A gold nugget is a naturally occurring piece of native gold. Watercourses often concentrate the nuggets and they are mined by placer mining.
The largest gold nugget ever found was the Welcome Stranger, found in Victoria, Australia in 1867. It weighed over 2,300 ounces. The largest gold nugget in existence is the Hand of Faith, found by Kevin Hillier in Victoria in 1980 using a metal detector.