Amazing Mineral Discovery deep underground at Cerro Gordo!

foreign [Music] [Music] prospecting here welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome I hope during your subscription today we are here at the base of the mountain to Sarah Gordo we're here in the California desert up high in the mountains and we're here checking out the old Ghost Town mining town of Cerro Gordo on our way up to say hi to Brent the caretaker up there the owner up there and check out the mine I don't know what Adventures are in store for us but I know it's gonna be amazing so wish us luck and I hope you enjoy [Music] and of course on our trip to California we have my son Evan with us hi hey and we are heading today up there somewhere we're not quite sure we're up there but the road leads up into the mountains into the snow and yes there's still snow up at Cerro Gordo even though it's spring here in California saragoro's high enough in the mountains that it's still covered in snow especially after this really rough winter [Music] [Music] thank you we made it to the townsite of Cerro Gordo we talked with Brent already and he's saying let's get underground right away I got things to show you so I will definitely be showing you the town some more but we gotta get ready to go underground and see what we can do for some underground exploration and do some real mining in a real mine first we have to move our gear into the old house we get to stay in the old house and then get dressed up for going underground if you watch any of the videos from Sarah Gordo here Brent is taking us down to the 400 level of the mine to see what we can find he says there's all sorts of shiny rocks down there and he knows I like shiny rocks so if you're a follower of mine there's a really good chance you're also a follower of breads here hello there Brent is the owner of Cerro Gordo mine and he's what makes this all happen so thank you so much for inviting me on thanks for coming up it is not an easy Journey up this time of year but you guys made it so uh step one complete there we go so that's very uh very good yes we we put this off until spring so there would be nice spring California weather and uh I guess this is spring California weather I think the official first day of spring I think was yesterday but uh I don't see it up here no not yet anyhow we got here we're gonna have fun Brent says we're going underground right away so first thing let's get to it so we're gonna go down 400 feet underground main Union mine and uh I'm excited to show you around see what we got down there awesome oh so Brent where are we going going to the union mine here at Cerro Gordo which is up there in between here and there is uh a bit of snow so we're gonna see we just cleared it a little bit with the skid steer so we're gonna hope that we can all get up there um it might be a journey to get there because this vehicle needs to get us there I guess we're gonna be removing some of these and we get to ride in the back yeah nice and again if you've watched Brent's Channel you will know all about the hotels building here it's under construction right now [Music] thank you so we're up here at the top of the Union mine we're just getting the winch and everything ready to go down on the elevator if you use the term elevator very Loosely we're going to go down to the 400 level and see what we can find for minerals down there very exciting really crazy old Machinery in here this is the winch that's taking us down it is nice modern equipment oh there's the cage we go down in this is how this is the one and only way in and out of the Union mine uh this cage is supported by this cable above us which goes up and over to the the big winch we saw earlier yes and so below me uh if you see a little turbine this dangles so we are now just dangling 900 feet of drop below and uh back in the day a lot a lot of ore many hundreds of millions of dollars that the ore came up through this straight up through that hole and these days uh one of them for Smith's tonight Timber and Good Times let's do it [Music] who needs a winch when you have a Jason strongman Strongman Competition yeah okay I got the brain bucket on let's do this yes yes Evan staying up top here to be one of our safety officers make sure everything's good relay messages and everything we're going down wish us luck no all right here we go looks fun we're good and like that three dudes in a little cage wish us luck if we go into the dark there we go hey but we got lights we got lights let's go well there's a major Improvement since I was here last year yeah string of LEDs string of LEDs on the way down to that is that is wrong no matter if we have to climb ourselves a thousand feet out yep yep the unfortunate part about the ladder just get be the there of great news is uh there's about 10 foot sections that are missing out of it so we're headed down we don't break any speed rackers going down here do we no we take it nice and slow excellent good so sometimes that when we get to the 86 it sometimes wants to catch a little bit and so I'll just kick off of the 86 but that's right it should be smooth sailing down to the 400. excellent and I would say we have about 20 minutes 20 minutes to hang out yeah oh yeah they've got nice little mood lighting down here yeah I thought you said wherever we got down yeah give us about 200 more feet when we get down to about past the 200 because the 200 was one of the pearls to the outside and that's where it still gets a little bit of wind coming in so you can see some openings oh yeah this so we're approaching rapidly the uh 86 level which would have been the first all of it and there's a little bit of a stop area to your left you can see a baby six as we go flying by it's still exciting plenty of stuff this