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The gold panning is most often used method to find the richest gold bearing places and the equipment required is just a pan. Some times, when the area explored offers good expectations, other heavier equipment such as dredges, high-bankers and even simple sluice boxes can be brought in to work area with the only idea of recovering more gold.
Panning for gold is actually very simple. In your pan you are trying to recreate on a very small scale what Mother Nature does herself in the riverbeds. You will be attempting to concentrate the heaviest materials (gold) into the bottom of your pan.
One of the most difficult tasks associated with placer mining is the sampling of the deposit. More placer projects have failed due to inaccurate assessment of the reserves than to any other reason. Within the realm of placers, those containing valuable minerals with a high unit value such as gold are more difficult to sample than those with larger bulk, lower unit value minerals such as tin.
The old adage that gold is where you find it is not necessarily true. Prospecting in the better known gold bearing regions will immediately improve your chances of finding gold. Gold is where others have found it and you have come up with a better method of recovering gold. Rivers and Streams become natural collectors of gold, making it a little easier for the average prospector. Gold moves and collects primarily during flood stage. The high fast waters cut away at the banks of the river and carry the gold into the mainstream. Gold being seven times heavier than most other materials will tumble along the bottom of the river and easily come to rest when the current slows along the inside bend of the river or hits a major obstacle such as a boulder.
The key for recovering gold from gravel is the weight difference which allows gold to move downward during agitation. The simplest placer mining tool for this purpose as was mentioned is the pan. Shovel gravels into a screen positioned over the gold pan, shake the material on the screen and review the over-sized material for nuggets, then, toss. Agitation and patience are required to allow gold to settle to the bottom of the pan. Pick pebbles from the pan to get them out of the way. Look for heavy pieces with unusual color or shape. You might find a gold nugget or a gold-bearing piece of vein quartz.
Hold the pan level with both hands and rotate the pan with swirling motions. As the pan is rotated, the heavier gold loosens from the sand, gravel and settles to the bottom. Tilt the pan downward to let the dirty water, sand and gravel wash over the edge of the pan. Continue this process until only can be observed gold and heavier minerals at the bottom of the pan. Carefully inspect the black sand for nuggets or small particles of gold.
Gold is most commonly found and or mined in one of two kinds of deposits; Placer and Lode. Placer deposits are areas of free gold that have settled in pockets after being disturbed and moved by many years weather facilitated erosion. Lode is gold found in veins buried deep underground in quartz deposits. Placer gold is mined using panning, sluicing, or dredging.
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