Hello everyone,
I love this thread! Just wanted to share some of my own experiences with mining and prospecting.
- The very first thing I always have to remind myself is that the rock I have very likely does not have any appreciable gold. Remind yourself this or you will fall prey to trying to wish the gold into existence, it won't work I've tried.
- Finding gold, in its native form, will be like a slap in the face it's so obvious. If you find yourself questioning if it's gold, it probably isn't. If you want to see some gold buy a bag of paydirt online, this can help bolster your confidence when prospecting.
- Do you live in a gold bearing area? Has gold been historically found somewhat nearby?
If no, your small chances of finding gold are pretty small.
- "Gold rides the iron horse" This is a common phrase that describes the common occurrence of gold with other iron bearing minerals. The fact of the matter is this: when you find gold it's often with iron, and when you find iron it's often with more iron. Aka finding iron minerals/sulfides/pyrite doesn't mean much unless you already know there is gold associated with that formation.
- Many minerals simply cannot be identified by picture. If you don't have the tools and experience to ID a rock, you can try your local college with a geology department.
- If you think your rock has gold in it:
1. Look at it closely with a loupe or magnifying glass, if you have gold there might be some visible specks.
2. If there's no visible gold but you still think there's gold, crush it. This can be as simple as an old pair of jeans and a sledge hammer. There are many ways to accomplish this. Get it crushed down to a fine powder as best you can.
3. Use your gold pan on the fine dust you have. Make sure you save all your material that you're panning even the material that goes over the pan. A little jet dry or dish soap is good here as it will cut down on the surface tension. Don't have a gold pan? You can use a cake tin or something similar. But if you actually want to mine gold just get a gold pan already.
4. If gold is present it will be quite small so make sure to grab your loupe. If you still don't see gold then you can try roasting if its a sulfide deposit.
5. Get an old cake pan, cookie sheet, iron skillet, or something you don't care to cook with again. Light a bond fire and roast your crushed material (all of it, including what went over your pan last time). Roast and stir until there are no more red glowing bits.
6. Pan your gold again. Did you find any? If so, congrats! If not, its probably going to require some advanced techniques so you should send it off to get a fire assay if you're still convinced.
Hope these tips might help!