Gold Prospecting in Pennsylvania - Panning for Gold.
That title is a phrase you don't hear too often, but it's exactly how I spent a good amount of my summer last year. This will be the first part in a 2 or 3 part series.
^^^Me panning in a central Pennsylvania creek in the early spring. Note the ice/snow in the background.
To give a little back story, a few times in my blogs I've mentioned that I'm a hobby collector. I have so many hobbies that it has sort of become a chore just to try and allot time for each of them. Oil painting, sculpting, gold prospecting, kayaking, blogging, movie making.... these are all ones that I have taken up just within the last 2 or 3 years. I guess I'm a "why not?" kind of person. If I see something in my travels or on tv that looks like fun, I tend to say to myself "Why not try it myself?". Aside from being an enjoyable way to spend my time, I find that I always seem to learn a lot from (and about) whatever activity I'm attempting. It also makes from some good stories most of the time.
The gold prospecting worked it's way into my brain after a trip to Death Valley in 2015. Peppered throughout the surrounding mountains were abandoned mine shafts and entrances from the mid to late 1800's. The were everywhere. No special signage or barricades, or anything else. Just forgotten old remnants of history.:
^^^Old gold mine in Death Valley.
After returning home from the trip, I starting thinking about the gold-rush history of California and other areas around the country and started wondering "Is there gold in Pennsylvania?" I started to research the question and found that, although not a lot, there IS gold to be found in my home state. Geographically, we don't have much native gold. Meaning, there's not a lot of gold in the ground, occurring naturally. What we do have is something called "placer gold". This refers to our gold being brought down here from the north by glaciers during the last ice age. Then that ice melted away, it deposited all kind of boulders, minerals, and GOLD.
The first thing I did was read a lot of articles and watched a lot of videos about panning for gold. There's a lot that goes into. Technique, equipment, etc. I ordered myself a genuine gold pan and set myself up a water basin in the basement. Then, and I know this sounds crazy, but I bought dirt. See, you can buy "pay dirt" from prospectors in gold-rich areas of the country. Basically, they spend a lot of time sluicing and and narrowing down the soil from creeks and streams until they have just sand and any other heavy material left, and they sell it by the pound. Most of the time, the seller also "salts" the soil with a little bit of gold flakes and such... just to guarantee you have something to find. I'll be the first to admit that it's silly, but it's a great learning tool. Here, I had dirt that I KNEW there was gold in. If I didn't find any, then I knew I was doing something wrong with my panning technique and I can keep re-panning the soil until I found some. Fortunately, I got the technique down pretty fast!
In a nutshell, this is how gold-panning works. It all boils down to the extreme weight of gold. Gold is pretty much the heaviest thing you'd ever find in natural soil. That being said, if you put a pile of gold-bearing dirt into a bucket of water and shook the living shit out of it... the gold would be the first thing to settle to the bottom as it's around 20 times heavier than the water. Next thing to settle would be something called "black sand" which is found almost everywhere that gold is found. It is around 7 times heavier than water. It's made up of oxides of iron, like magnetite and hematite.
^^^Black sand at the bottom of the pan.
Last would be all the regular brownish soil that would settle on top of the heavier two elements, or remain floating in the water for a long time. On a small scale, that's what panning is doing. With a scoop of soil in the pan, you add water, shake and swirl it around, the heavy stuff settles right a way, and you pour out the water and lighter soil on top. After doing that a few times, you're left with just the heavy stuff and the GOLD.
^^^A piece of gold from a bag of pay dirt from North Carolina. You can also see a few small, red garnet gem stones.
With the panning technique down, began to amass some more equipment. A main piece of gear that I acquired next was a gold sluice. The next part of this series will be about sluicing for gold. Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading! I post a nature/travel-themed blog every day. Please upvote if you enjoyed it and be sure to follow me @customnature so you'll never miss one! See you next time. - Adam
***These daily blogs showcase the natural world. It is all original content using photos, stories, and experiences from my own travels.***
I have some really cool gold stories!! We used out in the desert and would dig for gold out near Barstow and surrounding areas. We found alot, but it was backbreaking work in that heat! It gave me huge respect for the old time miners back in the day.
