Patriot Realm

Around 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth formed as a hot ball of molten rock created from gases released by the Sun.

Over time, its surface cooled down and solidified into a rough crust, constantly pushed and reshaped by molten rock (magma) beneath it.

Volcanoes breaking through the crust released water vapor into the atmosphere, eventually condensing into rain.

That rain collected in low areas, forming the oceans. Water from comets that struck Earth also contributed to that process, which was essentially complete by about 3.8 billion years ago.

Meanwhile, mountains slowly rose as magma pushed upwards at a rate of just a few millimeters per year—a process that continues today.

The Biblical scholars who maintained that the Earth is about 6,000 years old, commencing when our forebears barbecued the talking snake under the tree, were a bit off the mark.

Throughout history, much of the Earth's surface has been covered by ice or water. Over millions of years, three main types of rock formed: Igneous rocks, created when magma cooled and solidified; Sedimentary rocks, formed from particles deposited on the ocean floor or minerals that crystallised from seawater; Metamorphic rocks, which are igneous or sedimentary rocks transformed by intense heat and pressure.

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol ‘Au’, and is one of the least reactive of metals, and is therefore referred to as one of the ‘noble metals’. It is soft and malleable and occurs embedded as lumps in white quartz veins, which have been forced into cracks in the earth’s crust from the boiling interior. Pure gold also occurs as separate pieces called ‘nuggets’.

The ' Welcome Stranger ', found in 1869 in Moliagul, Victoria, by  two Cornish miners, Richard Oates and John Deason, is the largest gold nugget ever discovered,  weighing 72 kilograms. 

It also occurs as compounds with other elements, as in gold tellurides. Those deposits, however, do not exhibit raw colored gold and require complicated methods of extraction, usually a large ‘treatment plant’ using huge tanks of deadly poisonous potassium cyanide solution. Flysa’s father was a metallurgist in charge of large treatment plants before and during Flysa’s early days.

Many of the early prospectors in areas containing rivers ignored the gold reefs. They used hand-operated pans or inclined sluices with horizontal riffles and the force of gravity to separate gold from the other minerals recovered from the rivers. Machinery was eventually developed to crush the gold ore so that the gold could be separated from the crushed quartz by water sluicing on a large scale. That led to shaft mining.

The early prospectors sought reefs of quartz containing gold, physically, not chemically attached to the pure gold.

Notable gold reefs discovered in Australia during the ‘Gold Rush’ days of the 1800s included Bendigo Goldfield (Victoria); Ballarat Goldfield (Victoria); Kalgoorlie Golden Mile (Western Australia; Mount Morgan Mine (Queensland); Charters Towers Goldfield (Queensland);

Fosterville Gold Mine (Victoria); Gympie Goldfield (Queensland); Stawell Gold Mine (Victoria); Sovereign Hill (Victoria); Coolgardie (Western Australia).

Those in America included: Mother Lode (Sierra Nevada foothills, California); Empire Mine (Grass Valley, California); Mariposa Quartz Veins (Mariposa County, California); Cripple Creek (Teller County, Colorado); Central City and Black Hawk (Clear Creek County, Colorado); Homestake Mine (Lead, South Dakota); Comstock Lode (Virginia City, Nevada); Goldfield (Esmeralda County, Nevada); Cariboo Gold Rush (Barkerville, British Columbia); Juneau Gold Belt (Juneau, Alaska); Rock Creek Mine (Nome, Alaska).

When liquid mercury comes into contact with gold or silver, it forms a mixture known as an amalgam. This process, called amalgamation, was historically used in mining but was labor-intensive, time-consuming, and hazardous due to mercury's toxic vapors.

In the late 1800s, ores that could be processed by simply crushing and amalgamating were labeled ‘free milling.’ The gold ore was finely crushed at stamp mills using rising and falling weights known as ‘stamps.’ The crushed rock containing gold was washed over copper plates coated with mercury below the stamps. The mercury would bond with the gold, forming an amalgam.

Periodically, the amalgam was scraped off the plates. Some mercury was recovered by straining the mixture, while the remaining ‘glob’ was heated in a retort to vaporize the mercury, which was fatal to inhale in quantity, which was then condensed for reuse. This process left behind a spongy gold residue.

The sponge gold was melted in small furnaces, sometimes with flux to speed the process, producing non-pure gold bars. These bars were refined further at the mill or sent elsewhere for processing.

Iron pyrite, also called pyrite or fool's gold, is a common mineral made of iron and sulphur, with the chemical formula FeS₂. It’s the most widespread sulphide mineral.