is where it likes to get stuck occasionally on your side on this side so if we want to shift that way it's all just a guy with an ax just chopping it up must be like millions of yards of wood down this hole Yeah and total the mine is about 30 miles of mines and so you figure 30 miles of Mines all having to be timbered up well this is definitely officially the deepest I've ever been underground by a long shot I'm only getting deeper and we're only really going halfway down aren't we about halfway yeah yeah we're going to 400 level it goes to 900 right we have some interesting things to find in the 400 though yes is it the level that you've probably explored the most probably because it's probably one of the biggest two which is cool because it's got the most to see um it's a level that tapped into both of the main ore bodies that we're looking for here the Jefferson chimney and the union chimney and so there's a lot of Machinery so down there too some old you know winches that they must have just assembled in place because there's no getting rid of them I don't think at this point right and so yeah it's a very cool level I like it a lot and every time I go down there though I find something new you know every single time right and it's down there somewhere yes I'm told we're almost there we are rapidly approaching behind you and it's gonna come out this side here this is the 400 level right here okay so we need the cage to stop right about now but let's see when he actually stops I need a signal up to him to stop oh [Music] stop stop stop stop stop all right that's a little too far I'm left a signal for him to bring us up and we're here the 400 level of the Union mine at Cerro Gordo I don't know what we're doing down here but we're gonna have fun all right so I think we will first maybe go to the left before go look at some of the workings to the to the North and then the south is where I found that big piece of smithsonite so maybe we'll save that for kind of the towards the end the grand finale the grand finale yeah I like it all right look at that okay I'm following you down follow me I'm just I'm just wondering let's get wandering you know where you're going right oh sure I think I'm headed east I had one in four chance of getting it right North oh apparently the exit is that way yep they trick you out because there's another exits both ways yes I say we go this way first there's a nice Pockets there is no actual portals out on this level though not that I found yet but today could be the day oh okay today it could be the day that's part of the reason all this rope is with us see you guys back on the outside good luck this is awesome and this tunnel is almost tall enough for me to stand in I'm crouching a little bit as you may have heard on some of my videos before I'm never all that comfortable underground and not really an underground guy but these uh tunnels do look very stable and they've been here for a very long time like as in a hundred years or more so it's not like today's the day they're coming down on us that's what I keep telling myself at least it's just jinxed us yeah exactly yeah I'm trying to convince myself here because seeing little things like that on the ground don't make me all that confident it doesn't really have the booming Echo I I always think about in tunnels though yeah it's pretty muted yeah anyhow the whole video is not going to be just wandering down corridors here so I'll turn the camera back on when we find something interesting and our first real good maritalization going on here got some copper staining on a nice big Court seam of course there's iron staining everywhere a little bit of copper staining there that would be fun material to run through Jason's a mill there you go I do have my big Sledge and uh chisel with me if we oh this looks like we've come to the end of something it's the end of the line This Way yes we'll go back to the other the other direction there's some green stuff for you definite copper yeah oh yeah above your head oh that is beautiful blue in there too yeah metal tighten as right in one is that Galena on the a little yeah a little bit of Galena with it oh beautiful more Galena yeah you're right beautiful okay Jason start chipping we won 100 pounds of this I know it's gonna we got to take it back and run it through the mill the silver and copper out and gold of course and gold yes of course well we mentioned gold uh Brett there is actual gold content to this mine as well as silver lead and zinc yes they produce a lot of gold especially in the later years I looked up at a production report not too long ago and there's something about 800 troy ounces a year they're making okay which isn't insignificant especially since it was a byproduct yeah the main thing was silver here so there is gold in here I don't know what to look for or where to look for it these seams look perfect okay yeah absolutely perfect well if we need to we can take a bunch out I know a guy that owns the place and so uh here's real you can take as much as you want and we can uh refine it run it through keep it in samples whatever you want to do but very cool there's some cool stuff around here and it's kind of typical for most of the metallic veins uh they're we call them poly metallic veins because they have multiple Metals all in one right yeah so a bit of gold is kind of expected that's so pretty when you're dealing with the other heavy metals as well yeah GoPro handle here yeah that's from the 1800s yeah the 1800s GoPro we're starting to see some massive Galena down here Galena is lead silver ore obviously but Jason says that's our path down the hall of Doom yeah it's a little there's a little it should be fine okay well we'll watch you go down first do you want to bring you got our Hammer