One of the better-defined belts of Georgia's Piedmont, the Gold Belt or Sulfide Belt is a northeast-trending band of sulfur-bearing metavolcanic and metasedimentary rock, probably a metamorphosed island arc or back-arc basin. Bounded on the northwest by the Allatoona Fault and on the southeast by the Chattahoochee Fault, the Gold Belt spans north Georgia, extending into Alabama and North Carolina.
Georgia gold -- nominally discovered in the 1820's, although there is some evidence for early small finds -- probably was a major influence behind displacement of Cherokees from their land in the 1830s. Gold was mined in Georgia in varying amounts for about 100 years, and continues in a very small way. As in California, miners first worked placer deposits; as those were exhausted, miners hydraulically stripped saprolite and stream gravels, then pursued hard-rock lodes. Production was sufficient that a branch of the US Mint operated in Dahlonega until 1861. Today [written in early 2008], the Consolidated Gold Mine is open for tours and panning, and a small-scale mine and stamp mill operates at the Crisson Mine.
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