Placer Gold
Placer gold is residual gold flakes or nuggets that can be collected by panning or dredging. A placer deposit is the general term for a mineral deposit formed by the concentration of moving particles by gravity.
Lode Gold
Lode gold is embedded in hard rock ore and must be mined with shovels, pick axes, jackhammers, and the like from open pit mines or mine shafts.
Veins and Lodes
Veins and lodes are the names given to minor and big cracks, respectively. Gold can be found in the joints, faults, fissures, and cracks of igneous and metamorphic rocks. Veins are the lesser occurrences, whereas lodes are the larger ones.
Alluvial
Alluvial is the name for deposits formed by water action in a stream or river and are the most common type of placer gold. These deposits contain pieces of gold that have been washed away from the lode by the force of water, and have been deposited in sediment in or near watercourses or former watercourses.
Eluvial Deposit
An Eluvial Deposit is weathered material still at or near its point of formation. This disintegration of rock occurs at the site where it originates and is essentially primary gold broken down by weathering and erosion and and not by streams and rivers.