A gold miner has shocked the online community after sharing the truth about finding 6,700 Australian dollars (4,300 USD) of gold lying underground during a search.
For Tyler Mahoney, prospecting for gold is how she makes a living, and it sometimes takes her across Australia and New Zealand. Most people would be surprised at the prospect of finding more than $6,000 worth of gold, but for Mahoney, this is her livelihood, regularly referring to herself as a “professional gold miner.”
Because this is an unusual career, she often shares the realities of the job on her TikTok account (@tylermahoney8) to educate others. On June 19, Mahoney posted a video of the moment she discovered “another nugget” on the ground in Boulder, Australia.
Tyler Mahoney, from Australia, shared what it was like when she discovered $6,700 worth of pure gold on the ground. The video went viral on TikTok, leaving many people surprised and confused by Mahoney’s work.
As the camera pans around, viewers might think that $6,700 worth of gold might be quite obvious but Mahoney revealed that it’s a very small amount, about the size of a rock, weighing just 56 grams (0 .12 pounds). Many TikTok users were surprised by Mahoney’s video and it garnered over 5.7 million views and over 366,000 likes.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explains that hard rock mining involves the discovery and exploitation of non-fuel mineral and metal deposits of solid ores. However, gold is not the only mineral mined as the EPA adds that copper, iron, lead, platinum, silver and zinc are also mined.
The mining process can be lengthy and is not simply a matter of accidentally picking up a piece of gold. The first step is exploration of the area, which includes surveying to learn about conditions and drilling to sample the ore body for testing.
Another way to gather information about the site area is to perform a seismic survey to measure shock waves, which will have different results depending on the geological formations below the surface.
