Primary gold deposits are associated with intrusive rocks: diorites, quartz diorites and granites. They are called intrusive or intruded because they were formed as a result of the solidification of magma that penetrated from the depths into the upper layers of the earth's crust, but did not reach the surface. Intrusive bodies formed by the solidification of magma that filled vertical or slightly inclined cracks in the earth's crust are called dikes.

The importance of intrusive rocks is enormous because they were formed from the same magma, which at the same time was a source of hot melts and solutions, during the solidification of which gold deposits appeared. In this sense, the presence of intrusive rocks serves as an indicator of the possible location of industrial ore bodies near them.

Gold is usually closely associated with sulfur compounds of non-ferrous metals and related minerals or with their oxidation products. These gold satellites are represented by chalcopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite, galena, arsenopyrite, stibnite, brown ironstone, etc.

Widespread satellite - chalcopyrite(copper pyrite) has a golden color with a metallic sheen and is very similar in appearance to gold in the rock. But even an inexperienced scout, without resorting to testing with acid, can easily recognize chalcopyrite by its higher hardness. Even harder than chalcopyrite, also similar to gold, its other companion is p i r i t(sulfur pyrite). They are valuable minerals: chalcopyrite-the main ore for copper, and pyrite used to produce sulfuric acid.

Sphalerite(zinc blende) has a black, brown or brown color, diamond luster. In quartz veins it is found mostly in the form of crystals, faceted with a system of regular planes. Scratched by a knife.

Galena(lead luster) is a silvery-white or gray mineral with a bright metallic luster, soft, heavy, almost twice as heavy as sphalerite. The cleavage is clearly expressed, and when struck with a hammer, the mineral crumbles along the cleavage cracks into regular cubes.

Arsenopyrite(arsenic pyrite) is a silver-white mineral with a metallic luster, hard to brittle. When hit with a hammer it will smell like garlic.

Antimonite(antimony luster) usually forms columnar and needle-shaped crystals or radial, often tangled clusters in quartz. The cyst is lead-gray, metallic luster. Soft and fragile.

Limonite(brown iron ore) - yellow-brown and dark brown in color. It is represented by a loose ocher mass or a lumpy sintered variety, often forming cubes along the pyrite. The most widely distributed mineral. Almost all quartz veins that come to the surface are mottled in color due to limonite. Often the ocher mass fills voids in quartz formed in place of decomposed pyrite and chalcopyrite. Large masses of brown iron ore are observed at the outcrops of quartz veins rich in pyrite, chalcopyrite and other sulfides or on sulfide ore bodies.

Accumulations of brown iron ores on sulfide bodies are called iron hats And. They are of interest because they themselves may contain large quantities of gold.

Quartz is the main mineral with which gold is associated. Therefore, gold can most often be found in quartz veins.

Quartz can be very diverse in color: white, gray, milky white, smoky, yellowish, etc. It also varies in structure: fine-grained, coarse-grained, confluent, banded, concentrically layered (typical of chalcedony), sometimes with voids on the walls which can be observed crystals (druze) of transparent rock crystal. Visible gold can often be found in yellow-brown quartz with ocher inclusions.

Primary (ore) gold deposits are the primary sources of numerous gold-bearing placers. The composition of gold placers is determined by the composition of the primary deposits as a result of the destruction of which they were formed.

Often in gold placers there are found in the form of impurities latina, osmic iridium, tin stone - cassiterite, wolframite, titanium ore - ilmenite, diamond, rubin. These minerals also have a high specific gravity (except for the last two), and they resist abrasion and other types of destruction well when carried in a stream of water.

Most of the gold placers belong to alluvial, i.e., river ones, formed by the transfer and deposition of fragmentary material by channel flows and confined to the valleys of small and medium-sized mountain rivers.

There are placers where the bedrock ore bodies were not eroded after destruction and remained in the form of crushed stone, sand and clay at the site of their formation. Such placers are called eluvial: They usually occur on the wide, flat watersheds of modern rivers.

Placers are also found on mountain slopes, where gold-containing destroyed rocks accumulated, sliding down the slope from the bedrock deposit located above. Such placers are called deluvial: in terms of their industrial importance, they are much inferior to alluvial and even eluvial ones. It should also be noted coastal-sea and lake placers, common on the coasts of seas and large lakes.

Other types of placers are known in nature, but they are of secondary importance.

Alluvial gold placers have the greatest value for industry. Depending on the conditions and location of placers, they are divided into channel, spit, valley, terrace and spoon.

Channel placers lie in the beds of modern rivers. These placers are characterized by a relatively small thickness of gravel-pebble sands and often a complete absence peat- deposits in which gold is almost never found.

Spit placers lie on spits, islands and shallows of modern large rivers. There is no peat on most spits. On spits, a significant proportion of gold is represented by very thin “floating” particles. A slight increase in gold is observed in the head part of the spit.

Valley placers are characterized by a greater thickness of sand and the presence of peat compared to channel placers. The total thickness is 5-10, and sometimes more than meters. Placers of this type occur in the floodplain and mostly on the first terrace of the river valley.

