AuraGold — Victoria Gold Prospecting

📴 Offline — using saved maps

Map layers

☰ Map menu

🧭 Tools ▸

🎨 Legend ▸

🌏 Regions ▸

Detailed overlays (legal ground, spots, heatmap) load automatically wherever you pan into gold country. ★ = home region — the map boots there and its data is kept offline first.

ℹ️ About ▸

🪙 AuraGold — an offline-first PWA for Victorian (+ Stanthorpe) goldfield prospecting: gold occurrences, goldfields, tenements, legal-fossicking ground, a Nugget-Potential heatmap and curated spots, all working offline in the field.

github.com/banksiasprings/auragold
sibling of AuraOpal · full data-source list in ⚙ Settings › Data sources

⚠ The legal-fossicking overlay is advisory — always verify tenure, your Miner's Right and access before digging. Aboriginal cultural heritage applies everywhere and is not shown here.

🟢Detecting–

⚙ Settings

🛟 Data safety

Auto-backup when I leave the app (downloads a file whenever your pins change)

A browser history/cache clear erases the pins stored on this phone. A backup file is the only copy that survives — keep one in Downloads or the cloud.

Distance units

Kilometres / metres Miles / feet

Used in the navigate banner and nearest-spot readout.

🏠 Home calibration session

Teach the classifier with known targets at home — before the trip. Start a session, swing your detector over a sample, then tap what it was. Each tap saves the last 5 s of audio, GPS-tagged and labelled.

🎒 What to bring — a gold ring or chain, a gold-plated coin, a copper coin, steel nails, a bottle cap, a brass cartridge case, and a known hot rock or piece of red dirt. Aim for 10+ examples of each class.

🧠 Smart classifier

On-device classifier learns from your labels. A separate model is trained per detector + coil (their audio & ground coverage differ). Run Home Calibration with known gold + junk before the trip. All data stays on this device — nothing uploads.

Pipeline smoke-test: load 48 synthetic clips (12 per class) to verify feature extraction → train → infer → export end-to-end before your trip. Not real detector audio — clear them when done. (They train the Gold Monster model.)

🌙 Detection Window

Forecasts per-hour detector efficiency for the next 24 h from your location — solar/geomagnetic & grid EMI, atmosphere, ground coupling, moonlight and powerline proximity. A first-of-its-kind, fully heuristic estimate. Open the full chart from ☰ Menu → 🌙 Best times today or the badge at the top of the map.

Auto-show the checklist when I reach a trip spot

Advanced: detection-model weights

How much each factor counts toward the score. Defaults are conservative — nudge them to match your detector & ground, then re-open the chart. Weights renormalise to 100%.

Live inputs (NOAA space weather, weather, AEMO grid demand) are cached for offline use; solar & moon are computed on-device and always work with no signal.

📋 Camping resources

Apps & sites that carry the curated facility detail OSM doesn't — open one to cross-check a camp or scout more nearby. The Camping group in the ▤ Layers panel maps the bulk data; these fill the gaps.

WikiCamps Australia — app / web ↗ HipCamp Australia ↗ CamperMate ↗ Parks Victoria — Camping bookings ↗ Free Camps Australia (Facebook group) ↗ DataVic — Rest areas master dataset ↗

On a phone, the WikiCamps / HipCamp / CamperMate links open the installed app automatically (and fall back to the website if it isn't installed).

🎯 Nugget model quality

Per-detector eval scorecard

Open to load…

How the v35 Nugget Potential model scores 12 known goldfields (want high) against non-gold “negative controls” (want low), plus the VLF↔PI map correlation and the top input driving each detector. Refreshes when the heatmap is rebuilt.

🪪 QLD/NSW fossicking — licences & heritage

Stanthorpe region. Buy the two permits before your first outing — Boonoo SF (7 km from home) needs the NSW one.

🟢 QLD — Fossicking Licence (mandatory everywhere)
~$61.65/yr individual · online, emailed same-day · covers Durikai, Talgai, Thanes Creek. Buy →

🟢 NSW — no state licence, but State forests need an FCNSW permit
~$27.50/12 mo (covers a family) · required for Boonoo SF · fpos.fcnsw.com.au →. Take limit 50 g gold + 5 nuggets ≥10 g / person / 48 h; ≤1 m³ disturbance, reconstruct the soil profile.

🪃 Aboriginal cultural heritage — a duty of care applies on ALL ground
Hand-tool fossicking is lawful, but if you uncover anything cultural: stop, don't disturb, report. QLD: DATSIP 1300 378 401. NSW: Heritage NSW. Human remains → police. No cultural-heritage site data is stored in this app.

🟡 NSW "amber" districts (Severn, Inverell, Barraba, Guyra + gazetted spots) only waive exploration-licence consent — landholder / forest-manager consent still applies. Timbarra + Tooloom Falls (Pretty Gully) are cultural-heritage-sensitive.

📥 Offline trip areas

Download the patch you're about to visit for no-signal use — like Trailforks. It caches the satellite tiles + gold-data overlays for the current map view and auto-expires so storage stays lean. Pan/zoom to the area first, then download.

