Gold! It's $1,430 an ounce and waiting to be found in N.C.

March 06--ASHEBORO -- A second gold rush is under way in North Carolina.

Record prices for the flashy metal and a rich find just over the border in South Carolina are driving a quiet boom in exploration and land acquisition for a mineral that played a huge role in the state's early history.

Mining and exploration companies, many of them from Canada, are leasing mineral rights to thousands of acres in the Piedmont south and west of the Triangle -- much of it near historic gold mines abandoned decades ago -- and boring dozens of test holes to pinpoint the best places to mine.

Much of the work putting together land rights is secretive for fear of attracting competition, mineral company officials said.

"I personally know of eight different companies that are very active in South Carolina, and all of them are likely to be looking in North Carolina," said Tim Daniels, president of Erin Ventures, a Canadian mining and exploration company working in both states. "I'd expect to see pretty substantial activity there become more public as they announce land packages and more drilling results in the next year or so."

Gold prices have soared, hitting a record this week of $1,441 an ounce. That means ore that once would yield little or no profit suddenly is a bonanza. Advances in exploration and mining techniques also are making deposits that were previously uneconomical more likely to be winners.

Erin Ventures, which has mining projects in Serbia, Panama and the Yukon, has bought mining rights to about 2,000 acres in South Carolina and 1,000 acres in Moore County, about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh. It was happy with earlier tests on ore samples here but had trouble convincing investors to fund more work, Daniels said, until the scope of the Haile find in South Carolina made the Carolinas a major topic in the mining world.

Now Erin plans a "fairly aggressive" exploration program in North Carolina over the next year or so, perhaps as a joint venture with another company.

Exploration in the Carolinas is easier than many places because infrastructure such as roads and electricity is handy. It's difficult in one way, though: Nearly all the property involved is privately owned, and it takes time and money to assemble the rights to the large tracts required, Daniels said. Companies often go about this quietly over a period of years until they have pulled together the tracts they want and start to seek investors.

Some are at that stage. Another Canadian company, Revolution Resources, has gone public about its exploration at sites near old mines north of Asheboro.

A team of about a dozen Revolution geologists, technicians and laborers arrived mid-October, some of them directly from work in Alaska. They began exploring the sites where they have leased mineral rights; sites that start about 10 miles west of Asheboro and stretch across thousands of acres in Randolph and Davidson counties.

They rented an unheated metal warehouse tucked among a dozen or so others in an industrial neighborhood on the north side of Asheboro. For months, they have trucked in thousands of feet of rod-like samples of stone from their drilling.