KERCHING! There’s more gold where the now-infamous Gold Coast beach nuggets came from.
The Surfers Paradise gold digger who found three precious rocks on a northern Gold Coast beach last week has done it again.
Local beachlover Greg Cooke uncovered another two nuggets on Saturday when he returned to his lucky secret spot in the sand.
“I went back with a mate with a metal detector and found these two (pictured),” he said.
But wait — there’s more.
Mr Cooke and his buddy returned to their treasure trove again yesterday — and found two more rocks.
“They’re not as big. My mate’s got them — he reckons those two are his,” Mr Cooke said.
Mr Cooke said he and his mate reckon the nuggets are most likely broken fragments from the same rock.
“The big one’s been there forever and it’s only with erosion that they’ve come to life,” he said.
“We reckon the small ones are coming from the rock retaining walls.
“You can see the quartz veins in the rock in the retaining walls.”
Eager to keep the exact location of his ‘gold mine’ secret, Mr Cookie said the unlikely prospectors were careful not to attract too much attention.
“There are an awful lot of people on the beach looking down at the moment,” he said, laughing.
“We’ve tried to be clever about it but it must be pretty obvious — two guys walking along the beach, one swinging a detector and the other one with a shovel.”
YOU FOUND 3 GOLD NUGGETS WHERE?
While skeptics have raised doubts over the validity of Mr Cooke’s find, gold isn’t as rare in these parts as you might think.
The beach sand around Currumbin used to yield payable gold and profitable mines operated at Ormeau and Kingston in the 1960s.
The Walter Taylor Bridge, in Indooroopilly, was built on gold — tailings were found when its footings were drilled down into rock in the Brisbane River.
Gold nuggets have also been found in Brisbane near streams at Brookfield, Mt Coot-tha and out towards Warwick.
As prospectors say, “gold is where you find it” — including dissolved in seawater.
Known as “primary gold deposits”, gold and quartz forms are one of the most common occurrences of gold. Veins and reefs of gold-bearing quartz are usually found around granite, in volcanic rocks or in regions of black slate.
As erosion and chemical weathering break down the rock, the veins of quartz — and eventually, gold — are revealed.
Which is exactly how Mr Cooke reckons his prized nuggets were exposed.
”I reckon it’s been there god knows how long and the erosion and sand movement over the last year has seen it come to life,” he said.
“Who knows — with that cyclone up north, we might not be done yet.”
Source:
news.com.au
