How It Works
Three questions every prospector asks, answered in about two minutes.
Black sand is a mix of minerals far denser and heavier than the ordinary sand around them. The one you will usually see most is magnetite.
Mixed in with it are other heavy minerals, like ilmenite and garnet. The difference that matters: magnetite is magnetic, and most of the others barely react to a magnet.
Magnetite is often the biggest part of your black sand, and magnetite answers to a magnet.
Ordinary sand is less than three times as heavy as water, so a moving stream carries it along easily. Wherever the water goes, the sand goes.
Black sand is roughly four to five times as heavy as water. The current struggles to move it, so it drops into crevices, behind rocks and logs, and on the inside of bends, just like gold.
The places you learn to dig for gold are the same places black sand collects.
Ask anyone who pans and black sand comes up fast. It is heavy, it hides the color, and it sits at the bottom of the pan right where the gold is.
Because so much of it is magnetite, a strong magnet lifts the bulk of it out in a single pass. A quick final pan, and there's your gold.
That is exactly what our magnets are built to do.