# How to get disseminated gold from mud?



## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

Hi,
I miner gave me some kilos of mud with (supposedly) disseminated gold in it. The origin of the mud is from gold refining machines. How do I extract it ? The gold particles are invisible to human sight. I have been watching this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb6xPB6IHGA) but I am not sure if I have to use electricity. The pictures of the mud are attached.

I have almost no experience in getting disseminated gold so I will appreciate your help.


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## justinhcase (Feb 21, 2017)

Have you ad had Assay?It is the only way to know what is where.
Can tell very little from a picture!I regularly pay up to £100 for assay and M.G.S. so I know where the goal lines are and if I am preforming a fair service.


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## 4metals (Feb 21, 2017)

I would dry out a small spoonfull of the mud and heat it to a red glow with a torch. Then I would add some aqua regia to dissolve a the small sample and test the solution with stannous chloride. 

I never heard of disseminated gold before so I am unsure of what it is exactly, and what type of machines it came off of. 

But the heating the sample to a red glow will take care of any cyanide if it is from a leach setup so a small dissolve under a fume hood should get you your answer.


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## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

4metals said:


> But the heating the sample to a red glow will take care of any cyanide if it is from a leach setup so a small dissolve under a fume hood should get you your answer.


Thanks for your tips. About cyanide, are you suggesting that my sample could be deadly poisonous? In that case, if I heat the cyanide it will vaporize and I may inhale it in gaseous state. Or not?


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## 4metals (Feb 21, 2017)

Cyanide decomposes with heat but still use some form of fume exhaust. After you have gotten a small sample to glow red test it for gold by digesting it. If it has gold we can do a few more tests


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## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

4metals said:


> I
> I never heard of disseminated gold before so I am unsure of what it is exactly, and what type of machines it came off of.


I used there term "disseminated" because it is a way to say that gold particles of very tiny size and are sparsed all over the place (http://www.minelinks.com/alluvial/goldDeposits3.html) however my sample comes not from nature but from machinery and gold in it is barely visible to human eye. I hope your idea works for me. Thanks again.


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## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

4metals said:


> Cyanide decomposes with heat but still use some form of fume exhaust. After you have gotten a small sample to glow red test it for gold by digesting it. If it has gold we can do a few more tests



Thanks agian. Should I add borax to the heating process ?


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## Topher_osAUrus (Feb 21, 2017)

I cannot speak for 4metals, but, when heating to red heat borax is not necessary.

Generally borax is used just to glaze the melt dish, or when melting impure gold.

His suggestion was to heat to redness -to drive off any cyanide or other leach based compounds (if they are there), then to dissolve the remaining mud in aqua regia. Which, the heating to redness would be absolutely necessary as a precursor to dissolution (if CN is present). Else you would create poisonous gas.

Its better to be more cautious than careless


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## 4metals (Feb 21, 2017)

No borax, you are not melting this you are heating it to drive off potentially harmful elements. Borax would coat the material and it wouldn't get "wetted" by the acid, preventing a reaction. With borax coated material you could have gold but not react with the acid and think it was worthless and be wrong. 

No borax or any flux material


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## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

4metals said:


> No borax or any flux material



Great advices, many thanks!
BTW, may I ask why stannous chloride and not nitric acid? Because I went to jewellery repair services and asked for stannous chloride (I thought they had it already made for sale) but none of them use it. They use nitric acid only.


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## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

4metals said:


> Then I would add some aqua regia to dissolve a the small sample and test the solution with stannous chloride.



Unfortunately there is no aqua regia in my town,but there is 98% of sulfuric acid, do you think sulfuric acid can be used instead of aqua regia?


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## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

Zolotov said:


> 4metals said:
> 
> 
> > Unfortunately there is no aqua regia in my town,but there is 98% of sulfuric acid, do you think sulfuric acid can be used instead of aqua regia?