with you and our chisel I got a hammer chisel my bag okay let's go down this hole and yeah hopefully it's bigger than the hammer we brought last time yes because we got a lot of comments about we did how small our hammers were all right I'll go down first I gotta do a little side turn oh there's the ladder yeah I might want to hold on to the Rope hold on to the Rope yep for safety and then we do a shimmy and a twist oh yeah what have I got myself into yeah the easy part was going down the hard part was coming back up with 100 pounds of green in the backpack so I would have loved to have filmed what I just did but unfortunately I needed all three of my hands to do what I just did so I could not be filming along the way But Here Comes rip hello there hey you guys took it the easy way you just slid down slid down yeah Dynamite box a little nice and this is the reason we're down here right now is we have a whole wall of Galena I see some green in the gleaness so there's a copper here too but just a massive chunk of glean in that wall and I think we're gonna take some of it today I hope so you gotta swing the hammer this time oh I'm already exhausted just from the ladders Jason found a beautiful specimen here he's gonna try to pop out a little Crystal Thug in the center of the Galena that's amazing beautiful why'd we leave that one I just pulled it out of my hand there you go we're gonna put that in there let's get digging yeah feel that damn feel how heavy that is I don't think he'll be taking too many samples well you can take that one if you like I'm not a big sample guy so you're the you're the one with the yeah it's beautiful I don't know what do you call it mineral store what do you I mean well I I run I run the store where I sell a lot of mineral samples for sure mostly my ocean picture Stone but a lot of the other things I find along the way I'll definitely grab some Delena from here yeah with the owner's approval of course give people a chance to own a chunk of Cerro Gordo not hard chiseling that's for sure why it was so easy when he did it what the heck yeah nice another little Crystal pocket right in that one I assume that's probably pretty common then Crystal pockets or something has to be a nice chunk right there coming beautiful yeah beautiful and my backpack's not too heavy to lift under three pieces and it's too heavy well two minutes into it and I've got like 10 pieces that uh would add so much weight to my backpack I couldn't even lift my backpack so I've done my bit Jason you're up all right so Jason's about to knock this whole face off which means I'm going to stand well back that whole face is vibrating yeah I see cracks at the top yeah even open opening up well you got into a vlogger so I'm sorry you're carrying this out yeah this is my piece he really wants that piece of gleena for some reason whole face Brent you kind of have this permanent smile on your face yes you just love doing this don't you listen very enjoyable being down here it's like I'm down here whenever I can all right well I've had my phone you're done okay wow yeah what am I doing anything all this freaking blood here give me a few I'll put it in my pocket see how heavy this backpack is first see if I was exaggerating or not it's fine so we went down this crazy long Stairway to load up with a stupid amount of weight to go back up a crazy long stairway what are we doing what are we doing we're having fun okay this is fun this is fun I've been told this is fun Jason has offered to take my backpack up the hill so I could actually film on the way up I don't know someone count these rungs for me yeah I definitely don't think I could make it up the 400 feet of ladder up for the main shaft this 20 feet up is killing me luckily the Young Bucks are here taking them taking care of the old man ah jewels rope backpack all sorts of goodies okay okay the next stint up you go up we go I made it hello here you're very much like a minor right now there's the Rope all right Jason aka the pack mule can you imagine the life of those miners back then doing this for 12 hour days day in and day out with a little carbide lamp on their head yeah nothing to eat but maybe an apple they brought down with them for the full day like sardines or something yeah okay well thank you where's our next fun okay next we're going to a spot where they think they found some smithsonite down here Smith tonight is a well sought after uh lapidary Stone great for rock collectors when not I'm gonna go check out see what they found oh they left me wait free so that way was the Galena this way to the smithsonite decisions decisions I am guessing left either way oh either way okay on the left I like it graffiti that graffiti uh over to your left floor oh there we go 1935 I saw 1925 back there oh we got a barrel oh that's why we have hard hats went up and over up and over it's definitely copper yeah malachite beautiful malachite Yuri Beauty this one that was confident yep we may never get out of here I got here alone remember it was a very little weird piece of iron I suppose so light my understanding look at this oh this this this piece that whole big chunk of smithsonite from my understanding could I be wrong yes but it looks like the turkey fat kind of color that people look for often yeah and Smith's supposed to fluoresce under long wave okay and I do have a long wave with me let's give it a shot let's try uh lint often foreign but uh the rock itself may have slight fluorescing but it's just kind of a white maybe a pale purple right but no it's not what I would expect for Smith's night floresce right what do you think calcite or something like that calcite probably would be fluorescing as well could even just be a quartz druzy but it could still be I'm not positive of all smithsonite