List of gold nuggets by size

The Welcome Stranger is the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found, which had a calculated refined weight of 97.14 kilograms (3,123 ozt).

Nuggets are recovered by placer mining, but they are also found in residual deposits where the gold-bearing veins or lodes are weathered.

[1] They often show signs of abrasive polishing by stream action, and sometimes still contain inclusions of quartz or other lode matrix material.

A 2007 study of Australian nuggets ruled out speculative theories of supergene formation via in-situ precipitation, cold welding of smaller particles, or bacterial concentration, since the crystal structures of all nuggets examined proved they were originally formed at high temperature deep underground (i.e., they were of hypogene origin).

Purity can be roughly assessed by nugget color: the richer and deeper the orange-yellow, the higher the gold content.

The discovery has cast doubt on the common rumour that Victoria's goldfields were exhausted in the 19th century.