Actually, I at the store I was asking for 98% concentrated nitric acid, and 98% of hydrochloric acid, because I thought aqua regia was made with 98% concentrated liquids. But now I am reading at wikipedia that hydrochloric acid only has to be at 30% and nitric acid only at 65%. At the store, they have hydrochloric acid at 30% but nitric acid only at 50%. So I may try to mix aqua regia from those myself.


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## Geo (Feb 21, 2017)

You should wait until you have a fundamental knowledge of the chemicals that we would tell you to use. 
Aqua regia is a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid (HCl). The ratio is 1 part nitric acid and 3 parts HCl. This mixture will dissolve gold into solution. It generates toxic fumes when when it dissolves metal. You would heat the soil sample and then leach it in aqua regia to dissolve any gold that might be there. Stannous chloride is a liquid test solution for detecting dissolved gold in solution. Stannous chloride (SnCl2) will turn the sample of solution purple if gold is dissolved. The greater the amount of gold, the darker the purple will be until it is completely black.


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## 4metals (Feb 21, 2017)

Zolo,

The questions you ask and the assumptions you have made scare me. Why would anyone give some material suspected to contain gold to someone who has never done this before?

Do yourself a big favor and click on the link in my signature line below and go to the library and download a copy of Hoke's book for free,. It is written to teach a non chemist how to refine. Please do a little reading before you jump into this. 

Best of luck.


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## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

4metals said:


> Zolo,
> 
> The questions you ask and the assumptions you have made scare me. Why would anyone give some material suspected to contain gold to someone who has never done this before?


Well, it happens that I went to a mining city (here in Mexico) looking for alluvial gold (the gold in rivers), but there was a guy at an old mine (non-functioning mine), and we talked a lot about gold. After about 1 hour of conversation he told me that they have a big pile (about 1 ton) of waste from the mining company and it has a lot of gold. He said "there is about 500 grams of gold there and only I know about it". So, he said the owner of the mine can sell it to him as dirt because nobody suspects this pile could be worth $17k , but he is not interested in money so he can give it to me. And for such amount of money I will definitely learn chemistry if I can extract this gold somehow. When I started to question him if such amount of gold would lie there just like that, he told me "go and take a sample, and see it for yourself". I took 3kg of this dirt and here I am , trying to find out if the old guy is telling the truth, because if he does, it is going to be a very profitable deal.

Thanks for the book! I will definitely read it.


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## Zolotov (Feb 21, 2017)

Geo said:


> Stannous chloride (SnCl2) will turn the sample of solution purple if gold is dissolved. The greater the amount of gold, the darker the purple will be until it is completely black.



Thanks for the info! But what if this sample solution is already black? Because it the dirt is already gray, and I suspect the acid is going to give it more darkness.


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## FrugalRefiner (Feb 21, 2017)

Put a small sample of the liquid you want to test in a white plastic spoon. Add a bit of stannous chloride to the sample and let it react for a minute. Then pour the liquid out of the spoon. If there is a purple stain in the spoon, it indicates there is gold in the material.

Personally, I would get a professional assay done first. Most people don't leave thousands of dollars of gold lying around or give it away unless there is a catch. What worries me most is when you said "they have a big pile (about 1 ton) of waste". There could be any number of toxic chemicals in their waste. If it's worth $17 thousand dollars, it's worth getting an assay.

Dave


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## Geo (Feb 21, 2017)

Auric chloride is very sensitive to stannous chloride. The color change is enough to be seen with very low concentrations of gold in solution. Leach the sample with aqua regia. If the sample is black, add enough fresh HCl to the sample to make the sample transparent. Let the sample settle completely. Draw the clear solution off with a pipette or dripper. The solution may be discolored but must be clear. Place a single drop in a spot plate cavity or use a white plastic spoon. Add a single drop of stannous chloride. Watch the sample closely as you add the stannous. You are looking for a color change to the purple or beyond.


