# Info on processing gold bearing manganese



## boarteats (May 12, 2018)

I have gold in (chuncks of) manganese. Not obvious, but heating with torch results in gold beads. Don't know if crushing, smelting (borax, soda ash, silica as flux) is the best way to extract gold or if there are other preferred approaches. Would be appreciated if someone could point me to good reference material or provide experience-based recommendations for processing this stuff.

Some of the gold bearing manganese is pretty clean found in layers in rocks. Easy to crush. Much is mixed with (iron???) sulfides. Nasty stuff when roasted. If it didn't have gold, I wouldn't touch the stuff.


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## kurtak (May 13, 2018)

boarteats said:


> I have gold in (chuncks of) manganese. Not obvious, but heating with torch results in gold beads. Don't know if crushing, smelting (borax, soda ash, silica as flux) is the best way to extract gold or if there are other preferred approaches. Would be appreciated if someone could point me to good reference material or provide experience-based recommendations for processing this stuff.
> 
> Some of the gold bearing manganese is pretty clean found in layers in rocks. Easy to crush. Much is mixed with (iron???) sulfides. Nasty stuff when roasted. If it didn't have gold, I wouldn't touch the stuff.



Per the underlined; - how do you know its gold - have you had an assay done - or some other test to "prove" its gold

Just because you get yellow colored beads when heating with a torch does not mean its gold

A couple examples - Brass is yellow - but it certainly is not gold - or what about the literal "tons" of cheap costume jewelry out there that is yellow in color but is also NOT gold at all



> Some of the gold bearing manganese is pretty clean found in layers in rocks.



I am not saying there is no gold in this ore (rocks) - just saying that heating it with a torch that results in yellow colored beads is not the proof that its gold

You need to do some "other" testing - of which the first would be a fire assay 

Kurt


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## boarteats (May 13, 2018)

I've been getting gold out of his area for a couple months now. Done stannus testing that indicates gold. I've been trying to understand where the gold is coming from because it shows up in various concentrations all over. 

At first, thought the gold was primarily associated with the large amounts of iron oxides present. However, if that was the case, I'd have expected to find gold in the underlying iron oxide laden clay. That turned up negative. I was surprised given that I've found the highest concentrations (by far) of gold associated with chunks of magnetite.

All the rocks are covered in some dark material. I had assumed that that was iron oxide staining, when I found the source, I discovered that it was actually manganese. Some online reading described relationship between gold, manganese, and iron. Situation makes much more sense now.

Should have noticed the manganese earlier, but didn't know to look for it.


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## fishaholic5 (Jun 10, 2018)

I'm new to the forum but most of my experience so far is with ores, a couple of which have contained manganese as well as gold. 
If you have sulfides roasting will remove the sulfur then acid/ bleach chlorination of the powdered ore will give you a solution containing any precious metals other than silver. Use iron sulfate to precipitate the gold, this should leave the manganese in solution. I then cement any potential pgm's out of the remaining solution with copper then refine the concentrates using the methods outlined throughout this forum.


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## boarteats (Jun 12, 2018)

fishaholic5 said:


> I'm new to the forum but most of my experience so far is with ores, a couple of which have contained manganese as well as gold.
> If you have sulfides roasting will remove the sulfur then acid/ bleach chlorination of the powdered ore will give you a solution containing any precious metals other than silver. Use iron sulfate to precipitate the gold, this should leave the manganese in solution. I then cement any potential pgm's out of the remaining solution with copper then refine the concentrates using the methods outlined throughout this forum.


Thanks fishaholic!


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