High grade gold has been found in previously untapped areas of the Welsh mountainside.
Exploration company Alba, which owns the licence rights to 41sq miles of land in Gwynedd - known as the Dolgellau Gold Belt - announced the discovery earlier this week.
The firm added that the anomalies had been uncovered in soil which lies well away from its existing excavation area and the historic Clogau mine in neighbouring Bontddu.
What is more, it was revealed that their findings contain an even better grade of gold than that previously retrieved from either site.
Using new technology, 1,200 soil samples were taken, with nearly three quarters of the results exceeding Alba's expectations.
"Our regional exploration of the Dolgellau Gold Belt continues to bear fruit," says executive chairman George Frangeskides.
"We have now confirmed mineralisation across around six miles of the gold belt (which stretches from Barmouth, past Dolgellau and up towards Snowdonia ) and we have, in total, identified seven new mineralised zones which are not associated with historic mine workings.
"The fact that the average grades for those zones exceeds the equivalent grades obtained over the Clogau-St David's mine itself is genuinely exciting."
The company is currently continuing its plans to reopen the Clogau Mine where work stopped in 1998.
It consists of a complex series of openworks, tramways, inclines, and open levels.
Originally opened for extracting copper and lead, the mine developed into production in the 1862 'gold rush' working the St David’s lode of Clogau mountain.
And it's not without sizeable prestige - the British Royal Family have used Welsh gold to create their wedding rings since 1923 .
The Queen Mother’s wedding ring, the Queen’s in 1947, Princess Margaret’s in 1960, the Princess Royal’s in 1973 and that of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1981 were all made from the same nugget.
The Duchess of Cambridge's wedding ring - a plain, slim gold band - was made by royal warrant holders Wartski and fashioned from a nugget of Welsh gold given to the Duke of Cambridge by his grandmother as a gift to mark his 2011 wedding.
In November 1981, the British Royal Legion presented the Queen with a 36g piece of 21-carat Welsh gold for future royal wedding rings.
Part of this gold also went into making Sarah, Duchess of York’s ring in 1986.
