Gold panning in Kerala: alluvial gold in Maruda, Kalakkan puzha

Extensive panning for gold in the Kalakkan puzha of Maruda, in Kerala, which drains the Maruthamalai Hills. Deccan Gold has got prospecting licenses in the area. Their website has this to say,

"Two PL applications, Puttumala and Maruda, covering a total area of 90 sq km have been recommended by the DMG to the State Govt. The State Govt. has asked us to reduce the area of the Puttumala PL from 81 sq km to 25 sq km. We have provided justification to the Govt. for recommending the entire area of 81 sq km. The Maruda PL has a greater merit as this prospect has been explored by the State Department and MECL. The State Dept. had carried out 5,200 m of drilling in 50 holes during 1981-85 and assessed a gold resource of 0.55 million tonnes grading 4.14 g/t equivalent to 2.296 tonnes of gold upto a shallow depth of 75 m. Subsequently, MECL did additional drilling and estimated a total resource of 1.174 million tonnes of an average grade of 2.61 g/t equivalent to 3 tonnes of gold. Out of this resource, MECL recognized 0.32 million tonnes at 2.3 g/t grade as available for open pit mining (0.73 tonnes of gold metal). The resource is distributed in 4 different but closely spaced lodes. The mineralized zone is known to continue upto a depth of 200 m. "