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Gold prospecting is the act of searching for new gold deposits. Methods used vary with the type of deposit sought and the resources of the prospector. Although traditionally a commercial activity, in some developed countries Placer mining gold prospecting has also become a popular outdoor recreation. Gold prospecting has been popular since antiquity. From the earliest textual and archaeological references, gold prospecting was a common thread for gaining wealth.
Deeper placer deposits may be sampled by trenching or drilling.J.G. Stone and others, "Using diamond drilling to evaluate a placer deposit: a case study," Mining Engineering, September 1988, p.875-880. Geophysical methods such as seismic, gravity or magnetics may be used to locate buried river channels that are likely locations for placer gold.Scott A. Stebbins (1987) Cost Estimation Handbook for Small Placer Mines, US Bureau of Mines, Information Circular 9170. Sampling and assaying a placer gold deposit to determine its economic viability is subject to many pitfalls. Placer Examination Principles and Practice (n.d.) US Bureau of Land Management, Technical Bulletin 4.
Once placer gold is discovered, the gold pan is usually replaced by sluices or mechanical devices to wash greater volumes of material. Discovery of placer gold has often resulted in discovery of hardrock gold deposits when the placers are traced to their sources.
Hardrock gold deposits are more varied in mineralogy and geology than placer deposits, and prospecting methods can be very different for different types of deposits. As with placer gold, the sophistication of methods used to prospect for hardrock gold vary with the financial resources of the prospector. Drilling is often used to explore the subsurface. Surface Geophysics methods may be used to locate geophysical anomalies associated with gold deposits. Samples of rocks or soil may be collected for Geochemistry laboratory assay, to determine metal content or detect geochemical anomalies.R.P. Fischer and F.S. Fisher (1968) Interpreting Pan-Concentrate Analyses of Stream Sediments in Geochemical Exploration for Gold, US Geological Survey, Circular 592. Hardrock gold particles may be too small to see, even with a microscope.
Most gold today is produced in large Open-pit mining and deep underground mines. However, small-scale gold mining is still common, especially in developing countries.
A 2012 study by Australian scientists found that termites have been found to excrete trace deposits of gold. According to the CSIRO, the termites burrow beneath eroded subterranean material which typically masks human attempts to find gold, and ingest and bring the new deposits to the surface. They believe that studying termite nests may lead to less invasive methods of finding gold deposits. Herodotus reported about .
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