Placer gulch
Quartzite-source Au nuggets in gravel
Metals on this play: au, ag
Calibration
Osceola Dry Gulch, White Pine County, NV. Pioche Weekly Record 29 Sept 1877 (Ward Reflex 27 Sept 1877); Stuart 1909 24 lb / 1878; Johnson USGS Bull. 1356.
The trap
Host. Quaternary gravel on quartzite bedrock. Dry Gulch / Grub Gulch / Hogum (Mary Ann Canyon) fans. Highest values on bedrock, clay false-bedrock, and buried channels.
Trap. Gravity. Coarse gold and nuggets drop into riffles, bedrock cracks, and buried channels. Not a chemical reductant trap. Detector and pan, not XRF-the-wood.
What a hit looks like. Coarse gold and nuggets in gravel on quartzite. Detector hit in a dry gulch, not a limestone gossan and not a sandstone reef. Large pieces are rare; most Osceola gold was fine.
Wrong mountain
The 24-pound nugget in the Pioche Weekly Record (29 Sept 1877, reprinting the Ward Reflex) came from the Wisel–Vizan placer at Osceola, White Pine County — not from Pioche, Delamar, or Caselton. Later retellings say 25 lb and $6,000. No sourced 33-pound nugget. Lincoln County has no Osceola-class placer district. Mixing this play with Play E/F is how you metal-detect the wrong mountain. Eldorado Canyon is Play I lode first.
- Combined Metals limestone / jasperoid — Play E. Caselton is not a nugget gulch.
- Treasure Hill / Raymond & Ely quartzite vein — Play F. The Pioche Record reprinted the nugget; the gravel is 150 miles north.
- Wolframite / scheelite vein — Play G.
- Sandstone + wood — Plays A–D.
- No gravel, no bedrock riffles, no quartzite source upslope.
- Eldorado Canyon lode veins — Play I. A little placer gold sits in the wash, but the paying trap is the Techatticup-class vein, not an Osceola nugget gulch.
How to use the score
The score orders the day. It is a walk sort. It is not an assay, a mining claim, or permission to enter. Killed ground stays on the map so the boundary is visible. Private land, tribal land, and park interiors stay off the walk.