The lustrous metal is often washed from local ore bodies by waterways, erosion, rock slides and earth agitation. As a new gold explorer you quickly learn that gold is extremely heavy - 19 times heavier than water. Because of its weight, gold gravitates to specific areas of a riverbank. Exploring where the fast moving water slows down at the bank of a river or a waterfall can yield both flakes of gold and nuggets. remain in the pan. Swivel the pan around in a circular motion, tilting it lower on the one side.
Lighter materials fall off to the low side, exposing the gold.
Finally, continue gently panning the gravel away until the gold is isolated. Your own style of panning emerges after a bit of practice. When you have completed panning, the gold can be retrieved by any one of several methods depending on the coarsemess of the gold. A snuffer bottle is useful for sucking up grains of gold. It can also can be used to eject fine gold from the pan.