The Mother Lode of Gold Prospecting, & gold panning How to ...
Gold flakes will still look like gold in the shade whereas pyrite and mica won't. If you scratch a larger piece of pyrite, it will produce a sulfur smell. Gold is a metal, pyrite and mica are not, so see what your metal detector has to say! However, keep in mind that the detector won't always detect flakes because they're so small.