Silly question :/ do you find gold where theirs lots of iron pyrites?

i haven't been able to find much information on this(maybe i havent looked hard enough) but a common place i used to go fishing near my property when your going down the hills it all shines of the pyrites. I've had a few pans in the river many years back and you would get 10-15 flakes of iron pyrites in a pan. I'm just wondering if you actually find gold where this is?. i have also found an old undocumented shaft into solid rock which makes me think they where after something?. i remember panning the small tailing mound with dad and no luck either.

thanks all,
Luke

G'day Luke,welcome to the forum.

Yes and no.By this I mean the surrounding hillside/ground,must also be known to be auriferous.(gold bearing) You'll know this by sinking a hole to the clay pan or black sands of the creek or river bed,& panning the wash layer off. An undocumented lone shaft into solid rock,could mean a sinking used to intercept a rich vein or load of precious ore,breaking through many feet of cap rock,reaching the richer wash layer (such that of deep lead mining).If the shaft was not used to intercept or follow a rich ore vein of gold etc and was found to be quite shallow in depth,could mean that a visible,reasonably rich, pocket of gold bearing ore was found intercepting the host rock,at or near the surface,necessitating further shafting operations,or chased into the solid rock,to the point where it petered out,rendering digging of the shaft no further.Mind you,the shaft might not have been for gold in the first place. Only further research of any mining activity of the surrounding district,can tell you more.

Cheers Kon.

Gold can occur In Iron pyrites. It is almost always naked eye invisible within the pyrites but can be up around 80 micons which is eye visable.
Near enough every place I have recovered gold there has been plenty of iron pyrites.

Agree with Adrian on this one too.Gold can and almost always does occur in and in conjunction with iron pyrites,in the form of flour/micron state,found in ground or localities known to be auriferous,but being so tiny or invisible to the naked eye,would require the panning concentrates to be highly laced in this type of gold,to be productive or payable.
There is no limit to what size gold can decrease to by weathering over time,but if we're talking micron gold (gold so fine that cannot be seen by the naked eye) only under high magnification),well,that type/size gold can and does exist (in such small quantities) found in just about everything,even within our own bodies.

Cheers Kon.