GOLD in QUARTZ VEINS - What To Look For:

So it can be almost impossible to know if you have a GOLD rich quartz vein when there seems to be pieces of quartz Veining scattered everywhere !!!!.

What 'Feature ' or 'Appearance ' in quartz 'FLOAT' can you look for that will indicate a GREAT CHANCE for gold to be in that vein???!!.

This BLACK 'GUN-METAL-GREY (Charcoal looking)' Mineral in this vein is one of my favourite rock examples that we use in our courses as a fantastic 'real-life' example that has over 4oz gold / tonne in the vein. This is MANGANESE-OXIDE minerals within the Iron-oxide portions of the quartz Veining. (RED CIRCLES).

If you see this Mn-oxide colouring on pieces of quartz Veining scattered across the ground or CRACK OPEN any pieces of quartz Veining and see this black coloured IRON-OXIDE minerals in the vein, you can start to get a lot more excited.

Most of these veins will NOT give any response to a metal detector or pin-pointer as all the gold within the sample is usually 'dust gold ' (too fine to be detected, but great to crush and put in the gold pan ), but you now have a MUCH greater chance of finding some nuggets!!!.

Notice the CLEAR DIFFERENCE of the Mn-oxide portions (RED CIRCLES) to the other iron-oxide portions of the vein that have a much more BROWN colour. (YELLOW CIRCLE).

If you can see these distinctly different coloured minerals in the IRON-OXIDE portions of the Veining and not JUST BROWN coloured iron-oxides, your chances of finding gold have definately increased !!!