An amateur prospector in the Australian state of Victoria has found a 12 pound gold nugget, according to the Courier.
The unidentified man, using a handheld metal detector, found the nugget on Wednesday, lying 60cm underground near the town of Ballarat.
The metal detector used to find the 12-pound gold nugget was a Minelab GPX-5000 with an estimated value of more than $6,000. However, the massive gold nugget has an estimated value of $300,000, but it could sell for much more than that.
Cordell Kent, the owner of The Mining Exchange Gold Shop in Ballarat, said it's the most significant find he's ever seen in his 20 years in the business.
"It's extremely significant as a mineral specimen. We are 162 years into a gold rush and Ballarat is still producing nuggets - it's unheard of."
"A lot of people think Victoria's goldfields are dead and that there's none left, but he (the prospector) has worked in an area where a lot of people have worked in the past but he persisted and he's been rewarded. We are 162 years into the gold rush and it's never totally waned, it's just changed," he said.
A video of the Y-shaped nugget was posted on YouTube on Wednesday by user TroyAurum.
He wrote that the man who found it had said it "sounded like the bonnet of a car through the headphones.
The man who found the 12 pound gold nugget told the Australian paper that he had only made small finds before.
"A finding like this gives people hope. It's my dream to find something like that, and I've been prospecting for more than two decades," the Ballarat Courier quoted him as saying.
