'Absolutely gobsmacking' gold nugget worth $160,000 unearthed by metal detectorist in Australia

A man holds two rocks containing gold. — An amateur gold digger unearthed a rock containing $160,000 worth of gold. (Image credit: Lucky Strike Gold via Facebook)

An amateur gold digger made the discovery of a lifetime when he unearthed a giant gold nugget buried in a field in Victoria, Australia.

The man, who asked to remain anonymous, was using a budget metal detector when he hit pay dirt while exploring an area of the state known as the "Golden Triangle," which, during the 1800s, was the epicenter of Australia's gold rush.

"Our jaws hit the floor when we first saw it," Darren Camp, the owner of Lucky Strike Gold, wrote on the business's Facebook page on March 27. He described the piece as an "absolutely gobsmacking nugget."

"He brought the gold nugget specimen into me to ask if I thought there was $10,000 (AUD) [about $6,700] worth of gold in it," Camp told Live Science in an email. "I said, 'Try $100,000' as it was so heavy; I knew immediately that it would be worth around that. And then the guy said, 'That's only half of it. I have the other half at home.' I said, 'what do you mean,' and he replied that he had broken the rock open expecting there to be a solid gold nugget inside."

While it's not uncommon to come across gold in this part of Australia, Camp said that in his 40 years of prospecting, "this is the largest … that I've ever seen."