gold rush

1. A large-scale migration of people to an area in which gold has been discovered. Can be capitalized, especially when referring to the 1848 California Gold Rush. The gold rush in California in the mid-19th century was responsible for the influx of hundreds of thousands of people in search of wealth. My family came to this part of the word to get in on a gold rush. When we looked at our ancestry, we learned that some relatives had been prospectors in the Gold Rush.

2. By extension, a situation in which many people or groups enter a market due to a sudden abundance of or surge in demand for something. The sudden ubiquity of smartphones led to a gold rush for app developers. The discovery of natural gas deposits has created a gold rush of sorts in the area. There's been a gold rush of college graduates looking for jobs in our company, but I need people with experience.