Supergene Gold Enrichment 101 (Module 3) Gold Enrichment Blankets #enrichmentblanket #goldlayers

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Dive into the hidden world of gold in our latest YouTube Short, "Where the Gold Settles: Unveiling the Enrichment Blanket"! 🌍✨ Discover how gold-rich fluids travel underground and where they ultimately settle. Our 3D visuals illustrate the fascinating journey from the oxide cap, through the leached zone, and into the riches of the enriched zone.

Join us as we reveal the secrets of the enrichment blanket—dense, dark, and packed with gold just waiting to be found. 🚀🔍 Perfect for geology enthusiasts and treasure hunters alike!

Where the Gold Settles – Finding the Enrichment Blanket

The richest gold zones in a supergene system aren’t on the surface—they’re quietly hidden just beneath the leached zone. These zones are called enrichment blankets, and they form where the migrating gold finally stops traveling and precipitates out of solution.

Let’s break it down.

What Is an Enrichment Blanket?

An enrichment blanket is a subsurface layer where gold—mobilized by acid generated during sulfide weathering—is re-deposited. This layer typically forms:
• Below the oxidized cap (rusty red, iron-stained rock)
• Below the leached zone (pale, chalky, chemically stripped)
• At the first reducing contact—where chemical conditions shift and allow gold to settle

This enriched layer can be only a few feet thick, but hold 2x–10x the grade of the original host rock.

How It Forms

As we explored in Module 2, surface weathering of pyrite and other sulfides creates sulfuric acid. That acid dissolves metals—including gold—and moves downward through gravity and groundwater flow.

But gold can’t keep traveling forever. Eventually, the fluid meets a reducing environment—a layer with lower oxygen or chemically active components that cause gold to fall out of solution. Common reducing zones include:
• Residual sulfides
• Organic-rich shale layers
• Reduced iron or manganese horizons

At that moment, gold precipitates, often forming as micron-sized grains within clays, sulfides, or iron oxides. Over time, this builds a narrow but highly concentrated gold blanket.

Field Signs You’ve Hit It

Identifying an enrichment blanket takes a trained eye and some digging. Here are clues:
• Transition from light-colored barren rock to darker, heavier material
• Increased density and weight of sample
• Presence of limonite, jarosite, or manganese oxides
• “Sooty” or dark clay textures that contrast with bleached zones above

Sometimes, small visible gold may be present—but more often, it’s invisible to the eye and must be confirmed by assay.

How to Target It

If you’re sampling a hillside or digging a trench:
1. Start from the surface iron cap.
2. Pass through the leached zone—you’ll know it by its bleached, kaolinized appearance.
3. Pay attention to the first visual change below that. That’s where enriched gold may reside.

On a vertical face or cut bank, you may only get a narrow window. But even a 6”–18” enrichment layer can be worth targeting if the gold has dropped out efficiently.

Using AI Gold Maps

When using the Aurum Meum Deep Dig Map, search for:
• Oxide alteration overlays (color-coded rust zones)
• Fractures or structure lines cutting reactive host rock
• Historic oxide/sulfide transitions in mine reports nearby
• Elevation lines and dry wash interfaces, which can expose vertical profiles

Use cross sections and topographic relief to model where fluids may have percolated and where gold would likely have dropped out.

Also look for signs of jasperoid bodies, as they often mark silica-rich envelopes that surrounded past fluid pathways.

Key Takeaway

Supergene enrichment blankets are the most profitable part of many oxide gold systems—but only if you understand the profile. Don’t be fooled by the surface show. The iron cap is just the messenger. The real payload lies just beneath the leached zone.

Dig smart. Dig deep enough to read the whole sequence. And if you start seeing darker, heavy clays and iron oxides—you might have just crossed into the zone where the gold settled.


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#GoldMining #Geology #EnrichmentBlanket #TreasureHunting #YouTubeShorts #aigoldmap