Golddog, Thank you for the info you sent me. Ill post what I told you and maybe get some more input since after talking to you, I don't know what I don't know yet. I live in South Central Virginia and according to what I researched there was a large gold deposit from DC, south to the state line and then it turned west towards Durham. From what I can find, it was mostly in mines. There is a lot of red clay and I have found huge quarts crystals in the clay. Does anyone know if sluicing the small streams for surface gold in Virginia will produce any gold or is it all buried in mines. Again I'm so knew to gold prospecting that I really don't know the proper terminology. Several local rivers have flat bedrock with parallel cracks the I would like to search.