The Lost Dutchman Mine: Putting it all Together

So lets put together all of the lines of evidence we've looked at and see what conclusions we can draw about a) the existence of a "Lost" gold mine in the Superstitions, b) where it might be located.

Firstly, with regards to the probability of existence of an undiscovered or lost gold deposit in the Superstitions, we can say that while the historical evidence is sparse and rather ambiguous in terms of the source of Waltz's gold; Julia Thomas, Hermann and Reinhard Petrasch, the three people who arguably knew the dying Jacob Waltz the best, clearly did make their initial search in the Superstitions, specifically their western end. 

Secondly, the geological and geochemical evidence do not rule out the possibility of an undiscovered gold deposit in the Superstitions. The most permissive areas are the far western end of the range, in the vicinity of the known gold-producing Goldfields-Youngberg (Superstition) district, and further to east, along the southern flank of the range, from the Peralta trailhead to the JF Ranch area.

Thirdly, given the number of people that have tromped over the range since Waltz's death in 1891, including Dutch-hunters, deer hunters, backpackers, boy scouts, etc., if a lost or undiscovered gold deposit does exist, it must be a very small or very subtle or very well hidden feature. 

So what comes next? If this were to be approached as is typical in the mineral exploration business, a follow-up plan based strictly on the publicly available geological and geochemical evidence would consist of the following:

1) Forced ranking of target areas based on the presence and relative magnitude of stream sediment, rock chip and hydrogeochemical anomalies, presence of flow domes, intensity of argillic/sericitic alteration, density of historical prospects/mine workings.

2) ground follow-up consisting of resampling and analysis by modern methods of stream sediments and outcropping altered and/or mineralized zones from the target areas defined in 1), in rank order.

I'll be working on 1) over the summer and, with the results in hand, my buddy Keetley and I will embark on 2) during the winter of 2018-2019.