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Gold in that there River! Article Chronoscope I Page 6



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I have taken this subject to heart and have been pursuing prospecting here in Michigan. Here are some of my most recent notes . . .

Personal Prospecting Notes 2025

A few years back I started to participate in a treasuring hunting group that held its events at a park near Battle Creek Michigan. The park had a nice stream running through it with a history of placer gold, so I bought some basic equipment and did some panning there while my girlfriend metal detected out in the field. Previously I had tried panning the stream on my property with homemade equipment to get a feel for it. I even panned on another stream on federal property, and in all cases never produced any color. That changed when I began to do more research after which I determined it was my lack of knowledge and experience that resulted in no gold being found. After more thought and research I came to the following conclusions on how to produce results panning for gold in Michigan.

First, there are two basic truths about gold prospecting. Those truths are, "Gold is where you find it" and "You won't find gold if it isn't there". As true as those statements are, they don't answer any questions but rather pose them as in, "Is gold here and where is it?" You then must study the subject in more depth to answer those questions, and here in Michigan the answers to those questions are, "There is gold and it is everywhere". Unfortunately, in the lower peninsula the gold is placer deposits of fine dust and small flakes in such low quantities that they are unprofitable for commercial mining. There are a few hard rock mines in the Upper Peninsula, but in the lower, it is placer gold deposited by glaciers pushing material down from the north, from the Canadian Shield. The two glacial lobes that pushed through lower Michigan are the Saginaw Lobe and Lake Michigan Lobe. The glacial outwash, till, and moraines left behind by the receding glaciers created what is commonly known as Michigan's Gold Belt which is crescent-shaped. These conditions all come together here in Newaygo County and are confirmed by reports of gold found on the Muskegon River in at least two places.


So, there is gold here and it can likely be found in every stream and river in low concentrations. There is no "lode" to be traced back to here in Michigan's lower peninsula unless it came from Lake Superior and the U.P. before the glacier brought it down here. The Mother Lode is a vein of gold running through bedrock that has been exposed uphill from the gold found in a stream. This could be poking up from the ground or exposed on a cliff face where erosion and gravity have caused it to create pockets of gold down the hill and down in the streams. These lodes are not known in the lower peninsula due to the lack of exposed bedrock (although there are some exposed areas).

With such a low volume of gold dust and flakes and no mother load to be found, the best one can do is find a nice "pay streak" where the gold is more concentrated than in other places. Otherwise, I've developed a standard, a gold-to-dirt ratio of 12+ gold flakes per 5-gallon bucket of soil processed. This was based on the results of two guys on a YouTube video who worked a Michigan stream and got an estimated 100 flakes per eight 5-gallon buckets of river sand. I have rounded this to 1,600 cubic inches for a full bucket (14" inches from top to bottom), 800 cubic inches for 1/2 bucket (7" from the bottom), and just over 29 buckets (let's say 30) for 1 cubic yard of creek material. At 12 flakes per bucket, a cubic yard of sand would have approximately 360 gold flakes.

Considering I'm on a glacial outwash plain and the creek is small and seasonal, the gold here is probably well distributed over the property. If there are 360 gold flakes per cubic yard of soil, and if the gold is evenly distributed, with the bedrock 150 feet below the surface, that would equal as much as 18,000 gold flakes per stride as I walk the property. If all of that were true, then after 56 paces I would have walked over the top of one million gold flakes. That thought blows my mind the most and fuels my goal of 12 or more gold flakes per 5-gal bucket to prove this idea is true, that my swamp has a carpet of gold you walk upon.

Here is an update for anyone who may be interested. It is the first week of June, and I have removed the homemade sluice from the creek, now running low due to a lack of rain, and brought it up to the house. I also altered my usual cleaning methods by adding a step that improved my results. I ran one half of a five-gallon bucket over the last few days, and I recovered six gold flakes. This realizes my goal of twelve gold flakes per full five-gallon bucket of river sand. I must now make this the standard for my results.

Next weekend I'll be going out into the field to go gold prospecting downstate near Battle Creek, Michigan, once again. I'll report back on that soon.

ETA: We missed that trip to Battle Creek, so I made some changes to the sluice and dug it into the now-dry creek bed. With an empty creek, I was able to use the sand and rocks from the tailings left from sluicing to build up the natural dam that spills into the sluice. Now I'm waiting for a good rain, two or more inches, to fill the creek and get back to work. I should dig up a few buckets now before the creek fills back up again. It is easier to dig without water, and you can go deeper without it.