....just wasnt an especially effective GB !!!

[kingswood]

Kingswood from those pics then that ground sure does look to be very cranky so I gather from what you have been saying, the 2300, 4500 and 7000 would have had no trouble coping with such ground.

Yes, the 23, 45 and 7000 all coped well..
Dug one hot rock with the 23 and that was all...apart from that, it ran smoothly.

[Carolina]

Kingswood

If I were you I would practice at home the auto and manual compensation procedure, keeping in mind it will be stored in the detectors memory and will need to be adjusted again in the field. It's quite a procedure for me to remember. Then i would search the forty channels you have available to help quite down the detector and if this does not work try and search in mineral mode.

Carolina