Small Scale Gold Mining
and what to search for

One thing that people need to be aware about when looking for gold is that gold cannot be found on its own, it comes mixed with rocks. The rocks get pushed upwards as mountains because of the heat and pressure inside of the earth and they are then worn down due to the action of the wind and the rain. While this wearing away occurs, often times the gold separates from the rocks, and the result is deposits of gold that you are probably aspiring to find. As soon as the rain shows up, the gold is then washed down through the creeks and the rivers, and gets stuck along the banks and behind the boulders of the streams. The same thing used to happen in rivers that flowed in regions where changes in the geology have turned the once upon a time productive forests into deserts thousands or millions of years ago. The deposits that can be found in deserts come from this as well and there are also the pockets of gold in the sides of the hills. This kind of mining is what is known as placer mining and the deposits that form are called “placers”. There is also what is known as “hard rock mining” and it is when the gold shows up in thin veins fixed in the solid rock, which is usually quartz. Commercial miners search out for these veins and then break or crush up the rocks in big sized mills and refine the left over dirt when chemicals. There are not a large amount of large scale mines that are in operation now due to the fact that a lot of them are difficult to work in and the cost of extracting gold can make this job unprofitable if it is not done in the right place. Obviously this is not something that the amateur placer miner is concerned about since his or her mining is done mainly when there are vacations or the weekend and these people usually just wait for nature to take its own course and separate the gold for them.