Local man's incredible discovery in Aussie town 'renowned' for hidden treasures
The area in Queensland where the rock was found has a long history of gold finds.
Buried deep below the surface in rural towns across Australia, a glimpse of history remains. A time when gold seekers from around the world rushed Down Under for a nice piece of the golden pie.
But almost 200 years on from the gold rush era in Australia, locals are still digging up hidden treasure, with a man appearing to have struck gold while digging on a property in the Queensland town of Childers recently.
Suspecting it could be valuable, but not knowing what it was, the curious Aussie took to Facebook to ask "is this gold" alongside a picture of a pretty impressive rock which he'd innocently unearthed.
While he didn't share the circumstances around how he found the suspected treasure, he revealed he dug it up "on a property near Childers" — about 80 kilometres southwest of Bundaberg in the state's North Burnett region. But a debate around its legitimacy swiftly followed.
Queensland's 'extremely rich for gold'
The rural town is within close proximity to Paradise Dam which has a deep history of gold mining, Leigh McGrath from Golden Prospecting Tours told Yahoo News Australia. Even now, it's "renowned" for its high-quality gold — and is one of the spots where the 53-year-old conducts his tours. So it's very likely the man is sitting on a pretty valuable find, he said.
The picture shows a ginormous stone which McGrath identified as a quartz — a common source for gold to form, along with ironstone. But without knowing exactly how or where the supposed chunk of gold was found — for example, if it was in a shaft or mine or private property — it's "really tricky" to properly identify gold based on a photo, he said.
"Queensland's extremely rich for gold," the tour guide revealed, so too is Western Australia and Victoria. But the quartz will look different depending on where it's located. And so too will the gold.
"If you're down in the gold triangle (the area from Ballarat, across to Bendigo and up to Wedderburn in Victoria) the quartz is what I call smoky quartz — it's really clean with beautiful gold veins through it," McGrath told Yahoo. "But up in Clermont, Queensland where we're from, we get a lot of buggy mineralised quartz, which is really dirty, ugly-looking quartz".
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Simple trick to rule out 'fool's gold' or pyrite
He admitted that while he's not familiar with the type of quartz often found in Childers, he noted the man's rock "looks like it has vein going through the middle of it". This suggests it's likely a pretty legitimate find. Gold prospector Tyle Mahoney from Kalgoorlie, WA also agreed "at first glance it looks like gold".
One way to tell is to hold it to the light. This will help identify if it's pyrite, or "fool's gold" as it's commonly called. Pyrite is a mineral often mistaken for gold — and far less valuable. Compared to actual gold, these minerals will flake, powder, or crumble when poked with a metal point, whereas gold will gouge or indent like soft lead.
"The way you tell that it is fake gold is to look at it in the light and if it blinks at you, so it doesn't shine all the way, whatever angle you roll it, it's fool's gold," he explained. "If you hold real gold in the light you can turn it on any angle and it still shines the same way from every angle".
How much is gold worth in Australia?
In terms of value, Leigh said it's hard to determine what the man's find could be worth based on the photo as gold is usually valued by weight. Currently, gold is priced at about $3,000 per ounce in Australia.
"The only way to get any type of estimate of how much gold is in that quartz is to do a weight test. It's a water weight test where a formula can calculate the disbursement of water compared to your gold weight."
Following a heated discussion about the man's discovery on social media, it appears the post has been removed entirely.
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