Alabama Landscapes

Piedmont

Gold

From 1840 to 1934, about 33,000 ounces of gold were extracted from some thirteen districts in the Piedmont (Figure PG1).   All were in the Northern Piedmont and the Brevard Fault Zone and most were in the Ashland-Wedowee Belt. 

Figure PG1.  Gold mining districts in Alabama.  Locations from Lesher and others 1999 (Alabama Geological Survey)

 Most of the gold occurred with quartz  and  sulfide minerals (usually pyrite) in veins that often showed supergene (secondary) enrichment due to groundwater flow.  The most common host rocks were metasedimentary rocks of the Wedowee Group.  The veins probably formed from fluids that were liberated during the major metamorphic event in the Northern Piedmont, which occurred during the Devonian (~366 Ma). Only 11 prospects were placer deposits. 

About one-third of all gold mined in Alabama came from a series of quartz-gold veins found at Hog Mountain, 13 miles north of Alexander City.  Today, no commercial gold mining operations exist in the state, and extensive prospecting is presently not  taking place.

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