Hi, group! Could someone please give me some details on how to
make nuggets?
G’day, Sharon; It would depend to a certain extent on where
your ‘nuggets’ would be ‘found’, for those found in the ground
from a quartz mine are quite different in shape from alluvial
nuggets. Briefly, gold actually dissolves in water at the
temperatures and pressures existing deep underground, for at high
pressures water can still be liquid at quite ridiculous
temperatures a long way above 100C (212F). At those temperatures
water is literally the universal solvent of mythology. It will
dissolve anything at all - which is why we get quartz and other
mineral crystals which grew from water solutions. Mined nuggets
are almost any shape at all, and might be made by pouring molten
gold into water, though they wouldn’t look quite right and
wouldn’t deceive anyone who had seen a genuine one. But in the
case of alluvial nuggets which were once (and often still are,)
tumbled around for centuries in the bed of a river, you’d expect
them to be rather smooth and shaped like tiny pebbles from the
same area. Most of the rivers and streams of certain parts of
the South Island of NZ contain gold, as does one a 30 minute
drive from where I live. Because any lumps washed out of the
quartz matrix have been tumbled for centuries, it is rare to find
one bigger than one’s thumbnail, and usually they are little
bigger than a grain or two of rice, and fairly flat. In fact, an
experienced fossicker can look at a little nugget and tell one
from what area it came. As you’d expect, most of the gold gets
ground into fine dust, and because the folk who are addicted to
gold fossicking, (believe me - it is at least as addictive as
Orchid Forum!) can get at least twice the price for even a small
nugget than they can get for dust of the same quality. So some of
them cast a ‘nugget’ from a mould made from two bits of
cuttlefish bone and an appropriate river pebble. It is of
course, fraudulent.
So, to sum up, the shape of a gold nugget depends on how it was
formed, but they are usually fairly oval and flattish, with
smooth indentations. I believe one can buy genuine nuggets from
Gesswein or Rio, though I guess you’d really PAY for them. Yes,
Sharon, I do have a few genuine alluvial nuggets - sorry, but I
wouldn’t part with them! Cheers, –
/\
/ / John Burgess,
/ /
/ //\ @John_Burgess2
/ / \ \
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