Tips for the beginner

Prospecting Australia

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Extract from this article - http://raregoldnuggets.com/?p=747

Several nice gold nuggets found in an afternoon of metal detecting. This location was at least 1/4 mile from the nearest historicdiggings, but careful study of the surrounding rock types meant that there was a good likelihood that there was more gold to be found

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Aussiedigs, that was written for the USA, probably the part the writer is familiar with, although much is relevant here. Three items are not relevant and it is handy to be aware of them -

Gold in contact zones and vertical schistocity only occur in some goldfields (focussing on them would be a sure way not to find gold in Victoria - or much of NSW away from the central west where some gold does occur in the contact zones of granites - but only little granites say less than a couple of km diameter). Contact zones are also mostly useless everywhere else in Australia except coastal Queensland.

Vertical schistocity is virtually meaningless - found in much of Australia, goldfields or not, but largely absent in Victoria (and not an indicator of gold in most other states).

And black sand will be present virtually anywhere where some hard rocks outcrop (which is about the only place that anyone prospects) - the fact that black sand always occurs with gold does not necessarily mean it is related to it (if you pan in areas without gold you will almost always find it - most black sand in Victoria and NSW for example comes out of basalt flows. If you pan, it will end up concentrated in your dish, simply because (like gold) it is heavy. There are some exceptions - eg in southern WA gold is almost all in greenstones which will yield black sand to streams, almost never in granite (which mostly does not). but then I don't pan much in southern WA.....
 
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