GREAT FALLS: Yes, there is some gold around the Great Falls area. There were several mines there in the early years. You need to be very careful around this area though, the National Parks people own a LOT of land along the Potomac and they dislike *to an extreme* anyone rock hunting, fossil hunting and gold panning. If you can get permission form some private land owners along the river that would be OK. The Gold belt runs from the Great Falls of the Potomac down through Virginia and into North Carolina and Georgia. Most of the gold mines and finds in VA were west of Fredericksburg VIRGINIA.
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ROANOKE: In 1945, Roy J. Holden related a story about the Rorer Mine (Rocks and Minerals, v.20, #1, p. 6, 1945) southeast of Roanoke. Commenting on the high phophorus content of the iron ores he relates: "... When this matter was presented to the mine superintendent, it was decided to abandon the portion of the mine from which this ore came. ... I located masses of a white mineral in radiating aggregates. The mystery was solved. The mineral was wavellite. As I remember it now after a lapse of many years, there were wavellite lumps up to six inches in diameter."
The Rorer mines are located partly in the Roanoke Mountain trails and Mill Mountain park off the Blue Ridge Parkway (this is just north of the intersection of hyw. 220 and the Blue Ridge Parkway). Mill Mountain spur cuts across the old pits and the campground occupies part of the old iron mines. Parts of the Rorer Mine are not within the Parkway boundaries and the locality where the wavellite was found may be in one of these pits. If someone were to research the old mines and do some leg work they just might be rewarded with some excellent specimens of wavellite and possibly many other unusual phosphate minerals. - Henry L. Barwood.
Dobins Prospect Rt. 629 in Amelia
Pegmatite (beryl location) - as of April, 2001 ($3.00 per person)
Ligon Mine (Rt. 615 off Rt. 616) in Amelia
As of April, 2001 - (owned by the Hooley family)..$10.00
person. (limit of 5 gal. bucket)
This is a pegmatite collecting locality
Virginia was one of the first gold-producing states in the nation. The earliest printed reference to gold in the State was in 1782, when Thomas Jefferson reported on a gold-bearing rock, weighing four pounds, that was found on the north side of the Rappahannock River about four miles below the falls. As of May 1, 1995, the Division of Mineral Resources has documented 301 gold and silver mines, prospects and occurrences in Virginia, with the majority of them in the gold-pyrite belt (see Map 1). About 100,000 troy ounces of gold were produced in Virginia from 1804 through 1947, when gold was last produced in the State.
