How to Find Gold

Gold is where you find it, but there are some places where it is more apt to be then others.  One of these places is in gravel that has been winnowed by a stream or by ocean breakers.  Here the gold is called “placer gold” because it is found as fragmental pieces in the gravel. 

It doesn’t necessarily have to be recent gravel.  When gravel is turned to stone it becomes a rock called Conglomerate that can contain fossil gold.  The world’s largest gold deposit is the Witwatersrand of South Africa. 

Another place where gold is found in great quantities is in the Abitibi gold belt of Ontario and Quebec.  This region 600 miles north of New York City has produced more gold then the 49ers found during the California Gold Rush.

The Abitibi Gold Belt is a classic place to find gold as it has vast parallel beds of greenstone that is considered to be where the gold was held in place before it was released by hot solutions into the surrounding rock.  Between the belts of greenstone there are massive deposits of granite.  This combination together spells that there are gold deposits there.

If you go into this region of Canada there is over 500 Kilometers of Gold Camps where they are producing gold to this day.  The Abitibi Gold Belt reaches all the way from Wawa, Ontario to Chibougamau, Quebec and there are gold mining sites throughout the region.

The United States is the world’s third largest producer of gold with most of the production coming from the “Carlin Trend of Northern Nevada.  Here the gold is enclosed in a limestone rock in particles so small the only way you can see them is with an electron microscope, but they produce tons of gold from this source per year.

The Eastern US most people believe has no gold, but the first gold rush in the country’s history took place in Western North Carolina, and surrounding states.  According to some statistics from the gold prospectors of the east if you know what you are doing you can produce between $1,000 and $3,000 worth of gold from the Eastern Mountains in a month if you know what you are doing.

Gold has even been found in some of the most unlikely places like several of the mid-western states.  This is especially true of the Northern Mid-West and those states where the last glacier ground to a halt along the Ohio River.

The best way to start your quest is in the library and reading what your state geological survey has produced in the line of reports on mineral resources of your state.

If you want to learn more about gold mining and prospecting click here