California Gold Rush: a small revival right in time for its anniversary

On 24 January 1848, James W. Marshall stumbled upon a gold nugget of considerable size while working at the construction site of a sawmill near Sutter’s Mill in northern California. His discovery triggered one of the biggest gold rushes of all time, with the prospect of getting rich quickly attracting hundreds of thousands of people from all corners of the world to California.

Resurge since spring 2023

Today, 175 years after the great California gold rush, gold diggers are once again attracted to the area. Since early 2023, the discovery of gold, directly on the ground or in shallow riverbeds, has been reported repeatedly – and surprisingly. The reason is climate change: recent years’ numerous forest fires have loosened the soil at the banks of many mountain streams, resulting in large amounts of debris driven downstream through the streams, which were swollen due to the violent winter storms with record rainfall in January 2023. The gold thus deposited in the valleys is easily recovered from the debris in the riverbeds and partly also on the banks.

No environmental destruction – unlike 175 years ago

The new gold deposits are thus far so small that they are only of interest to recreational gold prospectors whose search methods for the tiny deposits is environmentally friendly. They use traditional tools like gold pans and sieves as well as modern metal detectors. It is, furthermore, prohibited to interfere with nature in most of the areas in question – e.g. with hoses to uncover gold nuggets via water pressure. The use of mercury and other poisonous substances is, of course, also strictly forbidden. Large mining companies today use much more environmentally friendly gold mining methods and must follow strict guidelines, but they still produce large amounts of CO₂. Recycling remains the form of gold mining with the smallest ecological footprint. There is, thus, still plenty of room for improvement, especially when it comes to so-called urban mining – the recovery of gold from old smartphones, PCs and motor vehicles.