The nugget sat there in plain sight, though it was covered in dirt, while hundreds of people had passed that way every day.

Silver Peak is a small mining community in Esmeralda County in west-central Nevada, about 30 miles west of Goldfield. Although it’s fairly remote, it’s been an important mining center since the early days.

There are both hard rock and beach sand types of titanium deposits, but the hard rock deposits need to be at least 10 percent titanium while the beach sands often are economic with only two or three percent titanium.

These deposits are very widespread across the planet. In fact, they are so extensive that something around 75% of all the gold ever mined comes from these types of deposits (if one includes the placer deposits that also formed from them).

...two jadeite locations in California have been thoroughly researched by geologists. There are no doubt others that lie in wait.

Geology is a science of general tendencies with frequent exceptions, not one of hard and fast rules that are always true and never vary. For almost every well-accepted rule of gold deposits, I can point you to a number of important exceptions.