HOW TO PAN FOR GOLD Because gold is heavier than most sediments and gravel in a stream, it and other heavy minerals called “black sands” (including pyrite, magnetite, ilmenite, chromite, and garnet) can be collected in a gold pan when the right panning techniques are used.
First, get a gold pan from a hardware or department store or a store that specializes in mining equipment. Gold pans are flat bottomed, usually about 2 or 3 inches deep, with the sides sloping at an angle of about 45°, and should be at least 15 inches in diameter.
Take your pan to a likely-looking location along a stream in a known gold-bearing area.
You are looking for a gold trap -a place along the stream where the current slows down enough for the gold to settle out.
Good possibilities are the insides of curves of streams (called point bars), areas where streams have overflowed, and on the downstream sides of boulders or other obstructions in the water.
Once you find a good place, follow these steps to pan for gold:
1 Fill the pan between about half and two-thirds full of soil, gravel, and small rocks from the stream bank or stream channel.
2 Put the pan under water, break up lumps of clay, and discard the stones.
3 Still holding it level under water with your hands on opposite sides of the pan, rotate it halfway back and forth rapidly to wash out the clay and concentrate the heavy material at the bottom of the pan.
4 Still holding the pan under water, tilt the pan forward, away from your body, and down slightly. Rotate and shake it to let the light gravel and sand dribble out the front. Push top material and large chunks of rock out with your thumbs. Repeat steps 3-4 several times until a deposit of fine-grained dark material overlain by a smaller layer of light material remains at the bottom of the pan.
5 Take the pan with the residue and some water out of the stream. Rotate the pan in a circular motion, and watch carefully what is happening. The water is separating lighter from heavier materialand gold, if it is present and you are doing the panning properly, is lagging behind the other material at the bottom of the pan.
6 Stop the rotation. If you are lucky, you will see a few flecks of gold in the dark material that remains in the bottom of the pan. Carefully drain out water and let the black sand and gold dry. Lift out most of the black sand with a magnet, and separate the gold from the remainder of the sediments with tweez