fluoresces so the other place where I thought I saw it in more prominent is at the end of this very Rat Hole thing and there's where you know if you're seeing the bubbles earlier YouTube or on the Google I'll show you guys where it is on the Google okay The Adventurous ones are going down the Pit of Doom yep and they say there's some smithsonite on a wall down there or something we might think of Smith's tonight yes I'm gonna send them with my hammer and chisel yeah break me off a chunk and bring it back to me okay because I don't feel like going down the pit to do yes there's very much all right good luck yes thank you the camera is probably not picking up how steep that is that's easily uh 45 if not a 60 degree down bye Brad it's nice knowing yeah for a day there's a black light for you to take down this button on the end and the other sucker is going down the Pit of Doom now yeah and I'm gonna stay up here and relax oh I said misery loves company so here I come all right ready ready Brad yeah that's why to me the guys are way down the shaft down they're hammering out something that might be Smith's night and it's crazy hearing them hammering down there I can hear it coming through the rock I can hear every thud they do there thudding The Rock fascinating and while I was sitting here I found a great chunk of calcite love calcite in these old mines especially when there's metals or sulfides around because if you dissolve away the calcite sometimes you get perfect uh sulfide crystals I don't know if this one will do it but it's a really neat piece of sulfide or of calcite it'll go into my collection from the day they got something I'm here cheering down the hole I love it it's calcite that's the stuff on the left is calcite and there's sulfides on the right piece like that might be perfect for dissolving who knows what I'll find in there found a big big chunk of it here check out how it glows like that is just completely translucent stuff I'm thinking calcite they do say they're smithsonite around I don't know if smithsonite comes that clear it's not quite looking Kelsey it kind of is I just never seen such beautiful crystals of calcite all growing in that pattern I think that's what it is we'll have to test it with some vinegar later if it's calcite vinegar will make it Fizz I want to take all of this now I need another backpack and another pack mule so I'm finding all sorts of these crystals now up in uh the pockets up all around here and another pockets of the rubble and I'm found some that make me question if this isn't selenite just be because of the sort of fibrous way the crystals are forming and they all seem to have that same fibrous pattern to them so I think we may have stumbled on a little selenite seam here I will definitely have to take these back to get them start tested to see what it actually is the boys are still down there chipping away they're probably on the exact same thing I have up here are you having fun Jason I think so you think so no one's told you yet I'm having a great time how about you Dan excellent do you have more than you can carry up absolutely I thought so I'm saving only the best pieces perfect should I tell you now that there's a whole lot of it right here well that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes there's a monster ascending from the deep tight with arm full of Rock oh crystally stuff too bubbly on the surface yeah I don't know what do you think of those those are really cool oh yeah I just grabbed a piece that on the way up yeah that is cool yeah my pockets are full of that kind of stuff too wow those are like the crystals grew out into a hole right full liquid and I think this is the same stuff just um it's been dissolved on the surface a bit and uh what you're seeing is sort of the ends of each Crystal dissolved into little round balls Oh weird there's a bit of copper staining on one of them there yeah I got it there's the little beauty but that's that's like that's a nice little specimen for sure that's Brent's favorite piece well I'm not positive this is selenite but I have friends who will be able to tell me for sure whether it is or not yeah so yeah like yeah just straight up and then into the crystal bed there yes I don't believe that is what were you looking for before um the uh Smith Smith I don't believe that Smith tonight yeah but I think we may have found a nice little deposit of selenite again I don't know for a fact I'd have to get someone who note I've never looked up selling it before because I don't have it back home but um what I do know of selenite it forms those long thin crystals yeah and I think that might be what we have is it pretty soft I mean can you scratch it it is soft it's basically a salt I believe and it's quite common we got a nail or something I don't I don't have anything my backpack's back there wow that's all right I really wish I could just take a whole bunch of this stuff unfortunately my pockets are only so big my backpack is only so big that crystal structure right there probably is going to tell us what this mineral is I see a spot that's really showing its crystals and when you're talking about crystals that often will tell you or give you a good indication of what the mineral is of what form of Crystal it takes absolutely fascinating what we found out here with this uh phosphorescence and this luminescence I don't know but let's see a little bit oh check out the property of this stone that Jason discovered this is a black light a long wave black light and check this out when I turn off the light oh yeah phosphorescence that is spectacular Jason found this out because uh Smith tonight is supposed to be fluorescent meaning that if you hit it with a black light it's supposed to shine a color but this Stone was not fluorescing