AU Gold Huntin'

 "Gold prices have risen more than 25 per cent since the beginning of the year as concern over global growth has turned investors to the safe haven of the metal, which they believe will hold its value amid market volatility.

Adelaide's Dennis Cooper has been a gold prospector for 25 years and has just returned from an 8000km round-trip to Western Australia's Port Hedland, where he found three troy ounces of gold worth $5373."

Read more HERE.

Image Credit: Kelly Barnes \ The Australian

"Claiming" Australia

"Gold prospectors, Marco Nero explains, have always been 'a secretive, tight-lipped lot', wary of whom they speak to, careful of what they say, guarded about where they go. But these days they're ultra-protective.

For with world prices sky-rocketing - from $US600 an ounce to almost $1600 in five years - the stakes are high. The rush is on. And the talk is not just of getting rich quick, but of skulduggery, claim-jumping, even suburban 'bushwhacking'.

That may sound like paranoia; like something out of a Wild West movie, or the Herald's coverage of the rip-roaring, 1851 NSW gold rush. Mr Nero, though, insists such possibilities must be taken seriously."

Read more HERE.

Image Credits: Peter Rae / Sydney Morning Herald

AU Gold Region Still Producing

"As the wet season ends gold prospectors will return to Charters Towers. A hundred and forty years after gold was first found in the region you can still strike it lucky thanks to modern technology.

Anyone with a metal detector can still find gold around Charters Towers.

But it may take a while.

That's according to Tom Lawn who has been prospecting in the region for more than 50 years. "

Read more HERE.

Image Credits: Nathalie Fernbach

Cali's BIG Nugget

"A property owner with a metal detector in the Sierra community of Washington unearthed a gold nugget worth about $250,000.

The nugget weighs about 10 pounds, but it's worth more as a collector's item because it's the largest nugget in California.

Mining experts said the 49ners just missed finding it. Instead, it got covered up with their mining debris.

'This is what it's all about. This is what brought thousands to California and it's the last one,' said expert Fred Holabird."

Read more HERE.