Pyrite often forms shiny, gold-colored crystals that look like real gold, which is why it’s called fool’s gold. The name ‘pyrite’ comes from the Greek word pyritēs lithos, meaning ‘fire stone,’ because it creates sparks when struck against steel. Ancient Romans used this name for stones that could spark, and one type they described matches pyrite. By the mid-1500s, the term ‘pyrite’ was used for all sulphide minerals.

Pyrite is usually found in quartz veins, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, coal beds, and even as a fossil replacement mineral. It has also been discovered in the shells of certain deep-sea snails. While pyrite is mostly mistaken for gold, it can sometimes contain small amounts of real gold, including invisible gold trapped within its structure. In days gone by, it was not uncommon for inexperienced prospectors to mistake a pyrite reef for a gold reef. That occurred both in Australia and America.

The most famous Australian reef, which could be either a gold or pyrite reef, if it exists, is Lasseter’s Lost Reef.

Lasseter's Reef is the name given to a supposed gold deposit that Harold Bell Lasseter claimed to have discovered in central Australia in the late 1920s. His story about the discovery is inconsistent, and the exact location of the reef remains unclear, if it exists at all.

In 1929 and 1930, Lasseter made several different claims about when and where he found the gold. In one story, he said he discovered it in 1911 or 1897. He wrote to a politician in 1929, saying he found a large gold reef near the MacDonnell Ranges 18 years earlier. However, the government showed no interest in investigating, and it was later found that Lasseter had been living on a farm in New South Wales from 1908 to 1913.

In another version of the story, told in 1930, Lasseter claimed that when he was 17 years old, he discovered the reef while traveling across Australia. However, records show he had been in a reform school at that time. According to this version, Lasseter found the reef near the Northern Territory and Western Australia border, but could not return to the site due to inaccurate location equipment. He spent the next 30 years trying to raise funds for an expedition to relocate the reef, but there was little interest due to the gold rush happening in Kalgoorlie at the time.

By 1930, during the Great Depression, the lure of desert gold was strong. Lasseter managed to raise about £50,000 from private investors to fund an expedition to find the gold reef he claimed to have discovered. Unlike many expeditions of the time, this one included motor vehicles and a light aircraft.

The team included bushmen Fred Blakeley (the leader) and Frank Colson, prospector George Sutherland, engineer and driver Phil Taylor, aide and ‘explorer’ John Blakeston-Houston, and pilot Errol Coote. Lasseter was the paid guide. He was five feet three inches in height and pugnacious.

The expedition set out from Alice Springs on July 21, 1930, but Lasseter proved to be a difficult companion and an unclear guide. Their route took them to Ilbilba (also called Ilbpilla Soak), a site with an airstrip built earlier that year for another expedition. Along the way, they faced logistical challenges and hardships, including the loss of their plane. When they reached Mount Marjorie (now Mount Leisler), Lasseter announced they were 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of the search area. Frustrated, Blakeley accused Lasseter of being a fraud and decided to call off the expedition, leaving Lasseter at Ilbilba.

Determined to continue, Lasseter teamed up with a dingo-shooter named Paul Johns who had a team of camels. Lasseter's behaviour grew increasingly erratic, but he claimed to have rediscovered the gold reef after returning to camp with some hidden rock samples. He refused to disclose its location, leading to a fight with Johns, who accused him of lying. Johns eventually abandoned Lasseter and returned to civilization, leaving him to continue alone with some camels.

Lasseter’s journey ended tragically. In March 1931, a bushman named Bob Buck found his emaciated body buried in a shallow grave prepared by local Pitjantjatjara people. Buck reburied him, but later another bushman, Walter Smith, claimed to have buried him again, as the grave was still shallow. Lasseter's remains were eventually moved to the Alice Springs Memorial Cemetery.

Buck also discovered Lasseter’s belongings in a cave at Hull’s Creek, including his diary. The diary revealed that after Johns left, Lasseter's camels ran off, leaving him stranded in the desert. He was helped by a group of Pitjantjatjara people, who provided food and shelter, but Lasseter, weakened and blinded, eventually died of malnutrition and exhaustion while trying to reach Ayers Rock.

Paul Johns later described the areas he and Lasseter had explored, including the Petermann and Rawlinson Ranges, the Warburton Range, and parts of South Australia’s Mann Range. They returned to Ilbilba before parting ways.

Geologists have debated whether the area contains gold. In 1931, T. Blatchford and H.W.B. Talbot joined Buck on a search and declared the region unpromising, though they only surveyed parts of the Petermann and Rawlinson Ranges. More recent studies have suggested that gold may exist in the area. In the unlikely event that the reef is found, it may well consist of Fool's Gold