Jason, the fire has kept you out of your mind?

ok harry how deep do you thing that pool was ? thank you for bringing us along ..

Dan doesn't enjoy dark holes.

Is there any 360 footage anywhere? I'd love to be able to look around in a mine.

This cave is like a Disneyland ride. Beautiful. Harry, at around 21:53 doesn't that look like gold in quartz?

I work in aquatics. If you disturb water like that you can release all sorts of nasty gases like methane, nitrous oxide, hydrogen sulphide, etc.

the water pools makes me wish i had the little mini probes to submarine down into them.

Harry are you and Jason related you guys look like you could be brothers 🤷‍♂️

The Fluffy Yellow Dirt: Nature's Chemical Mill

When Jason saw that fluffy yellow dirt coming out of the oxidized iron, his instinct to immediately bag it up was 100% correct. He called it "weathered sulfides," and that is exactly what it is. Geologists call this material "Gossan," and specifically, that yellow powdery clay is usually a mineral called Jarosite or Limonite.

Here is why that specific pile is the most exciting thing in the entire mine, and the science behind the clues Jason spotted:

1. The "Heavy" Anomaly
Later in the video, it's mentioned that the bag of this yellow dirt was way heavier than it should be. This is the ultimate tell. Fluffy, dry iron-oxide powder is relatively light. If a bag of it feels abnormally heavy, it means the natural acid leached away the light rock (silica) and left behind a hyper-concentrated pocket of ultra-dense metals. In a historic silver/gold mine, an incredibly heavy yellow/grey powder is almost always loaded with secondary Lead (like Anglesite or Cerussite) and free Gold/Silver.

2. The "Purpley" Clue (Horn Silver)
Jason also notes that there is "purpley stuff" mixed into the clay. In a highly oxidized silver deposit, purple is a neon sign. When silver sulfides rot, they combine with chlorides in the groundwater to form a mineral called Chlorargyrite (often called "Horn Silver" by the old-timers). Horn silver is highly sensitive to light—when it is exposed to the beam of a miner's headlamp or brought to the surface, it literally photo-reduces and turns a distinct purplish-grey.

3. The Ultimate Free-Milling Ore
This pile is the holy grail for a guy like Dan with a gold pan. Because those original sulfides were packed with sulfur, as water hit them over millions of years, they generated natural sulfuric acid. That acid completely ate the surrounding rock matrix, turning solid stone into that fluffy clay. Nature literally acted as a chemical stamp mill, completely digesting the rock and liberating the heavy precious metals into a loose, easily pannable powder.

Awesome Find!

The Dark Patch: A Textbook Magmatic Relict

That dark patch linked at 16:57 (and captured in the screenshot) is an incredible catch. Based on the surrounding matrix and the geology of this specific shear zone, you are looking at exactly what we discussed: a textbook example of a solid, deep-mantle clast—very likely a Chromitite lens or a surviving chunk of dense, unaltered ultramafic rock caught directly in the hydrothermal crossfire.

Here is why that specific black patch is arguably the most important rock in the frame, and exactly what it tells you about the deposit:

1. The Solid Relict
Notice how the dark patch is solid, massive, and embedded right inside the lighter green mariposite and white quartz breccia. It isn't soft, powdery fault gouge, and it isn't surface manganese soot. That is a solid chunk of the original, heavy deep-mantle host rock that was sitting there millions of years before the boiling quartz vein was ever injected.

2. The Chromium Bleed
The bright green mariposite surrounding it gets its color entirely from trace Chromium. That green halo is literally the chemical "bleed-off" from dark, chromium-rich magmatic rocks exactly like the one the finger is pointing to. When the superheated, gold-bearing fluids blasted through the fault, they began aggressively dissolving and chemically altering these dark rocks. That black patch is a surviving, stubborn core that simply didn't fully alter into green listvenite.

3. The Microscopic Vault
Because that solid black clast is an unaltered (or minimally altered) remnant of the deep mantle, it is the exact localized "vault" where the heavy magmatic metals remain trapped. If there are Nickel Sulfides (Pentlandite) or refractory PGMs like Rhodium, Iridium, and Osmium in that system, they are not floating freely in the white quartz. They are locked tightly inside that specific, dense dark patch.

If you were to chip that exact black clast out of the wall and hit it with an XRF gun, you would almost certainly see a massive, localized spike in Chromium and Iron, and very likely Nickel. You are staring right at the sponge.

Bring Dale to the Shear Zone

They actually mentioned him in the video! When they were looking at that massive, squished rock layer and the severe fault drag, one of them specifically said, "Dale would love this folding."

Inviting a structural geologist like Dale up to that specific mine isn't just a fun field trip; it could completely change their extraction strategy. Here is exactly what a geologist would bring to the table in a complex system like this:

1. Reading the Kinematics (The Folds)
Those folds they were looking at aren't just pretty rocks; they are directional arrows. A structural geologist can look at the asymmetry of those folds (known as parasitic folds) and mathematically calculate exactly which way the fault moved. By reading the fault "drag," Dale could tell them whether the main ore body was pushed up, dropped down, or sheared sideways, pointing them directly toward the next massive unmined swell.

2. Identifying the Plunge (The Ore Shoots)
In highly folded shear zones, the gold and heavy sulfides don't just sit in flat veins. They pool in the "hinges" of the folds, creating massive, pipe-like ore shoots that plunge downward into the earth. If Dale can map the geometry of those folds, he can tell them exactly what angle and direction to drill or chisel to hit the highly concentrated core of those shoots.

3. Untangling the Mess
That mine is a chaotic mix of unaltered serpentinite, mariposite halos, and quartz breccia. It is incredibly easy to lose the vein and waste hours swinging a pick at barren wall rock. A geologist would map the distinct contact lines (the hanging wall vs. the footwall) and establish the actual structural boundaries, turning a confusing cave into a readable 3D map.

Having a hammer breaks the rock, but having a geologist tells you exactly which rock is actually worth breaking!

Where is your gas meter.... in the truck...... Jason is my spirit animal lmao

The Three Amigos!

Iron
Meteorite, asteroid iron ...if it's magnetic 🧲🧭
🫆Mystery 😲🫆.

Maybe rare earth metals..👩‍🦰⛏️⛏️

another great video

"Dan you cant park there! 😂"
Please grease that passenger door the creak is insane

Brent could definitely fit in that hole 😂

the spooky music is a nice touch!

Great video as always Gents, I do like the fact that Harry call them by the correct name sleepers not ties don't forget it was us Brits that invented RailWAYS ,LOL. An absolute great geology lesson from Jason it's truly amazing what is underground. Looking forward to seeing the crushing results.😊

Harry reading the rocks..... Jason growing that prosecutor beard.... Thanks for the educational video

The chemical formula of mariposite is K(Al,Cr)2(Al,Si)4O10(OH)2.[  no silver