Tips on where to find gold

Just like all other forms of historic mining, there were inefficiencies with this practice and plenty of gold was missed. Stamp mills were used by hard rock miners to extract gold that was lock up in ores.

They were a critical need at mines where the gold was only accessible after the rock was crushed. Most stamp mills are long gone. They would either be moved from the mine once they were done extracting ore and move to another mine. Stamp mills that were abandoned have mostly been salvaged for scrap metal. The stamps themselves may be gone, but you can usually identify the areas where they were located because there will sometimes be crushed ore piles in the vicinity.

If you are lucky, you might find some ore that was abandoned and never crushed. Searching the old tailings with a metal detector can sometimes produce nice gold in quartz specimens. I have heard more than a few stories about piles of gold ore being found along trails and roadsides, far from any existing gold mine.

The theory is that miners were probably transporting their ore to the nearest stamp mill when their wagon broke down. Being loaded down with heavy ore, the miner unloaded their wagon and limped into the nearest town for repairs, never bothering to come back for the ore pile. You never know what you might find! Sometimes the creeks and gulches below lode mines were not placer mined by the early miners and show little evidence that they were worked historically.

There is a tendency for people to believe that just because the early miners did not work an area it did not have gold, but this is certainly not the case. There were good reasons that these places may have been overlooked. Lots of places just were not rich enough for the old-timers to spend any time at.

Some of these areas can be found around old lode mines. The miners found a rich vein of gold in the hillside that was much more valuable to mine than the drainage below. The other reason they may have overlooked the gulches was a lack of water. While the gulch may accumulate some gold, the lack of water made it uneconomical to mine.

Today, a prospector using a metal detector or drywasher can find considerable gold in these dry areas that may have never been mined before. You will notice that most of the mines in a given area are found in a certain rock type, and by exploring in nearby geology that is similar, you are more likely to find an area with gold. It can definitely take some time and patience to find a completely undiscovered gold deposit.

Even when you do everything right, you are going to strike out more often than not. However, with some patience and careful study of the productive geology of a given area, you might just find an undiscovered gold deposit that pays handsomely.

Studying geological maps can be a great way to find potential prospecting areas. Research the geology of known gold mines in your area and you will likely notice some trends regarding general rock type. State and federal government agencies have these maps and you can find them with a bit of research. Some are more general like this one, while others are very detailed and cover specific areas that will be of interest to you as a gold miner.

Usually when they were digging, they were following a vein or something that indicated that there would be some gold there. During the early days, a miner needed to find quite a bit of gold to make it worth their time, so even if they were finding a decent amount of gold they might abandon a location.

In the desert you will see old drywasher tailing piles scattered around in lots of places. Some of these old piles are still visible and are spotted because of their lack of vegetation. Drywashers are notoriously poor at recovering gold sometimes.

Even in the best of circumstances you will lose some gold with them. This is especially true with the old drywashers that were used by the depression era miners. If they were drywashing then they were likely finding some gold, so it might be worth setting up and reworking some of these old piles.

You might be surprised how much gold that they lost. You can also give them a quick scan with a metal detector and recover gold nuggets. Scan the top of the pile. Mining relics are another great indicator that miners were in an area. If they were there to mine for gold, then take time and explore the area yourself. Gold is deposited in a variety of different ways. Taking the time to learn about the different processes that result in concentrations of gold will help you understand where to find it!

Sometimes the richest concentrations of gold are found in bench deposits that are nowhere near the current river. One of the best things about bench deposits is that they are sometimes completely ignored by other prospectors. Everybody thinks that they will find the most gold at the edge of the water so they completely overlook the benches behind them. Those old channels might be way richer than the river itself. Ancient rivers are a lot like bench deposits. They are places where the river once was, but has since eroded and cut its way downward to its present location.

I generally think of bench deposits being in the nearby vicinity of an existing river channel, whereas an ancient river can be miles away from an existing river. The principle differences are the same; it is the timeline that is different. Bench deposits might be a few million years old, or they may be as recently exposed as last season after a large snow melt left an existing bench high-and-dry.

