Panning gold in Australia?
 

I have heard that it is still possible to pan for gold in Australia. I have heard that America has been too scoured making it too hard to find anything over here. Has anybody heard anything like that?

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

There is gold in Arizona and Alaska.

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

most of the gold is still around (I have heard figures as high as 80+%)

the rich & easy deposits might be gone, but you still have a lot of gold.

and concerning panning, it is placer gold, it is likely washed into the streams from a vein upstream, everytime it rains you get more gold. so there will always be new/more gold, trick is to find the good spots.

Ask Goldminer, he knows a lot about prospecting

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

Have you panned for Gold in Arizona? The Arizona border is less than 30 minutes away for me...

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

Historically and today, by far the predominance of gold mining has been for "placer" ("a" is pronounced like the "a" in "platter") colors. This is gold that has been freed over the eons by nature, from the rock host it originally was formed in. "Hard rock" mining which is going underground to excavate the rock vein (usually quartz) that contains gold, is rarely done. The veins that contain (or "loads as they are called) enough gold to make them economically feasible to mine, are exceedingly rare, and hardrock mining is exceedingly expensive.

There is a LOT of gold out there. Scientists who study earth-satellite imagry estimate that only 10-12% of the gold has been recovered. The 'ole timers got most of the "easy" pickens deposits but anywhere gold has been mined in the past still holds gold. It's in the ground and when a waterway happens to erode the ground where colors have been parked for thousands of millions of years, they are washed into the stream. Each year flood waters redistribute tons and tons of streambed materials and a lot of the gold travels in company.

The waters are powerful and actually vibrate the stream banks and stream bed materials to a point where as they move they are loosened and suspended in water. This allows the much heavier gold to travel along the bottom with larger rocks and boulders...normally in the channel.

A good sized color will travel and be pulled by gravity as deeply as it can until it hits something solid enough (usually "bed rock" - the earth's crust, or a heard clay layer) that prevents it from moving deeper. And it will be the first thing that settles out and deposits at a location where an obstruction topographical feature or some other entity reduces the velocity of the current to a point where the gold's weight prevents it from being moved further along on the bottom.

Most nuggets that wash into a stream bed never travel more than maybe 1500 feet from the point it enters the water. Gold is VERY heavy and thus tough to get moving.

The key to recovery is to work an area where gold has been found before. There's lots of it there but you'll find it's scattered. The challenge is to locate deposits (called "pay pockets" or "Pay streaks") that make it economically feasible to recover.

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

Well I have been panning out a bucket of stuff the kids shoveled out of the bottom of a small waterfall in a creek. I guess I need to learn some technique. I have some tiny little flakes in there but it would take a million of them to make an ounce of gold. I figured it would have more in it because it is a plastic bucket and plastic pan and when I ran the gold detector over it I got some sounds.
I may get better results as I get to the bottom of the bucket. Will see how it goes.

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

Curtman, get a good high powered magnifing glass or a jewerlers loop and look at those gold particles. They will look like minature nuggets. To extract these particles from the gold pan wet a tooth pick and the tiny particles will adhere to it then dip it into a vial filled with water. The particle will drop off into the vial. Now you are on your way to making millions of $. After some time at this you will come to understand why the big $ was made selling stuff to the miners :D

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

Back in the late 80s I did some panning in an area called Goldfield near Apache Junction. It was dry creek beds but I would use the gray water from the RV and I had excellent results considering the small amout of material I was able to wash. Basically I was at the foot of Superstition Mountian(Lost Dutchman Mine):proud:

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

I was thinking of getting one of those high bankers but now I am thinking of one of those 12 volt spiral panners also. Either that or I need to get to the bigger nuggets instead of the little flakes. I may just be in a poor area also. There is no shortage of creeks and mountains here.

Re: Panning gold in Australia?
 

I've been there. Superstitions area in general is a good place to look. Just take 60 straight out.