We used to explore all the old mines & ghost towns around California, it is so rich in history and fascinating!!!
I would LOVE to do a little prospecting somewhere like California! Yeah, it was awesome seeing the ruins and remains in Death Valley. I especially liked how things were roped off or gated or anything. It really felt like you were walking back in time while exploring.
thank you for the inspiration!!! I just posted a few of mine as well.
Makes me want to go back :)
here is the link to my post of Rhyolite... https://steemit.com/forgottenfriday/@izabellablue/forgotten-friday-ghost-town-travels-rhyolite
This is an unusual hobby and you're right it would make a great conversation topic. You are very lucky to have the time to try all these things. Time is our most valuable commodity.
Did you find any gold no matter how tiny in the creek? I'm sure it's not something financially viable but it must be pretty exciting to find gold. It's like you are re-enacting a piece of history.
Thanks for this original post. Voted, followed and resteemed.
Thanks @recreator! It's hard to make time to do these things. REALLY hard. I haven't done any prospecting in well over a year. I'm hoping to get out there in about 2 or 3 months.
I did find some gold! I mean, specs of it. Literally specs. But I don't care that there were that tiny; not one bit. It was still pure gold, found in a creek I drove past my whole life, and I worked hard to find it. I was proud. :) Currency-wise it's worthless though. lol Not even worth a penny, it was so tiny. Hell, even the piece in the photo above from the pay dirt was probably worth only a dollar or so, by weight. The crazy rush and euphoria that hits when you see a flash of gold in the pan makes it worth while.
Yeah, i perfectly understand your motivation. It is just for the pure pleasure of doing it yourself. Now when you see it in an old movie, you can say "i did that, i know how it works!" :)
Oh ... the gold rush relentless pursuit)
It's one of the most intense rushes I've ever felt, when you see some yellow flash in your pan. :-D
Ahaha ) I understand you, when they find the gold and want more and more )
Now I know why gold is so precious. After panning all day you get a few specks of gold. Much of work than letting your GPU crypto miner run all day in the background of your PC.
lol Oh yeah... a whole different type of mining. 😝
Thanks for the insight! I never really knew how panning worked or how people knew what to look for but this definitely clears it up. Hope you find some more :)
Thanks! I'll be sure to let the Steemit community know if I do, @cryptodata. ⛏
good lesson - i am a fossecker from Australia and i focus on sapphires -- but i know we find a lot of gold in quartz and you crush the quartz to remove the gold then pan it to clean up - i am following now and upvoted too
That's exactly right, @daydreams4rock! Prospectors get excited when they see a vein of quartz. Australia is supposed to have some really good gold down there. I'm interested in gem stones myself and would like to learn more about it. I don't really know much on the subject. I do see some garnets and other little gems when panning. About 60 miles south of where I live, I know they were find some really good sapphire. Maybe I'll head down there and try to find some myself!
you use sieves to fosseck for sapphires 1/4 and 1/8 inch and i reckon you will love it -- check some youtube videos first to get the technique -- i have some sapphires posted that i found and had cut -very satisfying
Ah! Okay. I already have some of the gear then. I have both size sifters/sieves. You use them in gold prospecting too to weed out the bigger rocks and stuff. I'll look into it more!
it is very satisfying
what a job dude love it
Can many golden friends? May we look for friends? :-)
Did you watch the movie "Gold"? It's pretty cool!
And a great hobby, btw!
| if you put a pile of gold-bearing dirt into a bucket of water and shook the living shit out of it.
That made me laugh :P
Upvoted :)
Thanks for the great post! I think you might like my work as well so feel free to take a look sometime.