GOLD PANNING: A MUSEUM FIELD TRIP, EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE, AND RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY

“Gold! Gold! Gold!!!” announced the first gold panning fieldtrip run by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in the summer of 1986. Run nearly every year since, it was originally led by two museum educators (Robert Bartolotta and JoAnn Coburn), and is now led by Bartolotta and by the Museum’s Curator of Mineralogy. Originally, the trip visited local parks just to look and not collect, but now it is run in collaboration with the Buckeye Chapter of the Gold Panning Association of America (GPAA), and travels to the Swank Claim in Richland County, a private claim registered with the state. Rivers in northern Ohio are influenced by glacially carved valleys and till deposits. Their sediment is dominated by various types and ages of glacial material from clay beds to a wide variety of erratics brought from Canada. Mining at the Swank deposit is limited to just the stream bed, which erodes an outwash valley deposit of possible pre-Wisconsinan till. During the drive from Cleveland to the claim, glacial geology, the glacial history of Ohio, and the physical geography of the glacial-outwash valley that cradles the prospect are discussed. Past human exploitation of the deposit and how it is now maintained and regulated by the state EPA and GPAA is also covered. At the claim, members of the GPAA demonstrate the technique of panning for gold (acquire gravel from the river bottom and classify it by size and density to obtain concentrated heavy sand) first with a simple plastic gold pan, and then with a small dredge. A field microscope setup on the river bank allows participants to view their finds and learn the mineralogy of sand using identified prepared slides. They are surprised to learn that sand is a size classification and that its composition varies to include minerals like diamond, garnet, and rutile. Each year unique glacial cobbles and a few kilograms of concentrate, discarded after panning, are collected for research and museum specimens. The heavy black sands hold clues to the origin of these glacial sediments. From composition, sphericity, and angularity one can discern an original glacial-sand and two recent sand populations derived from the decomposition of the glacial cobbles and from local sandstones. Despite advertising “do not expect to find nuggets”, this trip remains very popular, especially in today’s economy with gold at $1,670 tr. oz.