A massive gold nugget worth at least $110,000 has been uncovered by a prospector in remote Western Australia.
The retired man, who doesn’t wish to be named to protect his identity, says he’s been combing the same patch in the northern Goldfields with a metal detector for years, but struck it lucky with better technology.
‘When I had finished digging it out, I just thought “Oh my god”,’ he said of the find, a 3.23kg specimen containing 68 troy ounces or 2.11kg of gold.
A massive gold nugget worth at least $110,000 has been uncovered by a prospector in remote Western Australia
‘It was pretty deep at about 800mm in clay soil so it took more than two hours of careful digging to get it out.’
The prospector used a state-of-the-art Minelab GPZ 7000 detector to make his discovery.
Rob Anderson, who owns the Prospectors Pick in Bunbury, has known the prospector for a long time and says he’s a specialist at finding deep nuggets.
‘He’s been very successful over the years,’ Mr Anderson said.
The prospector used a state-of-the-art Minelab GPZ 7000 detector to make his discovery – which was buried around 800mm in the ground
‘I think this find proves there’s still a lot of gold still out there, even in areas you might think have been picked clean.’
The nugget has been dubbed ‘Duck’s Foot’ because of its shape.
Earlier this month, Canadian gold mining company RNC Minerals announced it had found a whopping 262kg of gold worth $C15 million ($A15.9 million) at its Beta Hunt gold mine, also in the Goldfields near Kambalda, in just one week.
That included two huge specimens weighing 95kg and 63kg with a combined estimated gold content of more than 113kg, which President Mark Selby said could rank among the biggest ever discovered.
On Thursday, the company provided an updated estimate from the discovery, dubbed the ‘Father’s Day Vein’, saying it had produced more than 680kg worth more than $C38 million ($A40.3 million).
Miner Henry Dole (pictured with a piece from the total haul) discovered the largest nugget of gold ever in early September