A gold nugget is a naturally
occurring piece of native gold. Watercourses often concentrate nuggets
and finer gold in deposits placers. Nuggets are recovered by placer
mining, but they are also found in residual deposits where the
gold-bearing veins or lodes are weathered. Nuggets are also found in the
tailings piles of mining operations. Gold nuggets are usually 20.5K to
22K purity (83% to 92%). Gold nuggets in Australia often are 23K or
slightly higher, while Alaskan nuggets are usually at the lower end of
the spectrum. Purity can be roughly assessed by the nugget color, the
richer and deeper the orange-yellow the higher the gold content. The
common impurities are silver and copper, and nuggets high in silver
content constitute the alloy
While nuggets have been found on many goldfields around the world,
those from Victoria were particularly large and abundant. From the time
of the first goldrushes in the early 1850s, No one knows how many
nuggets were found. During the late 1800s, the Mines Department compiled
an official list of discoveries and also made models of some of the
large nuggets. By the time the reporting system ceased in about 1910,
1300 nuggets over 20 ounces had been recorded. However, almost certainly
many more nuggets were found than were recorded, as many discoverers
avoided publicity for fear of being robbed. None of the large nuggets
found during the goldrushes survived, as all were quickly melted down.
Here is an discovery The biggest gold nugget in the world :1. Welcome Stranger Nugget
The world's largest nugget was found just a couple of inches
below the ground near Dunolly, Victoria, Australia on 5 February 1869.
Welcome Stranger nugget weighing in at 2,315.5 troy ounces (72.02 kg)
The Stranger gold nugget was discovered by John Deason and Richard Oates
just 2 inches below the surface near a root of a tree in Bulldog Gully.
Due to the size of the nugget it could not be weighed on any scales at
the time and had to be broken down into 3 smaller pieces. And then the
nugget was soon melted down into ingots and shipped to the Bank of
England. In this 1869 illustration published shortly after the
discovery, the size of the nugget (61 by 31 cm or 24 by 12 in.) is
compared to a 12 inch (30 cm) scale bar. Before 1990, just about all
large nuggets were melted down for their monetary value. Today there are
less than a dozen known nuggets over 500 ounces. One replica of the
"Welcome Stranger" nugget can be found at the City Museum in Treasury
Place, in Melbourne, Victoria. The other replica is owned by
descendants of John Deason.
2. Welcome Nugget
The Welcome Nugget was the name given to a large gold nugget,
weighing 2,217 troy ounces 16 pennyweight. (68.98 kg) The original
'Welcome Nugget' was discovered on 9 June 1858 by a group of miners in
the Ballart gold fields in Victoria, Australia
. At the time it was the largest single piece of natural gold ever
found. A little over a year later, the nugget was melted down by the
London mint to make gold coins, but models were made beforehand to
create replicas like the one seen here. At around 2,217 troy ounces (69
kg), it remains the second largest gold nugget ever found. Because of
their scarcity, large nuggets always fetch a price well above their
value as precious metal. In 2013, the Welcome Nugget's gold content
alone would be valued at nearly $4 million, but an actual specimen of
this size and purity would sell for many times this amount.
Models of the Welcome Nugget were made and distributed to the Geological
and Mining Museum in the Rocks in Sydney, and the Museum of Victoria,
as well as the Powerhouse Museum, who purchased models of the Welcome
Nugget. Models are also a feature of two displays in Ballarat, the
Pioneer Miners (Gold) Monument on the corner of Sturt and Albert Streets
in Ballarat Central and at The Gold Museum opposite Sovereign Hill at
Golden Point. In the United States, a Replica of the "Welcome Nugget" is
exhibited in the Mineralogical Museum at Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
3. Pepita Canaa Nugget
The Canaã nugget, also known as the Pepita Canaa, was found on
Sept 13, 1983 by miners at the Serra Pelada Mine in the State of Para,
Brazil. Weighing 60.82 kilograms (134.1 lb; 2,145 oz), it is among the
largest gold nuggets ever found,and is, today, the largest in existence.
The main controversy regarding this nugget is that the excavation
reports suggest that the existing nugget was originally part of a nugget
weighing 5,291.09 ounces (150 kg; 331 lb) that broke during
excavations. The Canaã nugget is displayed at the Banco Central Museum
in Brazil along with the second and third largest nuggets remaining in
existence, weighing respectively 1,506.2 ounces (42.70 kg; 94.14 lb) and
1,393.3 ounces (39.50 kg; 87.08 lb), which were also found at the Serra
Pelada region.
READ MORE >>> The Biggest Gold Nugget In The World
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