Fossicking for Sapphires in the Central QLD Gemfields!

foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'm out here in the central gem Fields looking for sapphires let's go alrighty so I'm scratching around in the dirt like a chicken and I've found one I don't know if it'll focus but it's just there just here again I don't know if it'll focus or not if it's any small one but we take whatever we can get again I don't know if this is focusing because it is a GoPro so far out I just dropped it so I did find it I took my gloves off as well uh again I don't know if this is focusing or not but but that is it a little Sapphire greeny yellow Sapphire with some red inclusions so yeah so last night it rained and my entire camp is wet and the surrounding ground is dry which is pretty funny um it was it was raining from about 2 30. and it's just stopped now and it's just on seven o'clock now but this riverbed which I'm camped next to that was dry I don't know if I can turn the camera around I don't think I can but I'll turn the phone around so this was dry for the last couple of days and now it's flowing quite quickly and my fossicking areas are across the other side so I don't know maybe today's just gonna be a relaxing day and maybe do something on this side of the river who knows what the creek who knows so what I'm looking for when you dig in for sapphires what are you looking for is what's known as wash and what they call runs of wash so in this situation we need a lot of gravel and what they call Billy Boulders which are these different Boulders in there these uh host rocks so to speak or the other Rock so we need a lot of gravel and these Billy Boulders like this and then you can see as I've dug away at it you know you've got the the wash on top of the Billy Boulders and that is where the sapphires will sit because over the last couple of you know hundreds of thousands or millions of years um obviously with the floods and whatnot that have happened throughout this area The Sapphires have become deposited in this gravel so you can see that perfect example topsoil gravel Billy boulders and then obviously you know I've eroded at this area with my shovel oh little trowel and um yeah that's what I'm going to be sieving and then when I sieve it'll reveal the uh the treasures for me thank you foreign okay I have no idea if this is going to show or not face it down a little bit more alrighty [Applause] [Music] so we're doing this all the Heavies all the heavy materials all focus in the middle [Laughter] at the bottom though not on the tops so all of this stuff on the side it's all lighter material stuff we don't want it's not valuable it's not precious and then I do that just to settle it a little bit so you can see all of the smaller ones have gone through the through the grates here and they've gone into there so now I'm just looking for the gems here usually with sapphires there aren't any that are in this top classifier again what you can do is you can do it into the middle like that and then you can flip it upside down which will basically leave the gems on top in the middle once you flip it but for me I personally prefer to sift through it with each Rock in the Sun so we can have a look so sapphires are obviously a dark color typically so I'm grabbing all the darker rocks now this one you can see it's got those metallic flecks in it maybe not on the GoPro but it doesn't let any light through doesn't let any light through so that's not a sapphire and I just grab all the stuff on the outside Chuck it these darker ones no yeah again with this top classifier there's not really too many gems typically that's a nice bit of quartz but again I'm not after quartz so I'll leave that for the next person so with the sun you can really see the light penetrates through so any precious gems we'll have the light go through them that one doesn't have the light go through it and it's too metallic looking I don't know what type of rock it is I know there's Iron Stone here but that's not Ironstone I don't know what it is there's this really dark Rock here that fragments similar to obsidian and glass and fragments in the exact same way so I'm really confused as to what it is because it's not obsidian because obsidian let's light through let's see this and that settles it a little bit let the water drip again I don't know how much of this you're seeing but first time using my head mounted GoPro what's it like being six foot four in the Australian bush yeah not bad all right into the light into the light so what I'm gonna do I'll rotate it so that there's a bit of a gap at the bottom for me and then personally again you can do the sieving and then flip it upside down with sapphires it's easy to miss them or to you know there could be an error in the pan other sieve rather or there could be an error in My sieving Method so for me I like to have a look at um pretty much every Rock individually so again that's why I've only got one glove on because this like um well with with my hand I'm able to obviously you know pick out and sift through the gems and The Rock's a lot easier around this outside I'm going a bit quicker because typically because I've have centered them they should be in the middle I'm still looking at them I'm just going quicker and when you see one you'll know that's how I knew I was picking up all these dark rocks going on is that one is that one is that one oh is that one no and until I found my first actual Sapphire and then I was like yeah nah so again I'm looking at it in the Sun so it'll light can penetrate you can use a torch of course but I mean I've got the biggest torch in the sky up there so now I do check these dark ones so check up to the light hold up to the light if light's coming through Sapphire it's not coming through not a sapphire it's pretty simple it's 50 50. it either is or it isn't some of them actually I'd question now sapphires can be clear also known as white sapphires they can be yellow green blue pink and even a red variation now I can do a voiceover of um reading from that book oh here's one uh I think no fairy blue looking hold up to the light no light penetrates it not a sapphire I can do another test because that is very very blue oh I don't know if you can see them on the GoPro but it actually lets light through so that one is a sapphire yeah that's a really blue sapphire wow again I don't know if the GoPro is picking this up but in my eyes I can see that that is a really dark blue sapphire cool yeah that's cool so that's why the sun is there and that's why my torch is there now put the gems in my mouth in between sieves so I don't lose them because in my pocket it's easy to fall out or I could have a hole in my pocket pocket and not know about it but if they're in my gob and like outside my teeth in between my teeth and my lip I'm Not Really Gonna I think it's a bit of zircon I'm Not Really Gonna [Applause] yeah so I think that's zircon and Zircon is the oldest mineral again let's light through so again that one let's join the Gob it's a bit weird I know but so I was in the middle of sieving and sorting through and have a look again I don't know if it's gonna focus on it it's just there I might have to put it on my head actually let's pick it up so right here is a gorgeous gorgeous gem it looks like glass so yes it's a sapphire yeah you can really see the color coming through there greens Blue from that angle again I don't know if it's going to focus or not you can sort of see it through there greens and Blues yeah absolutely gorgeous hey there's still water there that's good it means I can save wetsuit when I was a kid I had the weakest ankles like I'd be walking on the footpath and you know the gap between the footpath and the grass how it's like this big that's the drop I would literally roll my ankle on that and it will be swollen and rolled and sprained and just not good not good for days potentially weeks depending on the drop like it was so bad and playing soccer or football growing up as well it didn't help when you know you get Studs to The Shins and to the ankles and you roll it on the uneven ground because obviously as a kid you're not playing on the best pitches so I had the weakest ankles as a kid and I was just thinking about that and how different it is now so now I'm walking on like literal what they call Billy Boulders rocks everywhere so I'm digging over there in that hole and walking the whole way across over this log up here down here and then I'm putting the stuff there and then that's my little gem pocket so yeah it's it's just interesting to think about um yeah my dad had this balance board and I used that almost every day to strengthen my ankles and yeah the more I went hiking and the more I was doing things outdoors and rock climbing and everything else like that the better my ankles got and now I'm carrying you know a full bucket of rock and dirt over Boulders and different rocks my ankles are all on different angles and all that and I have no problems whatsoever like yeah it's it's quite it's quite interesting to think about yeah well guys after a week of fossicking and finding easily over 130 beautiful beautiful little sapphires um yeah my back is just it's had enough so I'm gonna call the quids on this fossicking trip it's been awesome I've really enjoyed finding beautiful little sapphires a couple of zircons and some clear ones which I don't think they're quotes but we'll say I'll send them back to my dad and he can take him to the laboratory club and yeah they'll they'll let us know what it is but yeah time to um get this time to take this Camp down and um hit the road thanks for watching make sure to like subscribe comment and share and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: The Young Adventurer

Views: 15,222

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Id: t8Wb9QvHaAY

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 22 2023