Prospector strikes gold with 9-pound nugget
Wednesday saw what could be the world’s largest-ever pearl; Thursday, a massive gold nugget weighing in at around 9 pounds. Found in central Victoria’s Golden Triangle in Australia by an explorer who wishes to stay anonymous, per ABC.net.au, the gleaming chunk of precious metal, estimated to be worth up to $190,000, was found 12 inches below the surface using what Gizmodo Australia calls a $7,600 Minelab metal detector known as the “next level of gold detection.” “I thought it was rubbish at first, maybe an old horseshoe,” says the prospector, who’s been scouting for buried treasure in his spare time for 10 years with a group of friends, per 9News. But as he dug deeper, the finder of the nugget now being called “Friday’s Joy” realized he hadn’t just stumbled across some junkyard-worthy detritus. The prospector, who had found a 9-ounce gold nugget the previous day, initially wasn’t sure what to do with this substantially larger find—discovered, incidentally, in ...