Hi Friends,
While in Arizona, I have gone for some hikes in gold producing areas and done some rock sampling. I have found a number of "hot rocks" that contain iron, copper, silver, in small amounts that set off my metal detector pinpointer, such as these:
I finally got around to smashing them up to see if there was any gold in any of them as well just in case... nope, no gold.
I have some other samples from another trip so I will have to get around to grinding those up as well, but I am not super hopeful. The gold in the area I was hiking is found mostly hard rock veins but you could get lucky and find a chunk of a vein laying down the mountain from the veins - but the good gold veins are all staked with mining claims - I am not interested in getting shot trying to sneak some gold ore!
Better luck next smashing...
Brian