I stumbled across gold in my backyard stream. Was collecting magnetite to smelt iron. It never seriously occurred to me that there might be gold in the stream as well. Lol. So, I've now gone from amateur iron smelting to amateur gold prospecting. Here's a nube question for the pros.
Based on the description below, what would your initial gut reaction be if you were me: meh, mildly interested, excited, or OMG!? ...trying to figure out how much time/effort to put into this creek. I plan on working this as a side hobby at least.
I've pulled a few grams of gold from my first test hole. Dug out maybe a cubic foot of dirt in total. Gold has been in the form of a couple tiny nuggets, gold on quartz pebbles, and gold entrained with iron oxides and the such (have to crush up the material to see the gold). I tested the alleged gold with nitric acid as a quick sanity check. I have a few cups of black sands remaining with additional gold that I can see with a loop. I'm not including this gold in the count, since I really don't know how much is there.
Based on the description below, what would your initial gut reaction be if you were me: meh, mildly interested, excited, or OMG!? ...trying to figure out how much time/effort to put into this creek. I plan on working this as a side hobby at least.
I've pulled a few grams of gold from my first test hole. Dug out maybe a cubic foot of dirt in total. Gold has been in the form of a couple tiny nuggets, gold on quartz pebbles, and gold entrained with iron oxides and the such (have to crush up the material to see the gold). I tested the alleged gold with nitric acid as a quick sanity check. I have a few cups of black sands remaining with additional gold that I can see with a loop. I'm not including this gold in the count, since I really don't know how much is there.