In its original form, gold appears in igneous veins hydrothermal (hot water) volcanic where it is deposited along with quartz, amethyst, other minerals and heavy metals. The golden "mother vein" in California is a region crisscrossed by many hydrothermal veins filled with quartz and gold. Almost all hydrothermal quartz veins contain some amount of gold. Find the quartz first and then the gold.
Look for gold and quartz rocks that contain gold in areas where hydrothermal volcanic activity has taken place in the geological past. These areas include regions around the gold mines and rock outcrops upstream from gold deposits where it has eroded outward from its foundation, washed downstream and accumulated within and near the stream channels. In general, gold originates upstream from places where it is actively collected or historically collected and drained of sand and gravel deposits.
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Look for rock outcroppings and rocky areas that contain a lot of quartz. Quartz appears in a variety of colors (including amethyst) depending on the impurities contained in the mineral. Quartz has a massive crystalline appearance and can be white, yellow, pink, purple, gray or black. Gold occurs among the other crystals found in quartz.
Look for natural cracks and lines in the quartz rocks that you find and examine them carefully, because gold is usually found along these linear structures. Gold is easy to recognize in white quartz.
Look for gold in the quartz veins in areas where the foundation is fractured by tectonic and volcanic activity. Fractures and cracks in the foundation form ideal paths for very hot water and stream under pressure to flow and precipitate out of the dissolved ore and heavy metals. Gold is deposited by precipitation along the edges of the fracture and walls. The basins of active geysers and those already extinct are evidence of such hydrothermal activity.
Use a metal detector to search for gold in rocks with quartz. Any piece of large gold crystal (nuggets) or gold veins will offer a large signal in most metal detectors. But if you do not get a strong signal, it does not mean that the gold is not there. In contrast, strong signals from the metal detector could indicate the presence of other metals besides gold. Fortunately, when metals are present in quartz veins, gold is usually among them.
Look for quartz rocks that contain gold where there have already been other gold miners and prospectors. Even rocks that other seekers have forgotten, as well as concentrations of gold (leftovers), may contain gold. Fortunes have been made by patiently and systematically reworking the leftovers and concentrations of irresponsible and careless gold seekers and miners. The great collective efforts to extract gold usually leave behind gold that is extracted more efficiently and with less cost by amateur miners and weekend seekers.
Use your geology hammer and swing to open the quartz and the rocks where gold could be. Place an iron or steel anvil in a large container to avoid losing rock dust that may contain gold. Look for large pieces that you can pick up manually or with a pincer.
Strain and screen the smallest fractions of ground quartz rock and contain gold in water to collect and extract the gold. It uses standard methods of gold displacement to extract small nuggets and gold dust from the pulverized rock. Sieve, dissolve and re-screen the finer and finer fractions.
Dry and place your genuine gold nuggets and any dirt of gold you find and extract the quartz rocks in small glass vials to store them and for a subsequent gold valuation, metal analysis, refinement, exposure or sale.
Tips
- Re-process each size of quartz gravel to extract all the gold content. Beware of the "gold of fools". The iron pyrite is pale, brass-colored and practically worthless.
Warnings
- Wear protective or safety glasses when you crush, break or hammer rocks.