Ancient rivers that are gold bearing are often from the Tertiary time period, and could be several hundred million years old! Ancient river channels are sometimes found hundred or even thousands of feet above the closest existing river. See those round rocks? This is an old river channel. It is now about 80 feet above the current water line. The easiest way to spot an old river channel is to look for smooth, water-worn rocks.

Study the old mining reports and you will often see that many profitable mines were actually working old channel. Most of the hydraulic mines in the California Mother Lode were breaking apart old river channels to release gold. Many are actually surprised to learn that gold is found in the Midwest and Northeast. The source of the gold is different through. Instead, the source of the gold actually comes from Canada and is brought down by glaciers.

Yes, glacial gold deposits are actually found in pretty much all the states in the northern half of the U. As various ice ages occurred over the millennia, glaciers moved southward, pushing down rocks and ore from Canada.

As the glaciers would recede these rocks would be deposited in random locations of glacial outwash. Glaciers brought gold-bearing ores south from Canada.

As the glaciers receded, these ores were deposited. This is the source of most of the gold found in the Midwest and Northeastern U. Glacial action usually pulverized the ores and left only fine gold dust. It is possible that large rocks and ore could have been brought down, but the violent action of ice pushing south actually pulverized the rocks.

Any ore that did contain gold was obliterated into the tiniest of pieces. The glaciers would recede and the pulverized bits of gold were left behind, being concentrated in waters by natural erosion. The result is small concentrations of tiny gold dust particles that can be found all over in parts of the U.

These gold deposits are usually sporadic and limited. There are several locations where gold can be found in beach sands. The richest beach placers on Earth were found in Alaska. Others rich discoveries have been made in Oregon and Washington.

These are tiny, almost microscopic bits of gold that are found within fine textured sand. The gold may be small, but there are large quantities of it in some places and it has actually been mined profitably. The most famous locations are the beaches of Nome, Alaska. Finding beach gold can be challenging. The best indicator to look for is black sands.

The gold will be most highly concentrated within the streaks of black sand. The tricky thing is that the streaks of black sand will move around with the tides, so a place that is very productive one day might be poor the next. The gold found on beaches is always small, so specialized equipment will help you recover more gold.

Even gold panning can be challenging and you will probably lose some gold unless you are an extremely skilled panner. The Gold Cube has become one of the favorites to use by beach miners.

Sand can be fed directly into the head of the cube and you will get good gold recovery if you set it up properly. Running larger material through the Gold Cube will increase losses of gold considerably. Most ocean beaches also have some gold deposits that are above the existing water line. These were ancient placers that are sometimes will above the high tide line. These ancient beach deposits were mined quickly in most areas, and the profitable deposits have mostly been worked out.

The old-timers missed quite a bit of gold though, and you can still recover some decent gold if you find a good spot. Just remember, the gold is going to be tiny, so I highly recommend you use specialized equipment if you want to be successful. Mercury Amalgamation and Fine Gold Recovery.

What the gold you are finding looks like can be an indicator for where it comes from and how far it has traveled. If you are panning smooth, water-worn nuggets, there is a good chance that it has traveled a good distance. Move upstream and try to pinpoint where to gold is originating from… there is a good chance that you may find a very rich concentration of gold. This was part of an eroded gold vein that produced several ounces of gold for one lucky prospector!

Most small scale prospectors try to find their gold in streams that have a history of having it found in them. The age old technique of panning for gold is still the most common method of prospecting done but there are also those that use larger equipment such as sluices, dredges and drywashers.

If the equipment is laid out correctly and then used properly, then these methods are great at separating the lighter materials out and capturing some gold if it is present in the gravel you are running. These captured gold particles are generally very small in nature and usually will consist of gold flakes or gold dust.

Black sand has been a challenge for prospectors for as long as man has been looking for gold. Luckily, we have some tools today that make it much easier to separate it from the gold.