Terrace placers lie on longitudinal terrace-like ledges of bedrock that make up the slopes of river valleys. These placers are usually located above river level. At the same time, “high terraces are poorly preserved and are represented by narrow fragments on the slopes of valleys.

Spoon placers They lie in the valleys of ravines and small springs and rivers with intermittent water flow. In addition to gravel and pebbles, the bedrock composition contains crushed stone and boulders. Many spoon placers start directly from bedrock deposits. Placers of this type are characterized by a high concentration of metal, which must be kept in mind when searching.

The sizes of placers are different. The largest number of them (about 60%) are no more than 3 km long; placers 3-10 km long account for 20-30%, and over 10 km - no more than 10%. Thus, the bulk of placers are usually located within the development of primary gold deposits or close to them in ravines, valleys or on terraces.

The age of placers varies greatly - from ancient to modern. The most ancient placers, as a rule, are composed of strong, firmly cemented rocks; deposits of young placers, the age of which does not exceed 60-70 million years, are usually represented by loose rocks.

For placers of all ages, the maximum concentration of gold is observed in the lowest layers of clastic (sand-pebble, often with boulders) sediments that lie directly on the bedrock. In practice, the surface of bedrock underlying placers is called raft, and the gold-bearing layer is sands. Above the sands there is a practically non-gold-bearing layer called “peat”

The highest concentration of gold is observed at the very border of the sands and the raft. Particularly favorable places for the accumulation of gold are the uneven surfaces of the raft; protrusions of bedrock, cracks, depressions - pockets, funnels, etc. Along with gold, its satellites and other heavy minerals, such as magnetite, ilmenite, etc. accumulate here.

In gold production, Russia has shown a steady rise in recent years, becoming one of the five countries that are the main producers of this precious metal. About 700 gold mining enterprises in the country annually produce about 170 tons of gold. Approximately half of the gold is extracted from ores, and half from placers.

There are a lot of non-industrial placers in Russia that no one is working on yet. Non-industrial placers mean placers that do not have reserves for industrial production, i.e. gold mining using industrial equipment (excavators, bulldozers, dredges, etc.)

These are primarily placers from which industrial reserves have already been extracted. However, there is still a lot of gold left in them. Often a lot of gold remains at the sides of pits, since existing legislation does not allow the enterprise to go beyond the boundaries of the pit. Gold remains in the washed rock dumps. In addition, during Soviet times, during exploration, many small placers were found in remote areas, which cannot be considered industrial in terms of gold reserves (several kilograms). Of interest to amateurs are also the spit placers, where flake gold is deposited after each flood.

If you intend to start prospecting for gold, first of all you should decide on the place where you will work. Where there is no gold, you will not find it. You should study the relevant literature, collect materials from old and new mines, find out where nuggets were found and where there was only fine gold (the metal detector does not respond to it).

Where is gold found?

One of the sources of gold on earth are quartz veins containing gold. These veins were formed hundreds of millions of years ago and have since been weathered by heat and cold, plants and animals, rain and wind, snow and ice. As a result, rich gold-bearing veins collapsed, and quartz rock with gold was washed away into the rivers. Powerful streams of water during heavy rains create a continuous movement of stones, breaking and rolling them and sorting them by size, shape and density. Gold, being significantly heavier than many other materials, tends to be deposited in certain places along the flow. Such deposits are called alluvial.

Finding and mining such deposits requires an understanding of where heavy materials will accumulate as they are transported by water flow.

Directly in the vein, gold has a crystalline form. Once in the river, it often separates from the quartz and takes on a rounded shape. Experienced geologists can tell quite accurately how long a nugget has been rounded and how long it has traveled along the river and where the main vein may be located.

There are several types of gold deposits resulting from the weathering of veins.

1. Residual deposits I. These are pieces of vein that were formed as a result of chemical and physical weathering of a gold-bearing vein and are located in close proximity to it.

2. Elluvial deposits. They consist of these pieces and individual nuggets, which, under the influence of the forces of nature, have moved from the vein, but have not yet moved into the river. Fragments of vein destruction are often located along the mountainside below the original vein.

3. Terrace deposits. Upon reaching the river, gold is deposited at the bottom. The river cuts deeper and deeper into the earth over time. As a result, the old river bottom ends up high above the water level. These are the so-called terraces. Often the terraces lie low above the water level. However, some terraces are found far from the modern river. Sometimes these are the remains of ancient rivers that flowed millions of years ago before the formation of the modern river system. Sometimes such terraces appear on mountain tops, in deserts, etc. As a rule, ancient terraces are distinguished by a high gold content.

Most surface gold mining operations today involve the development of terrace deposits. The reason for this is that the presence of old sediments is evidence that no one has ever mined them. Any gold that was deposited is still in place.

