Geologic anomaly...

        We’ve talked about the interesting geology of the Black Hills – so diverse that university geology departments throughout the United States schedule field camps for students to this area.

        Bob was mentored by several mine geologists who had extensive local knowledge, having written their thesis on anamolies they found interesting.

        I had reported earlier that we recently staked a claim in the Tinton area and found an unexpected bonus of an adit (man-made cave) on the property.

        We took the grandkids and my daughter (a geology student) back to do a little further exploration Monday, all of them having a “day off” from school.

        My intention was to dig a little to further expose the partially collapsed adit.  Bob and Robey (10) took off walking to further explore.

        I started in, removing some larger rocks near the entrance, shoveling debris out of the way as I went.  I probably wasn’t too far into the operation when I removed some branches in the way and looked up to notice rounded river rock between layers of rock in the face.  My daughter, in the meantime, had discovered the same thing a little to my left!

        I’ve learned patience, kindof, and proceeded to continue clearing for ½ hour or so, noticing that certain layers of the rock contained river-rock.

        I was pleased to hear Bob’s voice as they returned from their hike, and removed a small shovelful of the rounded rock, went to meet them and told him I had found it between layers.  He gave me kindof a weird look, so I said, “come on, you just have to see this!”

        Bob says it appears to be an ancient stream conglomerate with two fractures (well defined in photo) coming to meet at the entry point of the adit.

        He could see that gravel had been forced between layers of silt stone, and cemented as time passed.  Obviously this is a rich part of the ancient stream that came across the Tinton, Cement Ridge and Negro Hill area and proceeds to go down Bear Gulch and probably forks near Bear Town Hill.  One leg of the ancient stream goes east down Potato Gulch and the other north following the Bear Gulch drainage.

        The adit was at the head of what we call Sloan Gulch, which has yielded small to medium-sized nuggets.  This deposit should be interesting to crush down and evaluate the gravel bands within this deposit.



What appears to be a pillar of ore left for support...



       

         He said this doesn’t appear to be a pre-Cambrian conglomerate.  It appears to be a localized flood event that created this conglomerate.

        We’re excited to test the layers of gravel, especially in the fracture area.  Previous workings indicate they ran all the gravels, evidenced by at least 6-8 inches of “gravel” in the tailings pile; that’s only as far as we dug.

        Access is our first issue; we are walking in so very limited as to what equipment we can carry.  The closest water is down the gulch in a swampy area. We will probably file a Plan of Operation with the U.S. Forest Service to allow for motorized access.