What Do Gold Flakes Look Like?

The first time you see gold in your pan, you may not be sure it is gold. Real flakes are smaller, thinner and often duller than people expect, and there are shiny minerals in the creek that look more like gold than gold does. This guide covers the color, shape, size and behavior of gold flakes, so you know what you are looking at.

What color are gold flakes?

A warm, buttery yellow, but not always the same shade. The U.S. Geological Survey describes pure gold as sun yellow with a metallic shine. Natural gold always has other metals mixed in, though, and those shift the color. More silver makes it paler, toward a light, silvery yellow. The USGS notes that natural gold can range from silver white to greenish to orange red, depending on what else is in it.

That is also the answer to what pure gold looks like: you will rarely see it in a creek. In one USGS study of Alaska placer gold, covering 1,534 fineness records, the purity ran from more than 970 parts gold per thousand down to slightly under 565. Only 23% of the records were above 900. The rest of each piece was mostly silver, with some copper and other metals.

Why do gold flakes look duller than jewelry?

Because jewelry is refined and polished, and creek gold is not. Gold is soft, so as it tumbles downstream with sand and gravel, its surface gets scuffed and pitted. Oregon's state geology department makes this point, and notes that some placer gold also carries a thin coating of iron oxide that hides its color.

This is the main reason beginners get fooled. Pyrite and mica have flat, shiny faces that flash in the sun, while a real gold flake can look a little matte. Gold does not tarnish, though, so under the coating or the scuffs it is still gold colored.

What shape are gold flakes?

Flat and irregular, with no neat edges or repeating shape. The Bureau of Land Management puts it simply: gold forms as nuggets and small flakes with little or no symmetry, while pyrite forms crystals and cubes. Crystals of gold do exist, but the Utah Geological Survey calls small gold crystals very rare.

Within that, placer gold comes in many forms. Oregon's state geologists list rolled, curved and flattened grains, angular or rounded pieces, plates, scales and the tiny specks called flour gold. Very coarse gold can even look spongy, wiry or crystal edged. Most of what a panner finds, though, is thin, flat flakes.

The shape also hints at how far the gold has traveled. The Forest Service and BLM explain that rough, nuggety gold is close to where it came from, while flat, smooth gold has been carried a long way. The farther it goes, the finer and flatter it gets.

Official writers use the same kind of words when they describe real creeks. A Forest Service guide to the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska describes the gold of one creek as running from flaky to nuggety, with some pans giving pieces up to a quarter inch long. Another creek in the same guide gives flat, ragged flakes, and another mostly well worn flour gold with the odd small flake.

How big are gold flakes?

Most are small, from a speck you need a lens for up to a few millimeters across. The clearest official size scale is in the Forest Service and BLM panning guide. Coarse gold is over 2 mm, big enough to pick up with your fingers. Medium gold is 0.9 to 2 mm, about 2,200 pieces to the troy ounce. Fine gold is 0.4 to 0.9 mm, about 12,000 to the ounce. Flour gold is anything under 0.4 mm, about 40,000 to the ounce.

Panners call each bit of gold they find in the pan a "color". You will also hear the word "picker" for a piece big enough to pick out with your fingers. There is no official definition of a picker, but the Forest Service uses that same idea to define a nugget. For more on the smallest gold, see our guide to flour gold.

How do gold flakes act in the pan?

They sink and stay put. Gold is so heavy that it hangs back in the bottom of the pan while everything lighter washes forward. Oregon's state geologists point out that much of the "gold" people think they lose while panning is really mica, which washes away easily because it is light.

So if a flake floats off or slides out with the sand, it probably is not gold. Flakes you can see sink and stay put. The one exception is the very finest dust, which can float on the surface, especially if there is any oil or grease in the water.

Does real gold feel heavy?

Yes, for its size, though a single flake is far too small to feel. Gold is 16 to about 19 times as heavy as the same amount of water. Pyrite is only about 5 times as heavy as water, and mica less than 3. That gap in weight is what you see in the pan, even when you cannot feel it in your hand.

How can you tell a gold flake from fool's gold?

Gold is soft and bends, while fool's gold breaks. Poke a flake with a pin and real gold dents, while pyrite and mica crumble or flake apart. Gold also stays the same warm yellow as you turn it in the sun, while pyrite changes shade. Our page on fool's gold vs real gold lays out all the field tests.

How do you see gold flakes more easily?

Take away what hides them. A 10x magnifying lens is on the Forest Service and BLM gear list for checking small grains, and it makes a big difference with fine gold.

Black sand is the other thing in the way. It settles with the gold and covers small flakes. Passing a magnet over the wet concentrate lifts out the magnetite, the magnetic part of black sand, and in a normal pan our magnet pulls up all the black sand we see. A magnet does not pull gold, but a tiny flake can ride along stuck to a grain of magnetite, so drop what it lifts into a pan of water and check it. Keep the magnet away from phones, cards and steel tools, and read our magnet safety warnings. Then give it a quick final pan, and the flakes are much easier to spot. Our guide to separating gold from black sand walks through it, and a black sand magnet is the tool for the job.