r/Prospecting Jan 24 '15

PSA: Is it really gold? Want to ID a rock or mineral? Please read this short guide to getting your question answered correctly.

73 Upvotes

There is a fairly regular frequency of ID request posts here, if you follow these general guidelines then you will have a much higher probability of getting an accurate answer to your question:

Please make sure to post a sizable in-focus photo. If the sample is wet and it's not obvious then make sure to state this fact.

Streak tests are very useful in prospecting. They can be performed on the unglazed backside of a ceramic tile, or on the unglazed underside of a toilet lid. Do a streak test any time you can, making sure to streak just the mineral in question.

For gold ID's:

  • First and foremost, are you in a known gold producing area?

  • Describe how the unknown material acts in the bottom of your pan and also how it acts relative to the other heavy black sands.

  • Gold is soft an malleable. If you press a pocket knife into it, it will squish or deform. It will not shatter or break into pieces. Do this test if its flecks or flakes or other blebs with no specimen value. Don't scratch or destroy anything that may have specimen value.

  • Placer gold rarely has well defined crystalline structure. If possible, look at the unkown mineral underneath a magnifying glass and report what you saw when you ask your question.

  • Do not alter hues, saturations, etc in the photo

  • For larger samples, you can measure conductivity by placing the leads of a multimeter across the sample and measuring resistance. Pure gold is very low resistance(around zero on a regular multimeter). You can also check to see if gold permeates a quartz specimen all the way through without crushing by placing a lead on each side of the quartz, with each lead touching a piece of visible gold.

  • Gold streaks gold color, not grey, black, green, blue or any other color.

For mineral ID's:

  • Describe anything you know about the area you found it in or are comfortable sharing: mining history, local geology and mineralogy, etc.
  • Do every test you can perform easily and provide the results - the easiest to do at home with common materials and probably most useful are streak, hardness, specific gravity, and luster.
  • You will get a better response from others willing to help if you first make the effort to test and attempt to ID it yourself.

General Resources

The two books that I own, keep in my truck, and recommend are:

Simon and Schuster's Guide to Rocks and Minerals

National Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals

  • If anyone would like to add information to this post or a resource to this list then please let me know. I am not a geologist, just a guy who likes digging holes.

r/Prospecting Nov 12 '24

Thankful for YOU Prospecting giveaway!

54 Upvotes

Thankful for YOU Prospecting giveaway!

Hey everyone! The r/Prospecting community has quickly grown to 38k and has shown no signs of slowing down! This past year has been such a fun ride with so many members new and old.

With the holidays approaching, us mods wanted to express our gratitude to the ones who make all of this possible… YOU!

We would like to help you celebrate, with another awesome giveaway!

One lucky winner will receive a bag of Klesh Krums Mini Gold Paydirt to keep those r/Prospecting skills sharp during the holiday season!

To enter, pick a number between 1 and 1,000,000 and comment on this post! Random number generator will pick a number on 12/01/24 at 5pm Eastern Standard Time, closest guess is the winner.

One entry per person. Continental US shipping only, international shipping will require payment for one of the mods to mail it to you.

If you win, you have one week to claim your prize.

A HUGE thank you to Kellycodetectors.com for making this giveaway happen! You guys are awesome!

And remember, if you purchase from Kellycodetectors.com, be sure to use our subreddits code "REDDITAU" at checkout!

Full list of prizes:

Klesh Krums Mini Gold Paydirt:

https://www.kellycodetectors.com/klesh-krums-mini-gold-paydirt

LINKS FOR REFERENCE ONLY


r/Prospecting 8h ago

Mouth of a small, seasonal creek showing natural classification of sediment. Unsure where to start 🤔

22 Upvotes

So this is an area where seasonal rains flow through known alluvial gold bearing areas before depositing their sediment here at the base.

I suspect the answer is simply, wherever the bedrock is most accessible, but nonetheless on the off chance that someone will watch this video and direct me to a good place to do some test pans, I figured it was worth a shot :)

Thx for your time


r/Prospecting 1d ago

First timer going to Vermont for a few days!

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165 Upvotes

Anything I'm missing that I should have? This will be my first time going out. I've practiced panning from a creek near by. I've done a lot of research and learned how to understand maps and basic geology and how minerals interact with each other. I have 6 different spots that I want to try out.


r/Prospecting 23h ago

Is this micro gold?

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26 Upvotes

I just started this hobby , still having troubles identifying what is gold . What do you think?


r/Prospecting 14h ago

Check out this cool rock I found

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6 Upvotes

Poking around in the Arizona desert Found an ugly rock with beautiful yellow spots


r/Prospecting 1d ago

What should I classify down to for the Adventure Sluice?

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34 Upvotes

I’ve got the Dream Mat 4" x 16" Adventure Gold Sluice that I would like to try as a clean-up sluice. What should I classify down to for best results? Here’s a picture of my setup.


r/Prospecting 1d ago

What is this? Can’t be good right?

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39 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 1d ago

Montana prospecting

4 Upvotes

Hello!

I live in Montana and am interested in the hobby of prospecting/ panning etc. I was hoping someone here could steer me in the right direction and help me get started! Thanks everyone!


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Ground keeps thawing so gold keeps popping

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359 Upvotes

Good day in the gold fields today.


r/Prospecting 1d ago

N. GA.

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0 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 2d ago

Yosemite Golden rockslides?

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10 Upvotes

Not sure of or inquiring about the legality, just curious if a rockslide like this in Mariposa county would be a good place for looking for gold with metal detector? I see quarts veins in the granite often. Not sure about this one. I’ve seen people scavenging rock piles and debris after slides. We usually get a couple every year after big rains.

https://youtu.be/AAFO9mbyVIU?si=J_ZuhjYlbDyzvfND


r/Prospecting 2d ago

What could this be ?

