Determine find location by appearance of nugget

[Blueboy]

I met a guy today who told me it is possible to look at a nugget and tell by its appearance roughly where it came from... is that true?

 

[davent]

Possibly, the gold I found at Tennant creek is darker than the gold nearer pine creek.

 

[goldrat]

I have found small gold (SDC2300) in 5 different gullies in the triangle and each gully's gold has slightly different characters . I have been told that gold is like a fingerprint , not sure about that fact .

Cheers
goldrat

 

[jamie]

or he wants to guess, when he is 'wrong' will ask where it was from then and bingo your spot gone..... or i am suspect on people too much

 

[Phoenix76]

Yeah heard the same thing many times. If they got it wrong I wouldn't correct them though Jamie. If we find a good spot, we don't usually go telling anyone. But really, I have heard this and a lot of years back, so probably something in it.

 

[SCROUNGER]

or he wants to guess, when he is 'wrong' will ask where it was from then and bingo your spot gone..... or i am suspect on people too much

I can't believe you would ever doubt the honesty and integrity of 'detectorists' jamie :lol: :lol: We're all straight as an arrow i thought when it came to talking about our gold spots

 

[jamie]

i have heard of gold being different shades from area to area to be honest, but i would correct them, i am nice like that... dredged from depths of bass straight or the likes
oh scrounger i know the kind folk here are ok it them 'outsiders' i have my suspicions about lol

 

[Blueboy]

Never thought of it being abused for the record he didn't ask too see anything or ask any questions about my own efforts, we were just gassing about different AU States and it went from there to him saying e.g. SA gold looks different to Victorian, African to Australian or USA etc.

 

[jamie]

ColinD, feel free to post a pick of the gold and tell us the exact locations if you like so we can all see the difference between the gold in your spots, we wont tell anyone where you were finding gold
good to hear they never asked where it was from, but i believe it can look different, the small amount of gold i have from from two locations does like slightly different in shades but i am no expert, wouldn't mind finding more gold to prove it tho

 

[RM Outback]

ColinD, feel free to post a pick of the gold and tell us the exact locations if you like so we can all see the difference between the gold in your spots, we wont tell anyone where you were finding gold
good to hear they never asked where it was from, but i believe it can look different, the small amount of gold i have from from two locations does like slightly different in shades but i am no expert, wouldn't mind finding more gold to prove it tho

Wouldn't mind finding more my self, I don't care what shade it is or location it comes from it's all gold. I've heard similar comments regarding colour variation but couldn't be bothered with the technicalities. I just enjoy being able to dig some up every now and then. From the little I've dug up once cleaned it all looks the same to me

 

[SteelPat]

Over the last few weeks I have picked up small nuggets from the same area that all look different. Some were water worn and very bright yellow, others were a deep orange colour due to the ironstone and some were prickly reef gold. All from within a couple of hundred meters of each other.

I really think it depends on the area.

 

[vstrom]

A friend of mine owns Grappys gold buy I was talking to him last night and he was telling me that it is a bit like a finger print that different areas have different gold due to purity and minerals within the gold which can be tested just as they've done in the case of stolen gold from a lease that's why he has a very expensive machine to test gold purity as well.

 

[bend]

Over the last few weeks I have picked up small nuggets from the same area that all look different. Some were water worn and very bright yellow, others were a deep orange colour due to the ironstone and some were prickly reef gold. All from within a couple of hundred meters of each other.

I really think it depends on the area.

That sounds like at least two sources, one very close and one further away. Gold may or not look similar from state to state or country to country, I'd suspect that things like that probably depend on local geochemistry and structure, but prickly reef gold and very water worn gold tend to have separate sources just due to it not staying prickly for long on the geological timescale. it might be worth having a pan or at least a very close look on some of the slopes around the area.

 

[HeadsUp]

A friend of mine owns Grappys gold buy I was talking to him last night and he was telling me that it is a bit like a finger print that different areas have different gold due to purity and minerals within the gold which can be tested just as they've done in the case of stolen gold from a lease that's why he has a very expensive machine to test gold purity as well.

yup

the gold police have both handheld and laboratory spectroscopic machines to analyse gold content and yes it is extremely accurate.

they can print out the percentage of gold , copper , tin , silver etc as all areas have different composition , its not only colour and shape that can often identify where gold came from.

 

[Wally69]

Cool Headaup, glad to know if mine got stolen that they could easily be identified mine would have definite spikes on the blood, sweat and tears spectrums. :lol: