Cowanesque Valley Outdoors Festival

Speaker Carol McLean did a presentation from her booth, Education Rocks at 2:45 p.m.

She provided facts and tips on how to pan for gold and metal detecting, in general and had on hand some of the equipment used for this unusual and interesting outdoor hobby.

For 2012, an invitation is extended to members of the Gold Prospectors of America to come and share your experiences in this interesting (and profitable) hobby.

Gold can be found in many forms— nuggets, wire, tiny lumps called "pickers" or flat flecks and feather-shaped crystals. But no matter the size or type, having the right equipment and practicing good techniques make panning for gold easier, more profitable, and lots more fun!

And with gold currently going for well over $1600 an ounce, this is one hobby that literally can pay for itself in no time at all.

Throughout the history of man’s involvement with gold, the precious metal has been cherished not only for its beauty but for gold’s ability to withstand the rigors of time. No substance that appears commonly in nature will destroy gold. Unaffected by air, moisture, heat or cold, this noble metal will not tarnish, rust or corrode. Shimmering gold dust, golden nuggets of placer gold and brilliant vein occurrences have survived 4.5 Billion years of cataclysmic geologic and climate changes; volcanic Eruption, earthquakes, upheavals and deposition. Treasures of gold jewelry, bullion and coins, buried for thousands of years beneath land and sea have been recovered intact; as brilliant as the day they were abandoned.

A relatively rare native metallic element, gold ranks fifty-eighth in abundance amongst the ninety two natural elements that compose the earth’s crust. Although considered a rare element, of all metals Gold is, with the exception of iron, the most broadly distributed over the planet. Gold has been located on 90% of the earth’s surface and is mined in deserts, high mountain ranges, in the deeply weathered soil of the tropics and in the permanently frozen ground of the Arctic.  And Gold is commercially mined on every continent except Antarctica.