4. Bottom sediments. In order to discuss what happens to gold when it enters a stream of water, we first need to understand two concepts - raft and sediment. Many millions of years ago, when the earth cooled, the outer surface hardened into solid rock. Subsequent layers of sand, gravel, and stones on it are called sediments or sedimentary rocks. In some places the sedimentary rocks are hundreds of meters thick. In other places, especially in the mountains and on the coasts of the seas, bedrock volcanic rocks are often completely exposed.

Rice. 45. Transferring gold from a weathered vein to a river

The bottom of rivers consists of stones, sand, gravel, clay (sedimentary formations), which lie everywhere on bedrock (raft).

Heavy rainfall in mountainous areas usually causes very strong flows of water that wash sediment down to bedrock. This leads to gradual erosion of the bottom and deepening of the river bed over a long period of time. In addition, streams of water from the mountains wash away more and more gold into the river, where it mixes with other materials. At the same time, gold, being heavier than these materials, in the process of moving gravel and sand along the river, quickly goes down to the bottom, where it is retained by the irregularities of the bedrock.

Since gold is 6-7 times heavier than other materials surrounding it, it requires disproportionately more effort to move it down a river compared to stone material. Therefore, even during heavy rains, when the water in the river rises and with greater force begins to erode sediment at the bottom and carry stones and pebbles, gold nuggets lying on the raft often remain motionless.

In the case where the force of the flow is sufficient to move gold, it can be deposited in another place where the force of the flow weakens.

Gold traps on a raft

Bottom irregularities play a big role in the accumulation of gold. Currents of water capable of moving gold usually wash away clay and sand from these irregularities, leaving room only for gold.

Some rock types create a large number of irregularities, providing numerous traps for gold. Cracks and projections located perpendicular to the flow are especially effective.

Obstacles in the flow path, such as a large rock, slow down the flow and can allow gold to be deposited in front of or behind it.

One of the most common places in a river to look for gold is where a raft forms a drop-off into a deep body of water. Any place where a fixed volume of water suddenly flows into a significantly larger volume of water, or a place where the flow rate slows down, is a trap for gold, which can accumulate in these places in large quantities. So a waterfall can have a significant accumulation of gold, but not always. Sometimes the water creates such strong turbulence that any gold that falls into the hole under the waterfall during the flood will be washed away. On the other hand, there may be large boulders in the hole that protect the gold from being washed away. In this case, you will be very lucky.

Rice. 46. ​​Irregularities in the river bottom - traps for transported gold

In some cases, gold washed out of a hole under a waterfall may settle immediately behind the hole, where the current has not yet gained sufficient speed. Sometimes in hot weather the streams become shallow and the hole under the waterfall contains little water, allowing nuggets to be raked out of it.

Rice. 47. Catching gold in a hole under a waterfall

Another common place where gold can be deposited is where a stream flowing down the side of a hill suddenly emerges onto a plain. Such places may also contain large quantities of gold.

Rice. 48. Deposition of gold when a mountain stream passes to the plain

Paths of movement of gold

Because of its gravity, gold moves along the river along the path of least resistance. In most cases, this is the shortest distance between major bends in the river. It is deposited on the spits of the inner bends of the river. If there are large rocks in the way of gold, gold may accumulate under some of them. It may not be there under other stones.

Rice. 49. Depositing gold on river spits

Rice. 50. Depositing gold near large boulders

When a river or stream suddenly widens, gold can also settle there as the speed of the water decreases sharply. Large stones often end up in this place for the same reason.

Ancient rivers

About 2 million years ago, the river system was very different from today. Ancient rivers eroded gold-bearing veins and accumulated rich sediments. But the topography of the earth was changing. The beds of some rivers ended up on the tops of mountains, others - in the modern desert. Only a few rivers remain close to the modern drainage system.

Most of the gold in modern rivers is gold from the sediments of ancient channels through which the rivers now flow.

Sediments of ancient rivers contain a lot of gold. And where modern rivers cross such sediments, there is also a lot of gold.

Ancient terraces, as a rule, contain a very gold-rich lower layer. This layer usually has a dark blue color - this is a characteristic sign of an ancient riverbed. Ancient blue pebbles usually oxidize and turn rusty red after being dug up and left in the air. Often the gravel of ancient terraces is very hard and dense.

Most of the high terraces are the remains of modern rivers. They were formed from 1,500,000 years to 10,000 years ago. They are usually developed using hydraulic monitors. Dredges are used to develop bottom sediments. In both cases, only 30-40% of the gold is captured. The rest of the gold, along with the waste rock, is lost, going into dumps, where it is available for artisanal mining using metal detectors

Equipment for finding nuggets

Abroad, searching for and mining gold using metal detectors and mini-drags has become a fashionable activity since the late 70s, when the price of gold rose to $800 per ounce.

Unfortunately, conventional metal detectors have difficulty detecting native gold. Therefore, all leading companies have developed specialized metal detectors for searching for gold. Large nuggets can be found at a depth of up to 1 m, and small ones (the size of a pellet) - at a depth of 8-15 cm. Such devices can also be tuned from medium-sized iron, which is found in large quantities in the mines, and from black magnetite sand, characteristic of gold deposits.

