Heavy water panning

[kaolinwasher]

say i was thinking - what if you could dissolve salt or something into the panning water until the water was really loaded with dissolved salt would it not make the sands eaear to get out . I know its harder to lift a rock in the air Vs under water now i also know it is true that you float higher in the ocean than in a freshwater lake - AND those who have ever swam in the dead sea float even higher -like a cork because so much minerals are dissolved in the water so lets apply this to your panning water would it not be better at removing sand

 

[Flintstone]

I don't think so, we put soap in the water to keep the small gold from floating. If you used salt water it would float more. Have you ever paned before? The ocean is full of gold that is in the water, but so fine it can't be gotten out without hard work. Salt water would just make it harder to pan I would think. Try it, it might just fool us all.

 

[kaolinwasher]

never panned out a dish . Gold show is coming up I may grab some cons and try it

 

[Flintstone]

If it is your first time or not very good, pan into a bigger pan. That way you don't loose any gold, it will be in the big pan and you can pan it again. Take some BBs or shot from a shell and put them in sand try that. It works about like gold, it is heavy and will sink to the bottom of pan. That is what you want, anything even gold to go to the bottom and stay there. If you don't get it on bottom it will come out of pan. How do you get it to bottom??? Shake, Shake, Shake, that pan under water. That way all the heavy's will go down there, then work it real slow and wash off the sand, now I said wash off the sand " not dump out the sand" if dump the sand the gold or lead or BBs will come out. You need to Google Gold Panning and watch a video. That will help better than anything. Good Luck with it, If you get stared you will be hooked like Detecting. Got To Do More. Flintstone

 

[BillNEWAST]

kaolinwasher, I'm going to attempt to explain why your theory is not feasible.
dry Pine has a Specific Gravity of = 0.54 + or minus
Water has a Specific Gravity of = 1
White sand has a Specific Gravity of = 1.44 + or minus
Black Sand has a Specific Gravity of = 2.5 + or minus
Pure Gold has a Specific Gravity of apx 19.5 + or minus

So we know that anything that is lighter (SG) than water will Float on Water and anything that is greater than SG=1 will Sink in water. The greater the difference between the fluid medium and the thing trying to sink the quicker it will fall or sink. And the lesser the difference between the fluid medium and the thing trying to sink the Slower it will fall or sink.

so let's take a hypothetical HEAVY WATER similar to your thoughts and see what it will do.
The HEAVY water has a greater SG so if anything is closer, Hasn't Changed SG, to the same SG as the water then it will have a Slower Settling Rate or could even float.

So if we make the HEAVY WATER that has a SG of 2.5 then we can assume that the Black sand and the White Sand, as well as the Pine will ALL now Float in this new HEAVY WATER. Because they all have SG less then or equal to the HEAVY WATER. And we can assume that the gold will fall/sink at a Slower Rate in this new HEAVY WATER.

I hope this helps clear up any misunderstandings. If not then please feel free to post further questions and I'll try to answer them.

 

[Flintstone]

Hi Bill, you lost me when you said Dry Pine, What the hell is that?? We were talking about Gold.

 

[yankee joe]

Salt is a great thought if we were trying to float the heavies. The reason we use a surfactant such as liquid soap or jet dry is the make water wet er , brake the surface tension and make the heavies sink.

 

[BillNEWAST]

Flintstone, "Dry Pine" is Wood and I used it as an example of something that is lighter than Water and will float as opposed to Sinking in water. I could have used Mercury as the liquid medium and a Steel ball bearing as the substitute for the "Dry Pine" Wood. If you place a steel ball bearing (sg 7., into a bowl of Mercury (sg 13.633) the ball bearing will FLOAT in the Hg. I was trying to explain that the heaver the liquid medium is the lighter the substance has to be to float in it.
I guess I Failed Miserably in my attempted explanation why OP idea won't 'FLOAT'.

I have spent a lot of time researching How BIG Nuggets Move in Water. And came to the conclusion that THEY Don't. The medium, to move them has to have a Higher SG than water to move them. The SG of the Fluid has to approach 13+ to get them to move. A Massive mud flow that can move Bolders would be necessary to move nuggets of 5+ ozs if they are relatively pure, with little Si. This is how the big gully washers move big gold out of the narrow steep gully's and deposit it in the Bajadas in the desert.

 

[Flintstone]

Hi Bill, Thanks for the reply, I just didn't think about what you were doing to show how it will float.

 

[BillNEWAST]

Flintstone, no problem, I'm always happy to try and change my explanation of some subject, as I know that SomeTimes I don't get whats in my head down in print, especially on late night runs! I have trouble reading my posts also at times, and try and think "Who Was That Guy Who Posted THAT Gibberish"!

 

[kaolinwasher]

well as long as the water is not = to gold the black sands will go out faster and nuggets remain, Gold show tomorrow I may get a bag of cons and try the experiment