It just goes to show that amazing discoveries can still be made by the persistent treasure hunter!Īlways remember that much of the easy-to-find gold has been found, there is still plenty left yet to be discovered. Just this year, a 12-pound chunk of gold named the Ausrox Nugget was found with a Minelab metal detector. The Hand of Faith is the biggest gold nugget known to still exist on Earth.īig gold nuggets are still being found in Australia. It was purchased several years ago for 1 million dollars, but with its rarity and current market value for gold, it is likely worth much more today. It is on display there, and is quite the sight to see. It weighs a massive 876 troy ounces, and currently resides at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas. Of course today, this nugget would value for many times its gold value alone, but at the time the finders were merely interested in the gold value of the nugget.Īnother famous Australian gold nugget and the largest gold nugget currently in existence today is the Hand of Faith, a massive chunk of gold found by a metal detectorist in 1980. Unfortunately, like nearly all other gold nuggets recovered during those times, it was broken apart and melted down for its gold content. What he actually uncovered was the now famous gold nugget, the single largest solid nugget ever known to exist in the world. Reports claimed that the miner that found it broke his pick while digging, and believed that he had struck a rock. It was documented to have weighed 2,280 troy ounces. It was another amazing Australian nugget recovered in 1869. The largest solid gold nugget ever found was called the Welcome Stranger Nugget. Unfortunately, it was the gold content, rather than its rarity that determined value back then.
The workers broke it into several pieces so it could more easily be brought to the surface, and no official weight was ever determined. It was believed to contain approximately 3000 troy ounces of gold, but it was sadly crushed and smelted so the true size was never really determined.Īnother huge specimen was recovered from the same mine shortly after, and reports claimed that it was even larger. It was discovered in 1872, and although it was a matrix of gold in quartz rather than a solid gold nugget, it is still credited as likely being the single largest piece of gold ever found on earth. The largest single piece of gold ever known to exist in the world was known as the Beyers Holtermann Nugget. Below are three of the biggest gold nuggets ever found in Australia. By far, the biggest gold nuggets ever recovered in history have come from Australia, and huge gold nuggets are still being found by lucky prospectors even today. RNC Minerals is the first to mine for gold.The Ausrox Gold Nugget was found this decade and was found with a metal detector!Īustralia is famous for producing the largest gold nuggets in the world. What's even more surprising about the discovery is the mine, located near the small mining town of Kambalda, has been used as a nickel mine since the 1970s. It's definitely a once-in-a-lifetime discovery," he said. "You might go your whole life and you'll never see anything like it.
The senior geologist on the job, Zaf Thanos, told Australia's ABC News that it's usually only possible to see gold through a magnifying glass in most mines. "To give people context … out of about your living room, we pulled out $15 million worth of gold," he said. The entire haul, Selby said, was also extracted from a relatively small area. The rocks, which are also made of quartz, were extracted about 500 metres from the surface in an area just three metres wide. It was located roughly where Fork Creek flows into McDame Creek. Weighing 72 ounces, it was the second largest solid gold nugget found in B.C.
The McDame Creek nugget was discovered by Al Freeman in 1877. RNC Minerals said it had extracted 2,200 grams per tonne. The largest pure gold nugget was found on Birch Creek in 1913. Miners in Australia often only extract about two grams of gold per tonne of rock, Sam Spearing of the Western Australia School of Mines at Curtin University told the BBC. It's thought to be worth approximately $2.6 million. The largest single piece of reef gold ever discovered in the world is found at Hill End, in New South Wales. The second gold-encrusted rock is 63 kilograms and contains an estimated 1,620 ounces of gold.
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