though when we turned off the light Jason noticed it glowed green for a second and that's known as phosphorescence and that gives me the perfect opportunity for today's geology lesson of the day luminescence there are three different types of luminescence there is fluorescence there's phosphorescence and there's chemo luminescence fluorescence is when you shine a invisible light known as a UV light or a black light on a substance and it gives off a visible light of a different color phosphorescence is when you shine that same black light on a rock or mineral or substance and it starts to Glow after the lights turned off that's what you just saw and then chemaluminescence is where a chemical reaction creates a glow of some sort think of like a glow stick or a glow worm or something like that those are the three different types of luminescence today we found phosphorescence that's today's gelge lesson of the day so Jason did find bread down there and then they decide to both go back down the hole so now I'm all by myself and both of them are gone to who knows where I think I might know the way out if needed we have a 2 hour limit before they start taking the elevator back up and we're getting close to our two hour mark I might have to go without them bye so I'm glad Brett's here to guide us out I would have turned the absolute wrong way on the first uh intersection we found that's the way we came in but I think he said there's an easier way we're right here where we don't have to scramble over and the alarm our two hour alarm went off a few minutes ago so that means they've raised the elevator already and we have to climb to the surface no that's not how it works they're looking down the hole right now waiting for our signal that we're ready to go up the elevator once they get our signal they lift the elevator up and actually you can follow the cool air as we get closer and close to the elevator it gets cooler and cooler as cold air must be coming down the shaft there we are just jump on did you just jump on okay a quick Time Warp upstairs to take some nice pictures of all these minerals we pulled out from down below check them out Galena lead silver ore some malachite this is an oxide of copper when copper sulfide oxidizes often leaves this green staining which is malachite this piece of Galena here had a yellow substance on the surface which is most likely iron rusting turning a yellowish reddish yellow but it could possibly also be some sulfur Galena is lead sulfide has lots of sulfur in it and under right conditions it can give off a bit of the sulfur but most likely that's just iron oxide the blue here is just like the green was a second ago an oxide of copper this is Azurite and again as copper sulfide breaks down and oxidizes it can leave this blue Azurite now these crystals we found down there this is just a small sample we got bigger samples had lots of speculation down in the mind of what they were but when we got up here and did some research we are pretty sure now this is smithsonite I think it's a zinc silicate uh smithsonite so uh the mines are known for their zinc that would make sense it's down there this is not stereotypical smithsonite though we did get some pieces that look more stereotypical this is more stereotypical of the Smiths night that we can find pictures of online smithsonite can come in some very very Gemmy colors and it can come in this just white form as well so this is most likely the smithsonite that Sarah Gorder is actually quite known for it's known to have smithsonite in it and here again is more of what we think now is smithsonite some great fluorescent properties phosphorescent properties I should say beautiful crystal structure in there but of course what saragoro is most known for is its lead silver Galena and I've got some great samples of lead silver Galena from Cerro Gordo here beautiful stuff and when I get all these home I will definitely take the high pressure water gun to them clean them up and they will be Purdy this is a great little sample there's smithsonite on top as you're right on the bottom and now we have these crystals here at home where we can do all the proper mineral testing and research and everything we have decided that we're almost positive this is hemomorphite which is a hydrated zinc silicate something very closely associated with smithsonite and we're 99 sure now that that is what we have after all of the proper testing and research we're on the elevator we got the return signal from above they're about to lift us up we're headed up that was so much fun thank you Brent of course awesome I think I'm going to end this video right here we're probably gonna start another one tomorrow because we're here for two days two days so on our way up I hope you all enjoyed the video if you did please leave me that thumbs up if I ever heard your subscription already I hope I earned your subscription today and a big thanks to everyone for watching especially my patrons because the sport of my patrons I get to make weekly episodes of Dan heard prospecting hope you all have a great day and until the next one bye see ya [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Dan Hurd

Views: 487,186

Keywords: gold panning, prospecting, panning for gold, mining, gold, rock hunting, rock hound, rock collecting, british columbia, bc, video, canada, finding gold, gemstones, gem stone, gems, treasure hunting, metal detector, gold river, gemstone hunting, gold panning for beginners, finding gold with a metal detector, metal detecting for gold, sluice box, how to gold pan, gold mining process, gupta dham, Real diamond, Cerro Gordo, Ghost town living, ghost town, Silver, Lead

Id: WyYUxa4BssA

Length: 33min 59sec (2039 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 30 2023