Prospecting Waterfalls

Whether in a little stream or a big river, waterfalls can create interesting areas to prospect. If you’ve looked closely at even a small drop, you may have been excited by various features of a waterfall such as the plunge pool where the water drops or perhaps an area of bedrock exposed by the rushing water.

Most plunge pools are scrubbed out fairly throughly and have surprisingly little gold. The abrasive movement of rocks flowing over the waterfall grinds any material in the pool. Then the ground up material gets blown out of the pool. So where does the gold accumulate? There are a few likely areas that should be sampled by a wise prospector.

First, the next pool downstream will be a place the water slows and may drop some nice gold. Be sure to sample the bottom of that second pool downstream of the plunge pool.

Second, in both the plunge pool and the second pool, sample the edges and banks of the pool. These pools are often wider than the waterway in general. High water flows which scour the bed of the waterway will often drop gold along the edges of the flow where the currents rise from the bottom of the pool and slow down.

Third, there is one place gold can accumulate in either pool, behind a large boulder. These areas are worth checking once water-flows drop off. Any gold that was moving late in the season of high flow may drop in this “classic” spot.

What about the bedrock? Well, bedrock just below a water drop gets beat pretty hard over the years. Often this means there is less chance for gold to accumulate in bedrock cracks. During periods of high-water flow, crack sniping can be dangerous as rocks are getting pushed along in the water. During lower flow periods, cracks running across the waterway are still worth checking of course.

One last thought, the downstream end of a culvert can create a “drop” like this too. Use the same ideas to find the gold in that case.

I hope these hints help you find good gold the next time you find a “drop” in a stream or river.

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