gold nugget
In this representational picture, a large Australian gold nugget, with an estimated sale price of $100,000-150,000, is on display at an auction preview, May 6, 2010, in Los Angeles. Getty Images/Robyn Beck

A massive 200-pound gold nugget, believed to be the biggest, was unearthed in a mine in Western Australian. According to reports, the largest specimen containing more than 2,400 ounces of gold was said to be worth around $2.6 million.

Another piece, the second biggest, was also found and it weighed 132 pounds with a value of about $1.95 million. Airleg driller Henry Dole was credited with uncovering the find at the 45-year-old Beta Hunt gold mine near Kambalda last week.

One mining engineer described the finds as "exceedingly rare," BBC reported.

"People do still record finding nuggets in the goldfields, but typically they are less than several ounces," Prof Sam Spearing, director of the Western Australia School of Mines at Curtin University, said.

Dole — who has more than 16 years of experience — said he never witnessed anything like this in his entire career.

"As I was drilling it, you could see the gold shavings coming out of all the holes and I thought 'there’s something here,'" he told the Daily Mail. "And then after we fired it and I came in the next day and washed it all down, it was just everywhere."

RNC Minerals' chief executive, Mark Selby, said the finding was a "once-in-a-lifetime" moment. He added the largest rocks would go to auction as collector items.

"It’s generally an exciting moment and given it’s been a tough slug for us at the mine, to make this kind of discovery just reinforces that we always knew this mine had potential," Selby said. “We’re going into a sales process to put it into hands to raise the capital to do this exploration, to find these areas we know are there, and hopefully retain some equity interest... But this discovery shows Beta Hunt has the potential to be a very large gold mine going forward.”

The latest discovery knocked down the title of world's largest gold nugget given to "Welcome Stranger" — found in February 1869 in central Victoria. Cornish miner John Deason, who was working in Bulldog Gully, near Moliagul found the gold nugget weighing 146 pounds.

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