Rice. 51. Finding nuggets using a metal detector (website kladoiskatel.ru)

1. Gold Master and GMT (White's company).

2. Lobo Super Track (Tesoro company).

3. Gold Bug 2 (Fisher),

4. Stinger (Garrett).

If the soil is highly mineralized and the indicated devices do not allow effective operation on it, then it is recommended to use Minelab devices - SD 2000, SD 2200, GP 3500, GPX 4000. These devices are more expensive and heavier, the detection depth is the same as that of the above devices , however their main

The advantage is that they almost do not react to the ground. Although the metal detector is quite easy to use, it takes some practice to effectively use it to find gold.

Features of using a metal detector when searching for nuggets

Finding nuggets is different from finding coins. The device detects a large nugget without difficulty, however, unfortunately, most nuggets are small in size, often smaller than a match head. They cause only a slight change in the threshold background, which you should catch. Despite the abundance of metal debris in the mines, the search should be carried out in the “All metals” mode, i.e. without discrimination. This is due to the fact that the electrical conductivities of iron and native gold are almost the same, and when you move away from iron, you also lose gold.

Secondly, you should work with headphones. Only with their help will you be able to detect small and deep nuggets, especially where the soil is mineralized and creates disturbing noise.

The sensitivity should not be too high. Otherwise, there are many false signals coming from the ground, which you will waste your time checking. Less sensitivity gives deeper penetration into mineralized soil.

One of the most important factors when searching for nuggets is setting the correct ground balance and maintaining it as you work.

Without proper ground alignment, you will not find the nugget. Set the device to medium ground. When the threshold is correctly set, you hear a soft background sound. This must be done before adjusting the "ground balance". Then, as you move the coil closer to the ground, the threshold hum may increase or decrease. This indicates that the "ground balance" needs to be adjusted using the appropriate knob.

In the mines, as a rule, the mineralization of the pound often changes and the device must be adjusted again every 5-6 m. If the noise increases during your movement, then the soil has become less mineralized. If the noise subsides, then mineralization has increased. Over time, you will learn to determine the moment when it is necessary to adjust the “ground balance”.

Sometimes better results are obtained if you adjust the "ground balance" to a positive angle. This gives increased sensitivity to small nuggets when searching in areas with little mineralization. In practice, this means a louder threshold noise as the coil approaches ground. This cannot be achieved simply by using the threshold adjustment knob. It is necessary to rotate the "Ground Balance" knob.

When working on highly mineralized ground, try to adjust the "ground balance" to the negative area. This will reduce your sensitivity to small nuggets, but still allow you to find nuggets that you otherwise wouldn't find.

Rice. 52. Stone brushes in the river bed are ideal gold traps (website kladoiskatel.ru)

Keep the coil as close to the ground as possible while working. Once you receive the signal, scan the object in different directions. If the signal is heard only in a certain direction of movement of the coil, then it is definitely not a nugget. If the signal suddenly disappears when the coil is lifted above the ground, then it is also not a nugget or metal at all. The signal from the metal fades gradually as the coil is raised.

Pay special attention to very weak signals, as they most often indicate the presence of a nugget.

The reels should be moved at a slow speed, much less than when searching for coins.

Hot stones

In addition to metal debris, when searching for nuggets, so-called hot stones are very annoying. These are pieces of rock whose mineralization is very different from the average mineralization that your device is set to. Therefore, they give a sound signal similar to the signal from a nugget. Hot stones can come in different sizes and colors. The signal from such stones quickly fades when the coil is raised, unlike the signal from metal. Also, the signal from metal is clearer, whereas hot rocks produce a more "smeared" signal when you pass the coil over it. Often, stones give a signal when the coil is moved only in one direction, while the signal from a nugget is heard whenever the coil is moved over it.

Finally, by lowering the sensitivity of the device, it is possible to achieve that the signal from the stone will disappear, while the signal from the nugget will still be audible, although weakened.

So, with practice, you will learn to identify most hot rocks and not waste time digging them out

Search for hydraulic monitors on site

When looking for gold with a metal detector, perhaps the most productive places are those places where gold was once mined by eroding the rock with a hydromonitor. Often the rock is washed away down to the raft. This allows you to use the device to explore all the cracks and other gold traps, which often gives remarkable results.

During such searches, pay attention to the color of the dirt, which is characteristic of areas with gold. Often it has a certain color, and then you can find such places only by the color of the soil and then check them with a metal detector.

Search on dumps

When extracting gold using a dredge, only relatively small rock was used to extract gold, and large pieces the size of a fist or more went to the dump. Large nuggets often went into the dump along with them. Those nuggets that were on the surface have already been found, but in the dumps you can find more nuggets at a depth of 50 cm using a metal detector. If possible, the dumps can be cut off with a bulldozer. checking the soil with a metal detector after each pass.

