What I saw was a beach area that was just completely covered in black sand. Rubbing my hands close together like a kid in a candy store, I could not wait to get set up.

What do you do when you’ve located a promising deposit of gold or gemstones, but it’s trapped in solid rock?

Then I came to a section of recently exposed gravel that looked unworked. Water seeped out all around, making the ground beneath a sea of slick mud.

What I hope to do here is to give you some information that will help you, the reader, pick out locations that will be better for you to detect and give you a possibility of finding gold.

…whichever layer I’m getting the best gold, I’ll work that stratum. Some of the best gold in the desert is not always on the bedrock.

As I have always done, I stashed those heavy black rocks in my pack and put them in the garden at home. They never were given a second thought until a half decade later…