Metal detecting for gold nuggets is a pastime that is fairly new. The old time prospectors who searched for gold decades ago, never had any piece of equipment remotely like a metal detector. Modern technology however, has brought us this new device - the metal detector and modern prospectors are finding some significant gold that was previously overlooked. A detector is an electronic device, which can sense metallic objects buried in the ground. Since gold is certainly a metallic material, metal detectors can be used to find gold nuggets. In the last 20 years, detecting for nuggets has become a very fast-growing aspect of the prospecting world. Several companies have developed metal detectors specifically optimized to find nuggets. Mind you, there is no such thing as a metal detector that finds only gold and no other types of metal, but there are systems capable of distinguishing iron trash from gold in most cases, and technology continues to improve. …show more content…
While a lot of factors are contributing to this, probably the biggest force attracting these new folks is the continuing increase in the price of gold. Many experts think gold is headed higher for the long term and the number of new prospectors out in the field will surely reflect this increase in the coming years.
There are many varieties of metal detectors with technologies and features designed for certain characteristics and certain types of uses. All of the technologies currently in use work by putting electrical energy into a coil which creates a magnetic field and then sensing the response of a metallic object to that magnetic field. Some are designed for hunting deep caches and treasure, others for general purpose coin and jewelry hunting, and still others for underwater or beach hunting. The type we are most interested in is those detectors designed specifically to prospect for gold