Specifically, we have some equipment that was designed specifically to deal with this challenge. Some of this equipment is mostly designed for final separation of gold from concentrates, while some can have material the material that you are digging added directly to them. I will say again, classifying the material you feed into any type of equipment is going to increase your fine gold recovery rates.

Most prospectors today spend most of their efforts searching for placer gold, but some prospectors specialize in hard rock mining and searching for valuable gold ores. The first thing to understand is that it takes a trained eye to identify actual gold ore.

If you seriously want to figure it out then you need to crush up your ore and pan it out to see if there is any gold in it! Most small-scale prospectors should focus their interests on free-milling gold. Some of the richest gold mines in the world mine this type of gold, but they have the proper equipment needed to extract it.

This type of gold ore is generally not profitable for the average prospector to focus on. Focusing on high-grade, free-milling gold is the best bet for most prospectors. You can get a good quality mortar and pestle to crush up small specimens and examine them for gold. These are small and can easily be put in a backpack, or you can bring home small ore samples and crush them at home.

Just make sure that you take careful records of where you collected your samples. If you do happen to find a large amount of ore that is auriferous then there are larger commercial rock crushers that you can use. After your ores are crushed into a fine dust, then you can use any sort of gravity separation method to capture the gold. A simple gold pan will work just fine to check small samples. Processing ore and extracting gold is much more labor intensive than placer mining. It is pretty common knowledge that gold is sometimes associated with quartz.

They are most often found by prospectors using metal detectors. While quartz and gold definitely have a common association, sometimes people give it more attention than it actually deserves to get. Quartz is one of the most abundant minerals on Earth.

There are thousands of places where quartz is found that no gold has ever been found. If I am in gold country, I will still pay some attention to quartz because I already know that gold occurs in the area.

I have found that very clean, white colored quartz is generally less productive than dirty, iron-stained quartz. I find a lot more gold in the dirty looking quartz than I do in clean, white quartz. I find more specimens like this one dark with iron staining and other matrix than I do with just gold and white quartz. One of the most famous gold mines in California is the Original Sixteen to One Mine , which mines rich gold veins that run through pure white quartz.

Remember, if you happen to find a specimen of quartz with visible gold veins running through it, it is usually a good idea to keep it as-is rather than crushing it. Collectors will usually pay a nice premium for these pieces. For most prospectors, a good quality VLF metal detector is the best tool to use if you want to find a gold in quartz specimen.

You want a good quality detector that is designed for finding small gold, since gold veins are usually very thin it takes a specialized detector to find them. Scanning old mine tailing piles can produce some amazing results.

Gold deposits in creeks and rivers are replenished after large storms. Heavy rains cause erosion of soils along the hillsides, which move gold down into the river. This type of replenishment occurs every spring in most areas. Normal snowmelt and spring runoff is a natural even that releases gold. It was millions of years of this process that made the tales of riches so impressive during the early gold rushes.

Even one large storm can make a noticeable difference in the amount of gold found though. Flash flooding in the desert is a good example of this. While a dry wash might go relatively undisturbed for years and years, one massive flash flood can cause considerable changes to a wash. Not only does it add gold from the surrounding hillsides, but it also exposes fresh bedrock and will release gold that has been hidden under overburden. There are dozens of minerals on Earth that are shiny and have a silvery-gold color.

Most of them are worthless. There are a some very simple ways to tell the difference based on specific gravity and hardness of the minerals, but you should also learn to identify what real gold looks like. Gold is heavy. Pyrite and micas are very light. The color is also very different. If you take it out of direct sunlight the gold color will go away. Gold is a very soft metal. A pocket knife will scratch it.

A large piece can be flattened out. This is not the case with mica and pyrite. They are brittle, and will fracture into smaller pieces. It is surprising that marketing gold is actually difficult for many gold prospectors.

Your options of where to sell will vary depending on where you live. In some countries, you are legally required to sell to the government and they will only offer you a fixed price for your gold. In the U. First you need to set your expectations. It is likely somewhere between 18k and 22k in purity. Also consider that whoever you are selling to needs to make a profit.

