Things You'll Need
Instructions
Go to locations where gold was discovered before, but look for small, isolated areas where people have not worked over much, recognizable by the tight and hard-packed gravel.
Locate the presence of quartz and granite, which provides an ideal area for the formation of gold. Look for opaque quartz crystal, called "live" quartz, which appears less shiny than "dead" quartz. The presence of live quartz can lead you to hard-rock deposits, gold-quartz veins in the earth.
Find gold-quartz veins near fault lines along the U.S. east and west coasts. This gold can be mined by panning, or by underground mining called "drift mining." The removal of the gold ore involves using large picks or dynamite, and then placing the sediment into large boxes called "sluice boxes," where ore sinks to the bottom as you mix water with the sediment. Because of the expense, major gold corporations would be in charge of this kind of mining.
Mine for gold by using only a gold pan---a shallow, wide pan with a metal rim. Pile sediment containing ore from the bottom of a river into the gold pan, then mix it with water by moving the pan in a circular way. Since gold weighs more than dirt, it sinks to the bottom of the pan, while the sediment washes away.
Use a metal detector to find gold ore. A metal detector only responds to the presence of metals, such as copper, silver and gold as conductors of electricity, and it will respond to magnetic iron ore. If you get a metal response from your metal detector, you will know to examine the specimen completely.