For the purpose of this article we consider the states of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa because they all have a very similar glacial history. They are south of the Great Lakes, and their gold
was brought down by the glaciers from Canada. The glaciers that affected the states crossed over the Abitibi Region of Ontario and Québec. The Abitibi Region is one of the largest gold mining areas of the world.
Because the Midwestern states are covered with sedimentary rocks it stands to reason that they will not have any gold bearing hard rock mines. Any gold that is found here will be placer gold that is found in the rivers and creeks of the area. Gold is also found in the beach sands of the Great Lakes. It is defused through the glacial deposits, and is available for panning in the stream beds and beaches where it has been washed down from the glacial deposits by erosion where it is concentrated by running water.
Gold can be found in just about any of the states that were covered by glacial debris, and there have been several different episodes glaciation that have occurred here. The last glacier was called the Wisconsian. A more prolific glacier for depositing gold in the states was the Illinoian in that preceded the last glacier.
Although many different types of equipment have been touted for recovering placer gold nothing really has been invented that is more effective than the simple gold pan. Originally this was a shallow iron pan with gently sloping sides that the miner used to find gold. Today, the gold pan is made out of plastic with special ridges to retain the gold inside the pan. The only other piece of equipment that might be useful is a gold metal detector that is produced by several different manufacturers.
The metal detector is especially useful for finding deposits of black sand in the stream gravel or locating nuggets of gold. The manufacturers claim that using a metal detector has found more gold pockets than the old-time prospectors ever found.
Gold rings are very different than gold nuggets since they're usually alloyed with other forms of metal. They're normally close to the surface area and usually cannot be tuned out or chosen for with a notch filter despite having the best metal detector. By far the best place to find gold rings is at the beach. Specifically in the shallows on the dropping tide at a popular resort place. The reason is because several visitors do not recognize that the cooler watercan make their fingers shrink and unsuspectingly drop their extremely valuable ring jewelry.
