Natural occurring pieces of gold are called gold nuggets. By placer mining process the gold nuggets are found in certain areas where they are concentrated due to the flowing rivers. They can also be found as residual deposits. Gold nuggets can also be found as leftover piles in areas where previous mining operations were conducted. Gold mining dredges could have left behind some such nuggets.
Gold nuggets are not as pure as 24 karat gold and are usually in the range of 29K to 22K but the Australian gold nuggets have a higher purity of about 23K. The deeper the orange-yellow color of the gold nugget, the purer it is and the more gold content it contains. In terms of fineness, it can be said that if the gold nugget is 865 fines then this means that the nugget contains 865 parts of gold in a thousand parts. Gold nuggets usually contain some silver and copper in them and electrums are those gold nuggets that contain a large amount of silver in it.
The smaller particles of gold usually weld together in rivers and streams and this forms the gold nuggets. Since the gold is very soft, it is prone to the process of welding especially under the force of the hammering loads in rivers created by stones. The gold flakes therefore easily adhere to one another. Some nuggets are present in their big form naturally.
One of the largest known gold nuggets was found in Victoria, Australia, by John Deason and Richard Oates in 1869. This was called as the Welcome Stranger and it had a total weight of 78 kg. However, the gold in it had a weight of 71 kg. Such gold nuggets can be easily spotted by using a metal detector. These are used in places where it has previously been seen that gold flakes of a wheat grain size have been found.
Gold nuggets are also searched for in alluvial areas. If a place has a few nuggets, many hundreds and thousands of shafts are sunk into the area of the first finds. In many cases, only a small number of the shafts will produce nuggets. This will indicate the direction in which to search for the nuggets.
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