Keep for 30 days Keep for 60 days

Data sources

The base maps, 🎯 Nugget Potential heatmaps and nugget model are built from these open datasets:

SRTM — 30 m elevation (NASA)
VicMine — Victorian Government mineral occurrence points
GA magnetics — Geoscience Australia TMI-RTP magnetic grid (CC-BY 4.0)
GA radiometrics — Geoscience Australia K/Th channels (CC-BY 4.0)
Vic geology — Geological Survey of Victoria 1:250k surface geology
Fire — DELWP fire history + Sentinel-2 NBR burn severity
Esri — basemap tiles

The 🎯 Nugget Potential heatmap is a heuristic model over these layers — a guide to promising ground, not a guarantee of gold.

v48.0 · Raw geophysical overlays. The 🧭 Analytic Signal and 🌈 Radiometric (K/Th) overlays render the raw Geoscience Australia magnetic & radiometric grids — © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia), CC-BY 4.0. Coarse (block-mean) resolution — a search-space reducer, not a gold locator: a hot pixel points to a hectare, not a hole. ⚖ Gravity (GA Bouguer, CC-BY 4.0) is a pending data build.

v48.1 · 💎 Killer Targets. A multi-map interpretation layer: ~50 discrete pins where GA Analytic-Signal structure × K potassic-alteration × the NPI potential × belt proximity × legal fossicking ground × access all coincide (weighted composite over the committed z8 grid, on legality-verified ground only). Model picks, unaudited — a promising hectare, not a proven hole. Confirm legality & boundaries before digging. Method: tools/killer/rank_killer_targets.py.

v48.2 · 🔬 Pure Data Targets. The no-filter sibling: the strongest raw gold-data ground nationwide (AS × K × Th × NPI × occurrence density × endowment), with every region represented (a per-sub-region floor so nowhere is buried at zero) — no legal, access or belt filtering; legal status is shown per pin as information only. Many pins may be illegal to prospect or on restricted land — verify legality yourself before acting. Method: tools/pure_data/rank_pure_data.py.

v48.3 · 🏡 Granite Belt Top 10. The home-range trip list: the strongest legal spots within a few hours of Stanthorpe (green = licence/permit-and-go · amber = gazetted district, consent required · ⭐ #11 unverified — confirm tenure). Method: tools/pure_data/rank_granite_belt.py.

v48.4 · ⚖ NSW state forests & parks. The New England legal overlay now draws 43 state forests green (FCNSW forest-permit ground — Girard/Drake, Malara/Timbarra, Boorook, Ewingar, Torrington SF…), NPWS parks & reserves red (no fossicking) and SCAs purple (only where the plan of management allows). Sources: FCNSW Dedicated State Forests + NPWS Estate (SEED), CC-BY 4.0. Forest permit ≠ blanket right: avoid active harvesting areas, and live mining tenure still needs the holder's consent (check MinView — Mount Carrington at Drake is active).

App version

You're running v39.

Re-downloads the latest app from scratch and reloads. Use this if a new version isn't showing up. Your saved offline maps are kept.

🌙 Best times today

–/100

now+12 h+24 h

Tap any bar for the hour-by-hour “why”. Shaded bars are after dark. Scores are heuristic estimates, not guarantees.

How it works. Each hour is scored 0–100 from five factors — grid/solar EMI (35%), atmosphere (20%, thermal transitions at dawn/dusk), ground coupling (20%, recent rain & temperature), visibility (10%, daylight or moonlight), and powerline proximity (15%). A 20–25% lift over the daily average is a real, workable edge — and yes, that can mean a night shift. Tune the weights in ⚙ Settings → Detection Window. Calibrate further by labelling confirmed-gold events in 🎵 Audio events.

🪙 Fossicking checklist

Miner's Right

You must hold and carry a current Victorian Miner's Right whenever you prospect. It costs $28.60 and lasts 10 years. Kids under 18 are covered if they're with an adult who holds one.

Buy / renew a Miner's Right → Miner's Right bought & on me (digital or printed)

Before you leave — offline maps

AuraGold caches its own maps below. But also grab Google Maps offline — it's your road-navigation safety net when you lose signal. Google only lets you download from inside the Maps app, so:

📥 Open Google Maps on the trip region →

Then in Maps: Profile → Offline maps → Select your own map, drag the box to cover the goldfields (Wedderburn south to Ballarat), and Download.

Downloaded Google Maps offline for the trip region

Where you can fossick (with a Miner's Right)

✓ Allowed

State forests — the main one
Unreserved Crown land
Regional Parks (e.g. Hepburn, Creswick)
Designated prospecting areas inside some national / state / historic / heritage parks — only in the marked area (grab the Parks Vic PDF)
Private land with the owner's written permission
Inside an Exploration Licence (EL) on otherwise-open Crown / State Forest — an EL does not lock you out

✗ Off-limits

National / State Parks outside the designated areas
Nature Conservation Reserves & Reference Areas (except designated blocks)
Mining / Prospecting / Retention Licences (MIN, ML, PL, RL) — need the holder's consent
Rivers & creeks on the exempt list
Water-supply catchments, Aboriginal heritage & historic mining-relic sites

So it's not only State Forest — but State Forest + Crown land is the simplest "yes". When in doubt, it's a no until GeoVic says otherwise.

Before you walk in (each spot)

Checked GeoVic this morning Confirmed it's permitted land (State Forest / Crown / designated area) Not inside a MIN / ML / PL Any creek here is not on the exempt list Landholder permission (if private land)

While you're out

Backfill every hole, replace the leaf litter Take all rubbish home Leave relics & Aboriginal objects untouched Drive only on open tracks; gates closed Hand tools only — no machinery or explosives

Safety (no-signal country)

Told someone my route + return time PLB packed (Mt Cole / Wombat interior = no coverage) Snake gaiters + first-aid / snake bandage

Quick links

🪪 Buy a Miner's Right 🗺️ GeoVic — tenements & Crown land ⚖️ Fossicking rules + exempt rivers 🏞️ Parks Vic — prospecting areas / PDFs 🤝 PMAV — insurance & permission help

⚠️ This is a field aid, not legal advice. Tenements, fire-recovery closures and park boundaries change — always confirm on GeoVic the morning you go in.

🪙 AuraGold — Victoria Gold Prospecting