Bajada and Eolian Placers

Bajada Placers
Bajada is a word in Spanish that in fact means “Slope” and it is used to classify a confluent alluvial fan down the bottom of a mountain range. The quantity of gold that is produced from bajada placers is not that much in comparison to other placer workings because of the lack of resourceful dry washing methods used in the past.

The structure of a bajada placer is pretty much the same as a stream placer with the exception that it is habituated by the climate and the topography of the dry region it takes place in. The amount of the gold that has been freed from its environment as it works down from the lode outcrop to the bajada is settled down on the slope close to the mountain range. The gold falls down the line, which is the contact of the central fill with the bedrock.

When the total amount of placer gold that is produced in the United States is put together, bajada placers do not amount up to much as far as figures of production are concerned. However, this kind of deposit is an interesting place for weekend prospectors to go to because it offers a lot of activity for people that are not able to go to placer streams as much as they would like to.

Eolian Placers
Eolian placers consist of deposits that are formed by the wind. The action of the wind assists in the forming of eluvial and bajada placers however a real eolian placer has nothing to do with these. Eolian placers can be commonly found in desert areas where a big mass of sand or earth has a little quantity of gold. When the strong winds start to blow, the materials that are lighter start to blow away and they leave the heavier minerals that become concentrated.

Small deposits of black sand in desert areas can often times be found and are usually concentrated in this way and are usually one way of finding eolian placers. Eolian placers that can be worked on, no matter how sparsely distributed the gold is, are worth looking into. In many occasions they lead to a lode that is close by.