Small bright flecks? Mica most probably. From the vermiculite in the soil. On the other hand... gold and pyrite will also cause flecks. These are common too. Also some translucent minerals refract a gold colour, although they are mostly white.
So what have you got? Well, put 2 pounds of earth in a pan or grease free baking dish, tilt it slightly away from you (about 10 degrees) and let the water wash it back and forth pouring or really washing back and forth, very gently over the lip while tapping and shimmying the pan. Only let brown material and white quartz overflow the lip. Try to keep the red garnets and bright yellow iron pyrites in the pan. Shake the pan regularly to settle the stuff into the corner. Keep the pan always about 1/3 full of cold, oil-free soap-free water. When the earth gets down to the size of about 3 tablespoons, shimmy the pan in a 30 degree tilt toward you and shiver it up to the left, concentrating the stuff in a small clump in the corner bottom of the pan, letting a small amount of water wash the material to the right. Tap or shake the pan to let the material wash and shake to the right slowly. If you have gold, it will start to appear in a small spot on the left, very bright and coming up underneath the blackish sand on the bottom. It is very heavy and moves sluggishly. It will not change colour in the light and is very, very, fine sand. Some of the material that is yellow will be pyrite, but if it is beneath the black sand and very bright, it is gold. If you aren't sure, look at it in a 16 or 20 power hand lens. When you see gold, it is never mistaken for anything else. It's really, really, bright. It also acts really heavy and stays behind when you can wash everything else away. Even tiny gold particles tend to roll and stick when washed. Other particles lift and float.
Very very fine gold will float in little gold colour islands of grains on water with pine oil, or oil from your your hands. I don't expect you to be able to recognize that, or the gold that will stick to your skin. You may get confused by other stuff.
As far as San Diego goes, it is not one of the big ones, but California is the place where the eagles fly, so you never know. A fellow by the name of Penderton wrote a book that mentions minerals in that region.
I don't know what kind of rock you have in that region, but if you have gold you might find that the soil its in is very flaky like a greenish, or blueish brown shale with a sheen to it. That sheen is muscovite mica. You may also see lots of white quartz, some yellow iron pyrite and in gold occuring sands there will sometimes be a blueish clay earth, acompanied by fine grains of magnetic black sand that when you wash is quite noticeable. Where you will find the most gold, if you find it is where the soil is made up of 30 per cent boulders about the size of your fist, to cobbles about 1 to 2 inches in size. This coarse gravel is richer than plain sand. The hard clay and red crete sticking to the boulders should be crushed and panned carefully.
It is highly unlikely that you could profit by a gold discovery in California as you will be unable to work it in an economic manner legally. It is advised that if you find you have some gold, that you let the secret die with you.
I will bury many, many ounces when I go.
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