Wash trays

Whether you're looking for gold with a metal detector or extracting it with a mini-dredge, a gold pan is still one of the most useful tools used by prospectors today. The primary purpose of the tray is to sample gold in different locations until you hit upon an area where you can operate your equipment effectively. In addition, for the layman, a pan is the main gold mining tool, along with a metal detector.

There are many different types of trays on the market. In general, you can use a small basin or frying pan to wash gold. But the best results are obtained from special plastic or metal trays with gold-catching grooves. Trays can be round or rectangular. Iron trays have a number of disadvantages. First, they need to be annealed from time to time to remove the fat from the hands. Secondly, they are highly corrosive. They are magnetic and therefore difficult to separate the magnetite from the gold using a magnet. In such a tray it is impossible to check for the presence of a nugget with a metal detector. But you can cook food in them.

Rice. 53. Washing gold-bearing rock with a tray (website kladoiskatel.ru)

Plastic trays are lightweight, non-magnetic, corrosion-resistant, and do not respond to a metal detector. The green color of the plastic allows you to see the gold sparkles better. Grease can be easily removed from your hands with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol or gasoline.

The sizes of large trays range from 15 cm in diameter to 40 cm. A tray with a diameter of 40 cm weighs about 10 kg when fully loaded. Therefore, it is better to use a tray with a diameter of 35 cm. It allows you to work faster. To work with the tray, it is advisable to use a plastic sieve with a mesh size of 12 mm.

In Russia, rectangular wooden trays made from larch burned from the inside have been used for a long time. The grooves formed during firing successfully trap fine gold.

Trays are not used for professional gold mining, since a small amount of material can be processed in a day, but for amateur mining and for taking samples when searching for the most gold-rich places, a tray is a very useful tool. In general, quickly washing sand in trays is an art that anyone can master over time.

Trays allow you to work without water, although this requires a lot of practice. This is especially useful when working on old riverbeds or in the desert where there is no water nearby. As a rule, using a tray in a week of work you can wash from 30 g to 80 g of gold. But some are luckier.

Minidrags

Minidrags are a device that works like a vacuum cleaner, allowing you to suck up sand and pebbles from the bottom of the river along with gold, if present, and separate this gold from the waste rock

Minidrags vary in size and design, but they all contain 5 main components - a system that provides buoyancy to the installation, an engine that drives a centrifugal pump, an injector, a flushing chute that ensures the separation of gold from waste rock, and an air supply system for breathing under water. For small mini-dredges that operate in shallow streams, the latter is not required.

The operating principle of the installation is shown in Fig. 54. Water under high pressure flows through hose A into the injector. This creates the Venturi effect, which means that water is sucked through the injector pipe, picking up sand and pebbles from the bottom, and flows onto the flush trough grid. The smallest minidrag weighs 24 kg. The pump is driven by a 2 hp two-stroke engine. The diameter of the suction hose is 50 mm. Productivity - about 100 kg of material per hour.

Despite the huge number of non-industrial placers, legal extraction of gold from them by amateurs is currently impossible. The reason is that Russian legislation does not provide for the development of non-industrial placers. Here is what B.K., Candidate of Geological and Mineral Sciences of JSC Irgiredmet says about this. Kavchik:

“A clearly non-industrial placer cannot be put up for competition, therefore, it is impossible to obtain a license for it, and if there are no approved reserves, then gold mining cannot be legal, since only explored and approved reserves can be mined. In general, all Russian legislation is against licensing "Before the rules for the preservation of gold, it is focused exclusively on industrial deposits. And since, by definition, there are no industrial reserves in non-industrial placers, the entire chain of Russian laws turns out to be inapplicable."

Due to the existing legislative “hole”, a huge number of non-industrial placers are currently not being developed. The remains of gold are sometimes buried for the purpose of reclamation of disturbed lands, and spit gold is carried out to the sea. Some developments of non-industrial placers are carried out secretly, bypassing the law...

Currently, the Union of Gold Miners of the Russian Federation has raised the issue of revising legislation on precious metals and has given specific recommendations for changing legislation. It is proposed to provide for the issuance of licenses for the extraction of gold from non-industrial placers, which would allow combining the search for enriched gold nests with their legal mining.

The most common gold-bearing matrix in the world is quartz veins. I am not a geologist, but a miner, and I know and understand that the geological characteristics of gold-bearing quartz veins are very important. These include:

Sulfides and chemical oxidation

Most gold-bearing quartz veins or veinlets contain at least small amounts of sulfide minerals. One of the most common sulfide materials is iron pyrite (FeS 2) - pyrite. Pyrite is a form of iron sulfide that results from the chemical oxidation of some of the inherent iron in the rock.

Quartz veins containing iron sulfides or oxides are quite easy to recognize, since they have a recognizable color - yellow, orange, red. Their "rusty" appearance is very similar to the appearance of rusty oxidized iron.

Host or local rock

Typically (but not always) quartz sulfide veins of this type can be found near major geological faults or in areas where tectonic processes have occurred in the recent past. Quartz veins themselves often "break" in many directions, and quite a lot of gold can be found at their junctions or cracks.

