Gold Prospecting Tool: The Ultimate Guide
Gold prospecting is a fun and exciting activity. For recreational gold prospectors, the thrill is not just in finding gold but also in the outdoor adventure and interacting with nature. Prospecting can also teach valuable life lessons, like how hard miners work to find gold and their hopes of discovering fortunes. And most miners did not use modern equipment such as metal detectors, motorized sluice boxes, or modern suction dredges back then.
To prospect for gold today, you don’t need to buy expensive equipment. You can get started with some basic tools that you can trade for better tools at the gold supply store. Here are some of the most basic and affordable pieces of prospecting equipment.
Product Name | Product Image | Check Price in Amazon |
|---|---|---|
The Gold Pan | ||
The Sluice Box | ||
The Shovel | ||
The Pick |
The Gold Pan
The gold pan is a very basic tool, but it is also one of the most effective. Beginners and experienced prospectors can use it to find gold in different situations. There are many different designs of gold pans. Still, they all have the same purpose: trapping gold during agitation and removing it when the process is finished. Some gold pans are made of heavy-duty metal, while others are made of high-impact plastic.
The Sluice Box
Using only a gold pan to harvest gold takes a lot of time. To speed up the process, some people use a small non-motorized sluice box. This box helps by letting the water wash away the lighter materials while also catching the heavier materials like gold. After a few hours, the miner takes the concentrates (sediment) from the bottom of the sluice box and pans it down until they have just the gold.
The Shovel
Different shovels are better for different situations when looking for gold. You will want a thin, long shovel with serrated edges to cut through hard soils and river stones. A small spade with serrated edges is also important to have. You will find that your regular shovel doesn’t work in smaller areas where gold might accumulate.
The Pick
A pick is a tool that helps you save time. Finding gold mixed in with old river stones and soil is often helpful. When the soil is dry, it can be hard to move. That’s when a pick comes in handy. Picks come in different sizes, so you might need both a small and large pick during a day of digging.
The Classifier
The classifier is a round screen that you put on top of the gold pan. The goal is to put your material in the classifier and shake it in water. This will separate the heavier rocks from the soil. The soil will go through the screen, and you may find flakes of gold there.
Gold prospecting can be fun, but you need to be careful. One of the rocks you throw back into the stream might be a gold nugget. Another important piece of equipment for gold prospecting is the classifier. This device expedites the process of discovering gold in dirt.
The Gold Map
A good gold map can save you a lot of money. You won’t have to spend as much on gas, and you’ll save time and effort. Plus, you won’t have to process dirt where there is no gold. We sell a digital gold claim map you can view on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop. This map will help you find areas with gold, so you don’t waste time looking in the wrong places.
Traveling to an area only to discover that you cannot prospect there is not worth it. With our gold claim map, we can put you on an abandoned claim that might be located between two other profitable claims. And you will be able to prospect there legally.
Gold prospecting can be a fun activity that doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. You don’t need to buy new equipment because most stores that sell gold prospecting supplies also have used equipment for sale. And even if you do buy new equipment, it will probably look like the used equipment after you’ve been prospecting for a while.
Metal is metal, and gold prospecting equipment usually lasts longer than the person who owns it. Another thing to think about is that many open placer sites don’t allow machines on the property or might require a special and costly permit.
Gold Prospecting Knowledge
The most important tool for prospectors is their knowledge of where gold might be found. They also need to know how to get the gold out of the ground. Gold is often found in dirt, so it is helpful to know about gold if you want to find it. There are many things you need to consider when looking for gold, like these:
- where gold has previously been discovered
- public lands open for recreational mining
- Where gold collects along streams and rivers
- prospecting strategies like what tools will I need
A good prospector knows the stream they are at once flowed much higher up than today. Look up the hillside to see if there is a big rock that might have once captured gold when the stream was higher. Gold will collect on the downstream side of big rocks, so if you want to find gold, it might be a few yards up the hill on the downstream side of that rock. Fill a bucket with some dirt and pan it in the stream.
The BLM and U.S. Geological Survey provide information about where to find gold and how to plan for it. You can also watch videos on YouTube about how to pan for gold. It is unnecessary to buy a video to learn the basics of prospecting and panning. Some old-timers did not get all the gold, so if you are near an old mine, you might find some placer gold in the stream. Remember that much new gold washes into streams yearly from rain and swollen rivers.
Read more: Gold Prospectors Go Digital
Frequently Asked Questions About Gold Prospecting Tool
Gold pans, sluice boxes, metal detectors, digging tools, gold vials, snuffer bottles, and many other must-have small equipment for placer gold mining are offered here. You can buy all of this equipment here. See our gold mining books section for plans on building your prospecting equipment.
Gold is in every river in the world, but some have so little gold that you might not find any if you pan and sieve for years. Amateur prospectors won’t be able to determine whether gold is in rocks near the surface.
Gold exists in very small amounts in both freshwater and seawater. It is difficult to detect and extract, so it is not currently feasible or profitable to do so.
Radar can help us find areas where people are illegally mining for gold. When we use radar with high-resolution satellite imagery, we can see these areas deep inside the Amazon forest from a distance and in real-time.
Many large gold deposits belong to the Orogon Gold Deposit type. These deposits can be found at around 4000 feet to 15,000 feet deep. They are typically caused by the formation of mountains and can be found in marine deposits or metamorphic rock.