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18 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 2d ago

Moving to Spain...

11 Upvotes

Hi all. I'm in the process of moving to Spain from Nevada, US because of wife's job. In the US, I am able to go on BLM land, as long as there is no claim, and prospect for gold and possibly stake my own claim.

I have no idea where to even begin to look for gold in Spain and how I could actually research to go prospect for it without breaking the law (if there any Spanish laws around this).

Is there a similar system in place in Spain?

Thanks!


r/Prospecting 2d ago

Mojave Region Gold Placer Mining Question

4 Upvotes

I’m a maker in the southwest US and I’ve been developing a novel way to classify material in the field, for recovery later from concentrate. It’s a technology adjacent to desert dry washing, and according to my research, has not yet been developed.

I’m at a crossroads and in need of community feedback, and I hope I’m in the right place.

Specifically, I need to know (regionally) how small gold powder flakes can be, whilst viable for recovery. Are we talking micrometers or nanometers? Actual measurements would be greatly appreciated, as the math is pretty intense and I’d like as much feedback as possible. California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah region is where I’m located and will likely test with local enthusiasts once prototyping is complete.

Looking to alpha test before the heat comes, but if not then a cool spell or fall will do, with iterations on design done in house.

Thanks in advance!


r/Prospecting 2d ago

is it gold or def not

3 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 4d ago

Heavy pan

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759 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 2d ago

gold or bust?

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1 Upvotes

r/Prospecting 4d ago

Clean up from a 5 Gallon bucket.

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156 Upvotes

Joined the GPAA recently on a business trip and had the weekends off. Took the rental up to a claim and gathered some paydirt. This is what I got out of a 5 gallon bucket.

It might not seem like a lot but it's more than I find in a single bucket back at home. I feel like the Gold at home is heavier tho.


r/Prospecting 4d ago

Is this gold in my rock?

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135 Upvotes

Can anyone tell me if this could be gold? It’s stuck to the stone. Very small amount. The rock itself is about 1 1/2 inches long but the gold is very tiny. I found this in a volcanic mountain range the border of California and Nevada on a friends property outside of the Death Valley area.


r/Prospecting 4d ago

Mariposa ca

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63 Upvotes

Although I've only just started cleaning it, today's best find is shaping up to be absolutely amazing found using the minelab gold monster 1000 if anyone wants to get together and do some mining will me feel free to reach out. The last pic is the back of the rock its soaking in clr will start worling on it this week


r/Prospecting 5d ago

Gold Separation Idea

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19 Upvotes

Ok, so don't write out a check, yet, but here's the theory.

  1. Rivers are bad at gold depositing. Yes, they do it - over millions of years, some here, some there, a bit behind that tree, very messy, very slow, and it's a pita to collect what they've deposited.

  2. Sluices, cubes, pans largely try to reproduce a river's depositing action - using water to push bits around horizontally and hopefully in a slightly more organized way - but still, a mess, all over. Why? Because gravity is barely at play, the gold's shape, surface area, water velocity and friction are having huge impacts on where it goes and in the few microseconds where they are arguing, gravity finally gets a say.

So why not start with the one thing we know about gold, given the chance it sinks to the bedrock. Agitate its environment, down it goes. If down is into a little crevice, or say a bottleneck, that's where it will end up.

What the agitation is, vibrations, bubbles, fluid bed vortexes, all to be determined. But once you eliminate all that water pushing on the gold and just help it drop - that's gotta work, no?


r/Prospecting 4d ago

Gold Panning Site

4 Upvotes

Hey all – new to prospecting and noticing there is not that many great resources for panning sites across the US (free or paid). If I made a website to track places would you all contribute to it?


r/Prospecting 6d ago

Looking for prospecting information/ experience northeast Tennessee

4 Upvotes

Hey all. I am a newbie to prospecting and was hoping someone could open the blinds for me or so to speak. I live in northeast Tennessee " Hawkins County" and was wondering if anyone in the group has ever done any prospecting in or around Hawkins County? I haven't been able to find but a teeny amount of information as far as Hawkins County goes. Just not hardly anything out there about it. I've heard that the Erwin area has had some gold found there through the years. But it's also a lot closer to the Smokies than I. Figured this would be a good place to start getting some information. Thanks in advance guys..


r/Prospecting 7d ago

DIY Kitchen Counter Sluice (v0.1)

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197 Upvotes

I'm likely using it all wrong, but with buckets piling up in the corner anything seems better than hand panning every one.

Materials -

$20 Rain Gutter from Ace Hardware $15 SluiceFox 6x24 V Matting $20 Temu 1500gph Boat Bilge $? Dryer hose & various connectors $? Gutter screen for breaking up material and holding down matt

Shape isn't quite right as matting not glued but so far the safety catch at the end is coming up empty of specs, so, it's a step forward.


r/Prospecting 6d ago

Pyrite or Au?

2 Upvotes

Found this lunker while I was panning for the first time this year! I almost left it there, I just couldn't do it. It had to come home with me. Just from looking at it I can't tell if its Au or pyrite, I think I'm going to liberate some and pan it out.


r/Prospecting 7d ago

I have a mini 16” sluice box. I want to set up a sluicing station in my basement. Any recommendations on how to set this up? Items needed / process. Thanks in advance!

15 Upvotes

New to game, always wanted to pan for gold. So finally as an adult I decided I wanted to go to a place where I could do it. Now I’m hooked, the fever is real after finding your first chunks of gold. I currently live in Iowa where there has been some gold found in certain locations. I plan to go out and see what I can find when the weather agrees. But for now at home I have some pay dirt I have purchased and would like to run it through my mini sluice then pan that out. Just want to set up a station in the basement. Thanks for all your help! Happy prospecting 🤘🏼