Need Advice

[AFterBurn]

Hey all, new member from N.C. and I very recently discovered gold on my property, and have begun the process of panning and filtering manually. However the gold ranges (so far) from flakes to fines to dust. I sometimes cannot tell what is sand and what’s gold until it dries. I’ve got vids and pics that may help visualize and communicate more effectively. Also: The gold is about a foot deep, mostly stuck amongst a foot-thick sandy layer of gravel that is located between two layers of dense red clay. Have only dug to the second clay layer so far but I’m curious if there’s any possibility of finding larger nuggets etc in this sort of landscape, or if I should get a detector? Opinions/Advice? This area perhaps was an dried riverbed from long ago, clearly as it’s a lawn now. Any help from anyone with such experience in this area would be a good place to start. Looking forward to learning and growing here! Thanks in advance for any private messages or replies!

 

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[AFterBurn]

 

[OwenT]

Sorry, looks like all you have is Mica. Easy for a beginner to see it and think it’s gold. I know I did. It’s ok though because NC has gold so it’s still possible you might find some, you just need to do some more researching and more digging. It’s not that easy to find in that kind of quantity though. Notice how the mica shimmers in the light? Gold isn’t actually like that. When you see gold it doesn’t look like it reflects light, it will look just like a golden light is shining right at you now matter how you look at it, you will know when you see it, but until then, good luck.

 

[smokeythecat]

Try panning it again. Add a couple tiny bb's in the pan. The mica will float out and gold will stay with the bb's. Mica also will crush if you apply pressure with a straight pin to it. A pinpointer will sound off on gold in a plastic pan, whereas mica will not.

 

[Goldwasher]

sorry pal thats not gold

 

[Silveraith]

Get a blue bowl & run it through. If there is micro gold in there it will find it.

 

[A2coins]

The yards allready gone lol That would get the blood flowing hope theres some gold in there for you!!!!

 

[AFterBurn]

Thanks for the advice! Also:

 

[Treasureman25]

Haha dang I’d be wound up bad if that was my pan! Idk anything about panning.. interesting!

 

[Clay Diggins]

Thanks for the advice! Also:

View attachment 1791801
View attachment 1791800

Yep that's mica.

Keep looking it's still out there. I would suggest you buy some paydirt and practice panning. Once you have seen how gold reacts in your pan you won't get distracted by fools gold or mica.

Heavy Pans

 

[arizau]

FYI Gold retains it's gold color in direct and indirect light. If what you have loses it's color it's not gold.

Good luck.