Host rock is the most common type of rock surrounding a vein (including raft) in any location where gold is contained. In areas where quartz veins can be found, the most common host rocks are:

  • slate (especially greenstone slate)
  • serpentine
  • gabbro
  • diorite
  • siliceous shale
  • feldspar
  • granite
  • greenstone
  • various forms of metamorphic (altered) volcanic rocks

The last type deserves special mention. Many people new to gold mining, or those who have little understanding of gold mineralization processes, automatically assume that gold is found in all areas where there is evidence of volcanic activity.

This point of view is wrong! Areas and areas where some volcanic activity has recently (from a geological point of view, of course) rarely boast gold in any concentrations. The term "metamorphic" means that some type of significant chemical and/or geological change occurred over many millions of years, changing the original volcanic host rock into something completely different. By the way, the most gold-rich areas in the American West and Southwest were formed in places characterized by metamorphism.

Shale, limestone and coal

Geologists would say that places where there are host rocks characterized by shale, limestone, or coal content may also contain gold-bearing quartz veins. Yes, there are experts in geology, I respect them, but I will tell you something right here and right now. In 30 years of small-scale gold mining, I have not found an ounce of gold in areas where the above host rock types were found. However, I have been prospecting in New Mexico where you can find rich metamorphic rock within a few miles of rock with limestone, shale and coal. Therefore, geologists would need to resolve this issue.

Related Minerals

Many types of minerals accompany gold-bearing quartz veins and are contained in the surrounding host rock. For this reason, I often talk about the importance of understanding (or simply having the appropriate knowledge) of gold geology and associated mineralization. The key point here is that the more knowledge and experience we have, the more gold you will eventually discover and extract.

This is quite old wisdom, so let's take a look at the associated minerals that are characteristic of gold-bearing quartz ores:

  1. Natural gold (that's what it's all about, right?)
  2. Pyrite (our good old iron pyrite)
  3. Arsenopyrite (arsenic pyrite)
  4. Galena (lead sulfide - the most common form of lead ore)
  5. Sphalerite (a type of zinc ore)
  6. Chalcopyrite (copper pyrite)
  7. Pyrrhotite (an unusual and rare iron mineral)
  8. Telluride (a type of ore, often refractory; meaning that the precious metal it contains is usually in a chemical form and cannot be easily crushed)
  9. Scheelite (main type of tungsten ore)
  10. Bismuth (has characteristics similar to antimony and arsenic)
  11. Cosalite (lead and bismuth sulfide, found with gold, but more often with silver)
  12. Tetrahedrite (copper and antimony sulfide)
  13. Stibnite (antimony sulfide)
  14. Molybdenite (molybdenum sulfide, similar in appearance to graphite)
  15. Gersdorfit (mineral containing nickel and arsenic sulfide)

Those attentive may have noticed that I did not include in this list the designations adopted in the Periodic Table of Elements and mineral formulas. If you are a geologist or a chemist, then this would be mandatory for you, but for a simple gold miner or prospector intending to find gold, from a practical point of view, this is not necessary.

Now I want you to stop and think. If you can identify all of these minerals right now, will this ability increase your chances of success? Especially in discovering potential gold deposits or establishing the fact of high mineralization of a particular area? I think you get some of the big picture.

Greetings! Professional mining of precious metals is carried out by state-owned industrial companies and holdings. To do this, they involve geologists and mineralogists, use suitable equipment and conduct soil tests. However, an ordinary person can find a nugget and receive a reward for it. I'll tell you where you can find gold and...

The value of this metal is due to the difficulty of mining: it is difficult to find, and even more difficult to extract. The bulk is in a sprayed state and distributed throughout the planet; it can even be detected in people (about 10 mg). In the waters of the World Ocean there are approximately 9 billion tons of aurum (about 6 mg per ton).

Terrace deposits

Sometimes a river, having cut through the ground, goes down, and the old bottom remains above the water level. This is called a terrace. It can be directly above the channel or located at a distance from it. The deposits remain on it.

Main signs of the presence of gold

Not only ordinary people, but also owners of industrial enterprises dream of knowing where the mines are located. List of places where metal can be found:

  1. Associated ores in the ground.
  2. Dry riverbeds. Before starting the search, it is necessary to find out whether anyone in that area managed to pan for gold, and if so, then it is worth looking for an oxbow lake not far from the current river.
  3. High banks. Relevant when deepening the riverbed, when gold deposits remain above the water level.
  4. Ancient water roads. After studying ancient reports on gold mining, you can go to where rivers with aurum flowed in ancient times.

Yellow metal satellites

Gold is almost always bound with iron (magnetite, hematite). Therefore, black, reddish or tan soil is one of the main signs that a jewel can be found here.

Since veins of precious metal are formed inside quartz ore, its presence in the selected area can also indicate aurum deposits.