Here is where the buyers will vary considerably. If you sell to a pawn shop or cash-for-gold type business then you should expect to get just a fraction of the value.

Unless you are absolutely desperate, these should be your last option. Refineries are a good option if you have a decent amount of placer gold to sell. They will almost always pay better than pawn shops or other buyers.

However, they have lots of fees to consider, so do your research. Payouts will vary and not everyone trust refineries to be honest about their payouts or results from their assays. Selling to a collector is a good option for most miners. Placer gold, gold nuggets and gold specimens have collectable value that will actually bring a better price than just the gold content.

Jewelers might be interested in buying your gold nuggets, but they are going to be selective. If you find a nice specimen of gold in quartz, you need to find out how much actual gold is in the piece.

If it is good sized and attractive, then there is a good chance that it is worth more to a collector than if you were to crush it and melt it, but it is still a good idea to figure out exactly how much gold is in it. To do this, you need to do a specific gravity test. With this information, you can determine the gold content within your specimen.

The calculations to do this are fairly straight forward, and if done correctly you can get a fairly accurate assessment of the gold content. There are some pretty handy calculators online that will help you do this.

Sometimes gold nuggets come out of the ground dirty and grimy. They can have caliche and other material covering the outside of them which covers up the natural beauty of the gold. They are going to be much nicer for display if you clean them up. Plus, you will need to clean them up if you want to sell them.

Gold that you pan out of a river is usually nice and polished. Where to look for gold Gravel bars usually found on the inside of the river bends. Although the gold here is mostly small flakes to very fine, there sometimes is a lot of it. Where the stream levels out after a steeper part such as downstream of rapids or waterfalls. Newly formed gravel bars.

Small streaks of gravel laying on the bed rock but you will need some sort of sucker to retrieve it if it is underwater. Down stream sides of large boulders and other obstacles which because of size or other factors appear to have been there for a long time.

Pot holes in the bed rock Cracks in the bed rock. In popular prospecting areas, the large, obvious cracks have most likely been cleaned out many times. Look for lines of moss running along the bed rock. There is almost always a small crack under the moss and these cracks can contain a surprising amount of gold. Moss and grass roots near the river. Tips and Warnings. Related Articles. Article Summary.

Method 1. Make an iron pickaxe or better. You will need an iron, diamond, or netherite pickaxe in order to mine gold ore. You will need 2 sticks and 3 iron or diamonds in order to make a pickaxe. Open a crafting table and place the 2 sticks on top of each other starting at the bottom of the middle column. Then, fill the top row with the iron or diamonds. An iron or diamond pick is pretty much all you need to mine gold, since getting a netherite pickaxe is way more difficult: you will need to go to the nether, find 4 pieces of ancient debris and mine them with a diamond pickaxe, smelt the ancient debris in a furnace to get the netherite scraps , combine the scraps with gold ingots to make a netherite ingot, and finally upgrade the diamond pickaxe using a smithing table.

Dig down to Y-level Hold your pickaxe, face the block you want to mine, and hold right click until it breaks. Make sure you mine down at an angle, making a staircase like formation as you go, as this will prevent you from falling into caves or lava. If you're playing on Pocket Edition, tap and hold on the block to break it. If you're playing on a console or with a controller, hold the right trigger. If you're going through caves instead, make sure to leave a trail of torches behind you.

This will help you find your way back out. You can also stand in the middle of two blocks and alternate breaking each one. However, you'll have to pillar back up or use ladders later. Check your Y-coordinate. Gold ore is found from Y-levels [1] X Research source. You can check your current altitude by pressing F3 on Java Edition, or by checking a map in the console edition.

The Y-coordinate tells you your altitude. Here are the best layers to look for gold: [2] X Research source Layer 28 is the highest and usually safest layer where you'll find the maximum amount of gold. Layers 11—13 are the best places to look for gold and diamond at the same time. Try to avoid digging below layer 10, where lava becomes much more common.

Mine in branches to find gold. Dig a main horizontal tunnel to get started. Mine branches off this main tunnel one block wide and two blocks tall to search for gold.

Gold ore typically spawns in groups of four to eight blocks. To find every single gold block, keep two solid blocks between each tunnel. However, this is a much slower method. Mine the gold ore. You'll know a block is gold ore if it looks like stone or deepslate but with bits of gold in it. When you find some, hold your pickaxe, face the ore, and hold right click until it breaks. When it breaks, it will drop a piece of raw gold. If you're playing on version 1.

Method 2. Find a badlands biome. Badlands biomes, also known as mesas, are one of the rarest biomes in Minecraft. They are characterized by their abundance of red sand and large mounds of colorful terracotta [4] X Research source. If you do not already know where one is, pick a direction and start traveling while looking for one. This may take a long time, however, so be prepared for the journey. If you are playing on Java Edition, have cheats enabled on your world and are having a hard time finding a badlands biome, you can use commands to find one.

This will give you the coordinates of the nearest badlands biome, which you can then teleport or travel to. Check your coordinates. Gold ore is found from Y-levels in badlands [5] X Research source.

Mine for gold ore. Dig branches into the hillsides, or just walk along and scan the cliffs for gold ore. Search abandoned mineshafts. Badlands are the only biome where mineshafts can generate above ground [6] X Research source.

If you come across a mineshaft while mining for gold in one, explore it. Gold ingots can generate as loot in minecart chests found in mineshafts [7] X Research source. Method 3. Make a Nether portal. A nether portal can be made using 10 obsidian, which is formed when water meets lava source blocks, and can be mined with a diamond pickaxe. Place two obsidian blocks next to each other on the ground, and then place a placeholder block on each end.

Place three obsidian blocks in columns on each of the placeholder blocks. Put a placeholder block on the top of each column. Place two more obsidian blocks between the top placeholders, then light the portal using a flint and steel. Enter the Nether portal. Make sure the portal is activated and there are swirling, purple blocks inside the portal frame. Step into the portal frame. Your screen will appear purple and before you know it, you are transported to the Nether. Look for Nether gold ore.

This type of gold ore looks like netherrack with bits of gold in it. It only generates in the Nether from Y-levels , in any biome [8] X Research source. It is best to look for Nether gold ore in biomes that aren't basalt deltas the nether biome with a greyish color, plenty of basalt and blackstone, and magma cubes generating everywhere , as this biome have fewer valid generation areas.

Mine the Nether gold ore. Unlike regular gold ore, you can use any type of pickaxe to mine Nether gold ore. Hold a pickaxe in your hand, face the ore, and hold down right click until it breaks. It will break into gold nuggets [9] X Research source.

If you're playing on Pocket Edition, tap and hold the block to break it. If you're playing on a console or with a controller, press and hold right trigger to break it. If you break Nether gold ore or other gold blocks near piglins, they will attack you, regardless of if you are wearing golden armor or not. Turn the gold nuggets into ingots. Open a crafting table and fill all 9 slots with a gold nugget to make a single gold ingot.

Alternatively, you can mine nether gold ore with a Silk Touch pickaxe and smelt it just like regular gold ore. Method 4. Explore abandoned mineshafts. Mineshafts can generate underground in any Overworld biome, or above ground in badlands [10] X Research source.

The minecart chests found in mineshafts can contain gold ingots. Digging a little deeper into your research will result in more gold if you implement these tips. I often talk with excited beginners to gold prospecting. In gold country, there are lots of really well-known areas that have gold.

There might be a famous river where gold was discovered. Obviously these places have some gold since the old-timers mined there, but these spots are definitely not secret. I would assume that if you are out there hunting for gold, then eventually you would like to find some, right?

Not only will you find more gold, but you will also enjoy the solitude of nature by getting away from the crowded spots where everybody else already goes. I was and still am more interested in having a fun outdoor activity where I could get away from people and enjoy some solitude. Trust me, you can find places that other people rarely go. Let everybody else go to the same hammered-out locations to dig for a few specks of gold.

They are out there.