Gold Mining Tips

Old mining photographs are one of the most overlooked prospecting tools — and they're hiding in archives, museums, and family albums all over the world. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew teaches you how to read goldfield geology from historic photographs. You'll learn where to find old images, what to look for in them, and how to match a photograph to the modern landscape. Andrew covers...

In the 1800s, a series of colossal gold discoveries triggered mass migrations that reshaped continents and changed the course of history. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew takes you back to the great gold rushes — from the California Gold Rush of 1848 that drew 300,000 people to the American West, to the Australian rush that saw half a million people sail from the British Isles alone, to...

2026 has been a remarkable year for gold — and beginners are finding it in some surprising places. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew rounds up the real stories and real locations where new prospectors are finding gold this year. From a 48-gram nugget found by three Finnish farmers near a forest road in Lapland, to a drying lakebed in Indonesia that sparked a local gold rush, to the conti...

Every old diggings, rusted tool, and crumbling stone wall is a chapter in the story of gold mining — and a clue to where gold still hides. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew explores the archaeology and history of gold mining, showing how historical methods and abandoned mine studies can help modern prospectors find gold that was missed. You'll learn the evolution of placer techniques — f...

Historic mining towns exist because there was gold there — and the creeks around them still hold colour today. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew teaches you how to find gold in creeks near historic mining towns. You'll learn why these towns are confirmed gold occurrences, how to research the best creeks using history and geological maps, and the specific techniques that work in worked gr...

Knowing how to find gold is not the same as knowing how to run a mine. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew tackles project management for small-scale mining operations — aimed specifically at hobbyists and prospectors considering the leap to commercial production. You'll learn the four phases of mine development — planning, permitting, construction, and operations — and why each phase must...

You've found the reef and crushed the ore — now how do you separate the gold from the rock? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew explains the fundamentals of gravity concentration for small-scale prospectors. You'll learn the principles behind the four main types of gravity concentrators: jigs, spiral concentrators, shaking tables, and centrifugal concentrators like the Knelson and Falcon....

Is your gold deposit actually worth mining? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew tackles the economics of gold mining — the numbers that determine whether a project goes ahead or gets shelved. You'll learn the critical difference between mineral resources and mineral reserves, how cut-off grades are calculated and why they're the single most important economic concept in mining, and the thr...

You've found the reef and sampled the ore — now how do you get the gold out? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew explains the fundamentals of mineral processing, or ore dressing, for small-scale prospectors. You'll learn the liberation principle — why you have to break the rock to recover the gold — and the four stages of processing: crushing, grinding, sizing, and classification. Andrew c...

Is that glint in your pan real gold, or is it fool's gold? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew teaches you how to tell the difference instantly. You'll learn his "gold test triangle" — three simple field tests that never fail — and the visual clues that separate real gold from its imposters. Andrew covers the main culprits, including pyrite, chalcopyrite, mica, and marcasite, and explains...

The best gold in the world is worthless if you don't make it home to enjoy it. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew tackles the most important topic of all: safety. You'll learn the most common prospecting mistakes that can lead to injury — from underestimating water, heat, and terrain to mishandling tools, ignoring wildlife, and falling prey to gold fever. Andrew covers fast water and flas...

Mining law is complex, it varies enormously from country to country, and it changes constantly. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew provides a broad overview of mining law and permitting worldwide, covering land tenure, claims, environmental permits, and regulatory compliance. You'll learn how the US, Australia, Canada, Ghana, Peru, Finland, and Sweden approach mineral rights and prospecti...

Some of the best prospecting ground isn't pristine wilderness — it's the old diggings, abandoned shafts, and crumbling stone walls left behind by miners a century ago. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew teaches you how to read old workings and find the gold the old-timers missed. You'll learn what different types of historic diggings reveal — alluvial workings, surfacing, shafts, adits, o...

There's a moment every prospector remembers forever: the first glint of gold in the pan. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew walks you through what to do when you find your first piece of gold. You'll learn how to secure the find without losing it, how to document the moment with photos, notes, and GPS, and the common mistakes to avoid — like biting the gold or scrubbing it clean. For more...

Where can you actually go to find gold without breaking the law or breaking the bank? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew tours the best public lands across the United States where you can legally prospect for free. From California's Auburn State Recreation Area and Oregon's four designated panning sites to Arizona's Lynx Creek, Alaska's Petersville Recreational Mining Area, and Colorado's...

Gold doesn't sit randomly in the ground — it follows the breaks. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew explains structural geology in plain language, showing how faults, folds, shear zones, and rock contacts control where gold mineralisation happens. You'll learn why gold-bearing fluids need broken rock to travel through, why some faults are loaded with gold while others are barren, and how...

You've found the gold, panned it, cleaned it, and filled a vial. Now what? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew tackles the practical question every prospector eventually faces: how do you sell your gold without getting ripped off? You'll learn how to determine purity, weight, and form, why you'll never get the spot price for raw placer gold, and how the "melt value" calculation works. Andr...

You've found gold — real, visible gold. But is it just a nice patch, or a deposit worth staking a claim over? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Jack Turner walks you through the process of evaluating your finds before you commit to a mining claim. You'll learn how to calculate grade from your pan samples, why the "nugget effect" makes single samples unreliable, and how to estimate volume for bo...

Every placer deposit came from somewhere — a vein, a reef, the mother lode. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew takes you beyond the creek and teaches the fundamentals of small-scale quartz reef prospecting. You'll learn what a quartz reef actually is and why it's the source of all that placer gold, where to find reefs using geological clues like faults, shear zones, and contacts, and how...

So you've found gold worth keeping. Now what? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew walks you through the process of staking a mining claim — from the moment of discovery to legal ownership. You'll learn when it's worth staking, the difference between placer and lode claims, and the step-by-step staking process from marking boundaries to filing paperwork. For more information about Gold Mini...

What if you could scout thousands of square kilometres of rugged wilderness from your kitchen table — seeing through trees, mapping hidden faults, and identifying the alteration halos that surround buried gold deposits? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew reveals the power of remote sensing and GIS for gold prospecting. You'll learn how satellite imagery from Landsat, ASTER, and Sentinel-2...

Why is gold where it is? The answer lies in geomorphology — the study of how landscapes form and change over millions of years. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew takes you deep into the science of placer geology, explaining how gold moves through the landscape and where it concentrates. You'll learn the three main types of placer deposits — eluvial (gold that stays home), colluvial (gold...

You've panned the gravel, worked the concentrates, and found your first gold. Now what? In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew walks you through the final step of the prospecting journey: cleaning, drying, storing, and weighing your gold finds. You'll learn why less is often more when it comes to cleaning, how to safely remove black sand and iron staining, and the hazards of acid treatments y...

Gold hides — but it leaves a trail. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew explains the science of sampling and pathfinder elements: the chemical fingerprints that point to buried gold deposits. You'll learn what pathfinder elements are (arsenic, antimony, mercury, silver, and more), why they're often easier to detect than gold itself, and how to use them to narrow a huge area down to a preci...

The shoreline is one of the most overlooked goldfields in the world. In this episode of Gold Mining Tips, Andrew takes you to the coast to explore how gold reaches the sea, where it concentrates, and how to recover it. You'll learn about beach placers, ancient terraces, submerged paleochannels, and bedrock outcrops — and how to read the beach like a prospector, from black sand lines to storm cuts...