Minerals Topics

Selected Virginia Minerals (Part 12)

Gold

• Gold is most abundant in the historic northern Piedmont gold mining district.

• Gold is also found in the Virgilina District in the southern Piedmont and in the Blue Ridge of Floyd, Grayson, and Montgomery Counties.

• Virginia gold mines produced approximately 100,000 ounces.  None is mined today.

• A fist-sized nugget from Orange County, as well as several other Virginia samples, is displayed at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian in Washington D. C.

Gold
Gold nuggets (left photograph by Parvinder Sethi) and panning for gold (right photograph by Dave Hubbard)

MapThese gold nuggets (left) from Spotsylvania County are on display at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.  Right photograph shows a man panning for gold in a Virginia stream.