Did we walk away from Alluvial Gold

[cidaq]

Hi all,

Know nothing about prospecting and never really thought much about it.

Recently was on holidays O/S. Went down to a creek in the moutains to take a photo and my partner noticed gold specks in the sandy bank/bed.

We just kind of dismissed it and thought that it could not be gold (it was on the surface). One of our group grabbed a couple of specks to get checked. We put them in his water bottle and accidentally drank them.

However I have not been able to get it out of my head and am thinking about going back to get some samples and dig around a little.

It was

Thanks for any feedback.

 

[aussiefarmer]

Pyrite in my opinion ,

 

[Simmo]

I agree.
Pyrite.
But good find!! Keep your eyes peeled!! You never know what you might find!

 

[JakeofallTrades]

when you picked up did it feel like "lead sinkers" and in your water bottle did it ever float?

 

[Keen Ken]

Looks like decomposed granite gravels and large mica flakes, rub the mice between your fingers and they will disintegrate.

 

[Smoky bandit]

Yes just mica :Y:

 

[RM Outback]

Commonly known as Fools Gold :N:

 

[user 4386]

Large mica flakes - probably the stream was in a granite area

 

[DrDuck]

Mica was my first thought, too.

If you stir up a mica rich puddle in good light the flakes look like gold, but don't behave like it - they tend to float around like the fake snow in a snow dome. Gold will settle very quickly.

 

[cidaq]

Thank you all for the input.

I really didn't know anything useful and therefor didn't pay any attention to how they felt (flaky/solid) or heavy. The flakes were very small and flat. The largest of them that we saw might have been 3mm but mostly 1-2mm across. And very thin and light. We only gave a couple of minutes attention to them as my daughter had walked on.

We walked away pretty confident it wasn't real gold. However we were in Japan and a few days later we went to the Golden Pavilion (a building completely covered in gold). From then on I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that there obviously was quite a bit of gold around, able to be found in ancient times with the basic tools and techniques that they had. I started convincing myself that it was possible for gold flakes to wash down the creek and sit on the top of the sand. Perhaps suffering a bit of gold fever even though we didn't find gold.

Again thanks all for the feedback.