r/Goldpanning

Prospecting on my own land in NC, Carolina Slate Belt area, northeast along strike from a historic gold mine that produced back in the 1800s.

On the hill: Multiple old prospect mounds. Tons of quartz on the surface, some iron-stained, some with pink/purple staining.

In the creek: Exposed layered argillite bedrock with natural crevices. Gravel-clay contacts. Weathered rusty material that I think is saprolite/gossan.

When I pan:

Massive amounts of black sand, maybe 30% magnetite

- Lots of small red/brown garnets after magnet

- Using Jet Dry

- Digging to bedrock, cleaning crevices, screening carefully

Barely finding gold. A few tiny flakes once, then nothing on follow-ups

With this much black sand and this much iron-stained material, what am I missing? Wrong spot? Wrong technique? Should I be crushing saprolite instead of quartz?

I want to also say that I just started. All the fancy names are from research and YouTube videos 😅

Photos: creek, bedrock, dig spot, sieved material, gossan chunk

Still cleaning up my cons bucket but this is what I have managed to get out. Still believe I’m missing out on a lot of fines but man it’s gonna take a lot to get it all out.

Yes, Wisconsin has small peices of gold that the glaciers brought from Canada.

Yes, this is legal so long as you don't use anything mechanical.

Yes, you can do this on some public land.

[WDNR regulations](https://imgur.com/a/Fzjc1wD)

It's not much but in the Napf area (Switzerland ) the gold has a high Purity (almost 24 Carat) been using a sluise for the 2 Buckets and then cleaning it. Found that 2 Buckets is the sweet spot.