Dig Your Own Gold - The Fun Of Recreational Prospecting For Nuggets

"Dig Your Own Gold - The Fun Of Recreational Prospecting For Nuggets"," I kick around kooky little old towns in the middle of nowhere.
 As fun as that is though, finding your own gold, either as a nugget or in solid hard rock is a special experience that's hard to equal.
 The excitement resulting from Marshall's discovery was a fire that ignited gold and silver rushes all across the western US.
 A century ago, Jim Butler, while traveling from his ranch in central Nevada, noticed some quartz vein material.
 That sample became the first of many rich discoveries at Tonopah.
 These finds have had no small impact on the development of our country - historically millions upon millions of ounces of gold have been recovered from deposits found by individual prospectors.
 They are placer gold and hard rock gold.
 Northern Nevada is extremely rich in gold, mostly as these primary hard rock type deposits.
 Although a few small operations still exist, hard rock mining is usually done on a large scale.
 Because of this, many prospectors who look for hard rock gold seek to sell their finds to large companies that possess the resources to develop them.
 Once it is freed from the vein, any accumulation of that gold is called a placer deposit.
 The four most common types of placer deposits are: 1) Residual - where the original vein has weathered, but the placer gold remains more or less ""in place"" and still within a few feet of the original source; 2) Eluvial - where the gold has traveled a short distance down from the source, but has not made it into streams and other drainages - these are often called hillside placers; 3) Alluvial - Where the gold has made it into area streams and rivers.
 Wave action can concentrate the heavier fraction of the sand, producing black sand layers containing fine gold.
 Some later progress to an interest in hard rock deposits, but most still start out looking for flakes and nuggets of free placer gold.
 It's always great when you come up with your own gold, and the excitement is real.
 In my experience, staring too closely at gold nuggets or thinking too much about the quest to find them often causes it.
 Prospecting for gold is a hobby that's easy to fall into.
 It can be as simple as purchasing a gold pan for $10 and grabbing a bucket and the garden spade from the garage.
 Some allow the modern prospector to accomplish things no old timer could ever dream of.
 There certainly is no problem finding ways to spend as much money on good equipment as you would like - lots of great stuff is available.


So whether its searching for the next million ounce ore deposit or just finding a small gold nugget you can call your own, rest assured, it is still possible.
 For just about any outdoor enthusiast, it's worthwhile to know a little about gold deposits - because the next big find may be yours!

.


learn something new