Gold content of quartz

List of external signs to help you find Au:

  1. Porosity indicates that ore minerals accompanying gold have disappeared from quartz.
  2. A yellow or cherry-red hue indicates sulfide decomposition.
  3. The presence of visible gold in crushed and wetted ore.
  4. Banded rocks or with the inclusion of a black mineral (tourmaline).
  5. White or glassy translucent quartz with dispersed bluish or grayish sulfides.

How to choose the right place to search

Where can you find deposits? Before you start searching, find out where gold was mined and check them. Old mines, rivers and streams are suitable. Studying geological data and remembering the differences between important minerals - granite, slate and gneiss, quartz and feldspar - will help. They are almost always present in most places where aurum can be found.

Beginners should not try to find out how professionals search for such points - an independent search without knowledge and experience will most likely end in nothing.

Best place to mine

Of course, large deposits have already been explored by industrial enterprises, but gold can be found in areas that are of no value to holdings. Despite their small size, the content of Au and gold nuggets there is high, so they can be successfully mined.

Rich places in Russia

A region rich in gold, where active study of soils and extraction of the resource is currently taking place. There a person can find a nugget by accident and not even realize it. The list also includes the Amur Region, Yakutia, Kolyma, and Krasnoyarsk Territory. Large mines are located in Norilsk.

You need to understand that all the places about which there is information in the public domain have long been occupied by industrial enterprises.



What instruments are needed to search for gold?

Be sure to purchase devices that are easy to use even for beginners. With them, finding and mining Au will be much easier and more productive.

1. Metal detector

Often, along with aurum, there are significant amounts of foreign impurities, to which a conventional magnetic apparatus reacts. , sensitive to Au. Please pay attention to this when purchasing.

2. Blower

The Australian device is designed for dry extraction of gold from the sands of placer deposits.

How can you mine Au?

To do this you will need the following equipment:

  • The tray is better if it is blue: against such a background, the yellow grains become especially noticeable.
  • The gateway is the second stage of treatment from sand and other impurities, as it has special inserts on which heavier Au settles, and everything else is washed out.
  • Tools – gold is mined in cracks using a pick or pick.
  • . Lightweight portable floating gold mining equipment. A budget option that makes it easier to search for aurum in rivers, it passes up to 10 cubic meters of water per hour. With its help, panning for gold will be easier.

Extraction technologies

There are fewer deposits and they are being depleted. Therefore, the ability to separate gold from ore is especially valued. Here is a list of the best techniques:

  • amalgamation;
  • heap leaching;
  • etching.

Methods for extracting gold from river beds

The sifting and washing method involves passing river sand through a sieve, tray or burlap by hand. Only Au particles larger than a grain of sand remain in the dish.

Mechanisms - dredgers, pumps, screens - dig the mass from the bottom, deliver it to the shore and quickly process it, sifting out the excess. At the same time, the amount of manual labor and the time spent on it are reduced.

Conclusion

I hope the article will be useful, and when you find a piece of gold, you will immediately remember its humble author. Subscribe to the site's newsletter, share useful information with friends, read the latest publications. See you again!


