GOLD ore under a microscope | Vo-Gus Prospecting

This is why you must crush your gold ore to powder. And it's shows you that most gold does not "break down" into smaller pieces as it travels in a river. Gold is so soft that it deforms and flattens A LOT before it tares apart. Instead, it breaks free of its host rock like this. Small. Tiny. The gold has not nessiserily travelled terribly far if its small, it most likely has been formed in the rock that small. Good grade gold ore will very often have zero visible gold to the naked eye and possib