Searching in Rapids

A rapid is an area of a stream or river that has a moderately steep gradient originating an enhancement in the flow of water and turbulence. A rapid is a hydrological feature between a run, which is a smoothly flowing part of a stream, and a cascade. A rapid can be identified because a river will become shallower and have some rocks exposed above the flow surface.

As flowing water splashes over and around the rocks, air bubbles get mixed in with it and sections of the surface obtain a white color, shaping what is known as "whitewater". Rapids take place where the bed material is exceedingly opposing to the erosive power of the stream in comparison with the bed downstream of the rapids.

The area right down stream from a rapid is usually slower however this does not guarantee that a gold deposit will be found there. There are many rapids in a stream that run in order and are differentiated only by white water in the areas where rocks break the surface.

The speed of those series is somewhat similar and the gold has a tendency of getting washed out instead of getting deposited. A rapid that might have gold deposited below it is the one that the width of the stream becomes very widened or where it deepens a lot as this causes the speed of the water to slow down a good amount. Keep in mind that we are talking about bedrock deposits here so the investigation will need to be made as if the stream was in flood.

At this point of speed, the chances are pretty good that the water covered the rocks and was at much more of a speed. The odds are pretty good that gold was just transported over the rapid area. There is a chance that the rocks served as a natural riffle and they might have some accumulated gold however when this occurs to it will be discussed later on.