New member qld Intro

Hi all. I'm a rock hound from way back whos taken a recent shine to gold. Have the basic gear and just acquired a gold monster 1000 with the extra 5 inch coil. . Good knowledge of geology but no expert. Love to spend my days head down pick up. I love anything different to add to my collection. Located on the Fraser Coast and hope some of you are local and wouldn't mind taking a 40 plus lady on a trek. Even using a paddleboard to better access creeks and rivers locally. Could use a good eye to confirm if anything I have is actually gold. Because I am not confident in my ability or opinion as yet. Haha.
Cheers happy trekking.

Smandiez said:

Hi all. I'm a rock hound from way back whos taken a recent shine to gold. Have the basic gear and just acquired a gold monster 1000 with the extra 5 inch coil. . Good knowledge of geology but no expert. Love to spend my days head down pick up. I love anything different to add to my collection. Located on the Fraser Coast and hope some of you are local and wouldn't mind taking a 40 plus lady on a trek. Even using a paddleboard to better access creeks and rivers locally. Could use a good eye to confirm if anything I have is actually gold. Because I am not confident in my ability or opinion as yet. Haha.
Cheers happy trekking.

Click to expand...

Welcome to PA, Smandiez.

Knowledge of geology is always useful when gold prospecting, but when you've been panning for a while, you'll learn to recognise it instantly. Looking at your photos, I see a lot of light-coloured, glittery/sparkly material that will most likely be pyrites (aka 'fools gold') or mica. Gold doesn't glitter, it shines and stays the same brassy yellow colour in both sunlight and shadow.

There's a single bigger yellowish piece at the bottom of that panful in your pic, which might have a possibility of being a nugget, but the photo isn't really sharp enough to offer an opinion. In general, panned gold will be accompanied by black sand, which I don't see in that pan, but you'd need to wash away all that the light-coloured sandy stuff first.

Your Gold Monster with the baby coil can certainly find shallow gold, but they're noisy beasts and you'll also need to be prepared to dig a lot of tiny metal pieces of trash along the way (primarily shotgun pellets, aluminium foil and rusty nails, etc). A ratio of 100 junk/1 gold is pretty much normal.

Good luck out in the field!

https://www.qld.gov.au/recreation/activities/areas-facilities/fossicking

Smandiez said:

Hi all. I'm a rock hound from way back whos taken a recent shine to gold. Have the basic gear and just acquired a gold monster 1000 with the extra 5 inch coil. . Good knowledge of geology but no expert. Love to spend my days head down pick up. I love anything different to add to my collection. Located on the Fraser Coast and hope some of you are local and wouldn't mind taking a 40 plus lady on a trek. Even using a paddleboard to better access creeks and rivers locally. Could use a good eye to confirm if anything I have is actually gold. Because I am not confident in my ability or opinion as yet. Haha.
Cheers happy trekking.

Click to expand...

If that in your pan is actually gold then you have some serious weight. It would weigh several grams on the scales (dry).