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How to Separate Gold Dust Found in Mines

Gold dust---also known as "flour gold"---is gold that is so fine that it looks and feels like flour. This dust can be found in gold mines or near gold mines. Gold mines are located at lode areas---or at the source of the gold underground. Placer gold is gold that has migrated from the lode through years of erosion, and most placer gold is found in creeks and streams. Much of the gold dust found in mines has migrated into streams of placer gold, where it can be separated from the other streambed material and recovered.

Things You'll Need

Gold pan
Tweezers
Snifter
Gold vial filled with water

Instructions

- 1
  Scoop up some gold dust, rocks , water and other streambed material with a gold pan.
- 2
  Swirl the pan in a clockwise direction, allowing the rocks to spill out.
- 3
  Agitate the pan from side to side as you tilt it slightly forward, allowing more of the smaller material to spill out of the front of the pan. Gold is very heavy so it will sink to the bottom of the pan and get caught in the riffles or ridges of the pan.
- 4
  Recover the fine gold with tweezers and/or a snifter and drop it into the gold vial filled with water. If you have gold, it should immediately sink to the bottom of the vial due to it's high specific gravity.

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