What kind of rivers usually contain gold deposits?
Juangatos asked:
Do I look for rivers which have a slope to them? Running or still water? Sandy or rocky type soil? And since gold is heavy I assume I’d have to dig a bit down first?
If you know any good books on the subject please let me know.
Do I look for rivers which have a slope to them? Running or still water? Sandy or rocky type soil? And since gold is heavy I assume I’d have to dig a bit down first?
If you know any good books on the subject please let me know.
the ones that have gold
No clue–check a map on Google it’ll tell you!
first question you ask yourself: does gold naturally occur in my area? Some areas do, others don’t. If it does, then the types of creeks that hold placer gold (the little flecks and nuggets that wash down from the vein due to erosion, rain, etc) are gravelly and rocky, as opposed to muddy and silty. You don’t have to dig down, but you do want to look behind and under medium to large rocks, at bends in the creek/stream, at changes of elevation (waterfalls, riprap etc)
Wet ones… lol sorry could resist.
Seriously.. the river at first is unimportant as it will depend on the type of rock further upstream. Archean (rocks older than 2.5 billion years) will be the rocks you are looking for..
Once you have found this out then you look at the slope of the river.. too fast and the bits of gold will be washed away.. too slow and they want wash down from the source.
Any type of silt is fine.. doesn’t have to be sand or gravel.. but gold is usually found in gravel bedded rivers or streams.. if this has a layer of silt of sand on.. this is ok too… and the darker the silt the better as it will allow you to see the gold bits more easily.
Good luck!
gold occurs in nature in the metallic state. it is found in veins of quartzose and schistose rocks, and as grains and nuggets in the sands and gravels of rivers flowing from such rocks. the old way for finding gold was to sift out the stones and then wash the sand and water over sheepskins, where the particles of gold, being heavy, got caught in the deeper hair.