For many travelers this topic may be of interest. Not so much for enrichment, but for sporting interest. Indeed, some extreme travelers climb into such distances and primeval wilds where no human has ever set foot. Not exploring such places to the maximum is a great sin for a pioneer. Gold is the most common element in earth rocks and is found almost everywhere.
If desired, it can be washed near Moscow and in other places not very far from civilization. Of course, in some places there is more, in others there is less. There are also places on Earth where small nuggets of gold (cockroaches) are found right on the surface. For example, on shallows in mountain rivers or on steep banks of rivers and ravines. In the bright sun, these cockroaches sparkle and attract with their light. But more often the decoys shine: pyrite, mica, crystal and much more.
At night, in the moonlight, diamonds sparkle. In the nineteenth century in South Africa, it was on moonlit nights that the largest diamonds were found, naturally without washing or other labor-intensive operations. Entire villages lived and fed on this method of searching. During the Great Patriotic War, in Russia we developed a quarry (open pit) for the extraction of some metal needed as an additive for the production of tank armor. On a sunny day, the walls of the quarry sparkled and glowed here and there, with emerald crystals peeking out. But no one had the idea to go and collect these pebbles, because this is just an addition to the armor.”
And this was at a time when the road from Vatikha (in the Urals) was covered with amethysts, and near Orsk - with jasper. To search for tourmaline at a deposit in Transbaikalia on the Shilka River, permission from the 1st department was needed, and tourmalines, along with lepidolite, went into bunkers for crushing. And the famous Murzinka, Mecca of mineralogists before the revolution, and after the revolution the famous pegmatite vein Mokrusha with its beryls, topazes, tourmalines, morions - all this exploded and all together went to porcelain insulators and toilets. The legendary “thousand” is a quarry for raw materials for insulators..." - an excerpt from an article about the chaos in the Russian outback. So to speak: “Our morals.”
Finding such a brilliant treasure is possible, but difficult. It is much easier to detect the presence of gold, native silver, platinum, iron meteorites and precious stones by washing. For reference, industrial development of gold-bearing rocks is carried out when the amount of gold per cubic meter of rock is equal to or greater than five grams. That’s what they say: “Five grams per cube.” Large nuggets of precious metals and cockroaches are not common. More often there are very small pieces of metal, the so-called sand, and rocks containing such sand are called placers. It’s the same story with precious stones; it’s easier to find accompanying minerals in the form of specially colored sand and use them to determine the specific search area for what you’re looking for.
To wash the placer and take samples for metal, the following technology is used:
- Take a tank with a capacity of fifty liters and fill it with metal-containing rock, fill the rock with water and mix thoroughly with a shovel. All heavy minerals, including metal, sink to the bottom of the tank. The water is slowly drained and large waste rock stones are selected. The main thing here is not to accidentally throw away a large nugget. Nuggets are usually covered with a so-called rust-like coating, and a nugget can only be distinguished from nearby pebbles by its particularly heavy weight. Next, throw out all the small stones and a mixture of sand and water from the tank. The heaviest rock remaining at the bottom of the tank is washed in trays.
There are many types of trays. If you are seriously interested in gold mining, then explore the options yourself. For an amateur, a large bowl (or basin) is enough. We pour a little enriched rock into this bowl and rinse it in the same way as in a large tank, throw out the light and uninteresting rock, and the heaviest and most interesting remains at the bottom of the tray. There are plenty of deceptions here too. If the sample contains gold or other metal, check it (metal) for malleability. Pyrite and mica platelets exfoliate and split. Real metal looks more durable.
Now we need to explain where to look for gold and other heavy metal particles. Well, if you are looking only for hotbeds, but not industrial placers, then look for waterfalls on drying up streams. Under them, heavy fractions accumulate at a certain depth and less heavy rocks are constantly washed out. Sometimes it is enough to select large pebbles and wash the enriched rock directly in the tray. If it is possible to check the place under the waterfall with a metal detector, then naturally there will be fewer breaks and empty washes.
It’s the same with precious stones, but the rock is washed immediately in the tray, without prior enrichment in the tank. The rinsing tray for precious stones looks more like a large frying pan with a sieve instead of a bottom. By the way, the dead weight of the washing trays should be minimal, so that the handles do not get tired. It's a fascinating business, although not very profitable.
I would like to remind you that according to the laws of the Russian Federation, the extraction of precious stones and metals without special permission is prohibited. Searching is not prohibited, but samples, even just as a souvenir, cannot be taken out, taken out and hidden, otherwise there will be big problems with the law.
On the other hand, how nice it is sometimes to remember how lazy you were to bend down and pick up a fairly large nugget, or how you sowed golden sand in a deserted taiga... This is not even accessible to all oligarchs.
A small addition. Other sources say that gold (sand or small nuggets) can be found in the crops of local (chicken and pheasant) birds: hazel grouse, black grouse. capercaillie, pheasants, partridges... Allegedly, the birds, along with the pebbles, swallow native gold. That's right, but you need to look for these nuggets not in the goiter, but in the stomachs. Pebbles and nuggets do not linger in the crop of birds. All chickens (and pheasants too) usually live their entire lives in limited and permanent territories. Therefore, if you find nuggets or precious crystals in the stomach of birds, you can find the same thing somewhere nearby.
Photo from the Internet. The most catchy trays are wooden. The tiniest flecks of gold stick to the tree and are easily washed off on metal trays.

Reviews

Good educational material, Anatoly. I would even say instructive. I don’t envy the “chickens” in the Donetsk steppes if amateur travelers read your story. They would also like to learn about the geological features of the golden provinces. But in Bilibino, during exploration of the Karalveem gold deposit, a rock crystal deposit was destroyed by blasting. Nobody said which is more expensive. Thank you, Anatoly.

Thank you for appreciating my story. I didn’t want to delve too deeply into geology, and I especially don’t want to infect someone with gold fever. Quartz (and crystal) are obligatory companions of gold. I myself was surprised at the finds of large crystal druses even at sites with placers, where, in theory, everything should have been crushed and broken long ago by the flow of rivers. Unfortunately, it is not for us to decide what the state needs more: crystal or gold. By the way, time has shown that the gold of the Northeast is too expensive for Russia and Kolyma immediately fell into decay and collapsed. This should have been foreseen back in the thirties of the 20th century, but in times of stagnation it was already obvious. Back then, all gold production should have been handed over to private miners and today’s chaos would have been avoided.
Nice to meet you, Anatoly.

Rock crystal, as a mineral, as a piezoelectric raw material, is not a ubiquitous companion of gold. Example - Okhotsk-Chukotka volcanic belt. But this is a substantive conversation. I want to object to you on something else. Yes. The Northeast is not Sochi, and it was difficult for the state. The history of gold in Kolyma is known and terrible. But imagine that the market and economic chaos of our days would have begun in the 30s of the last century. Together with the current morality and fertility of the upper and middle classes, the nouveau riche, thieves in law and Christ-sellers. Can you imagine this state? Me not. There's a lot to think about here. Best regards, Leonid.