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## g_axelsson (Feb 21, 2017)

At this time I think it is good to talk about sampling. An assay on a given sample will only tell you what's in that sample. It could easily be salted with some gold dust so it assays as high or even higher than what the guy said. Then when you come for the rest of the mud you hear that he can "buy it cheap" from the mine, so you pay him the small fee and then when you have a ton of mud you discover that it doesn't contain any gold.

If it comes to that, then demand to take another sample, but use your own shovel and use the coning and quarting method that 4metals described in this thread.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=25196&p=267043#p267028
If they don't allow you to sample it by yourself I highly suggest that you back away from the deal.

Göran


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## 4metals (Feb 21, 2017)

> Well, it happens that I went to a mining city (here in Mexico) looking for alluvial gold (the gold in rivers), but there was a guy at an old mine (non-functioning mine), and we talked a lot about gold. After about 1 hour of conversation he told me that they have a big pile (about 1 ton) of waste from the mining company and it has a lot of gold. He said "there is about 500 grams of gold there and only I know about it". So, he said the owner of the mine can sell it to him as dirt because nobody suspects this pile could be worth $17k , but he is not interested in money so he can give it to me. And for such amount of money I will definitely learn chemistry if I can extract this gold somehow. When I started to question him if such amount of gold would lie there just like that, he told me "go and take a sample, and see it for yourself". I took 3kg of this dirt and here I am , trying to find out if the old guy is telling the truth, because if he does, it is going to be a very profitable deal.



This has all of the markings of a typical set up. If you took the sample did you take a little from here and a little from there or was there a 3 kg bag conveniently taken for you? And if you did take the sample, did you stuff it in your bag and make sure no one switched it for different spiked bag while you were celebrating over a bottle of Dos Eques with your new found friend? Stay thirsty my friend! 

If the ton of material has 500 grams of gold in it then each pound has 500/2200 = .227 grams since you have 6.6 pounds you are looking for 1.5 grams of gold. That much gold, 1.5 grams, is worth just under $60. The way scams like this work, this guy gets you to take this sample so you can check it out. Send it out for assay and come back with a result. So it comes back assaying 16 ounces per ton, which is what 1.5 grams per 3 kilo's works out to and you are so psyched you can't wait to get back there and scoop up your ton. 

So your buddy in Mexico says OK let me talk to the owner and the owner comes back and says I know it has some gold or some story and asks you for $2,000 (or something I am making this up) you say whoa, I know this is worth ten times that and you pay. Smiles all around
and your friend even helps you scoop it into your pickup truck. 

As it will turn out, the only gold in that pile is the 1.5 grams that were in your sample. guarantee, I've seen it many times with guys who bought piles of African ore that assayed high. This scenario is a classic. 

The moral of the story, there is no Santa Claus! Sorry to break your bubble. Actually you are pretty lucky, you have stumbled on the one place on the internet where you will get the straight scoop to recover all of the gold that is supposed to be in there, but this time, my friend, I'm not optimistic.


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## Zolotov (Feb 22, 2017)

4metals said:


> As it will turn out, the only gold in that pile is the 1.5 grams that were in your sample. guarantee, I've seen it many times with guys who bought piles of African ore that assayed high. This scenario is a classic.



Thanks for the warning. However I don't think there could be an fraud of such nature. It was casual encounter and I wasn't looking anything to buy neither he was looking anything to sell. It is only after 1 hour of conversation , when he understood my passion for finding gold that he offered this. And we don't know if the owner will sell this pile of mud, because he probably could suspect there is something in it. So I am worried more about measuring the amount of gold, and extraction costs , if there is any gold there, because the old man may be wrong too about the 500 grams of gold per ton.

BTW, I was reading the book you recommended (Hokes) and on page 17 he says:


```
Crude gold ore sometimes contains arsenic, selenium, tellurium,
and other of the less common elements. These do not come within
the scope of this book, and materials containing them should not
be refined according to the methods here given.
```

And that could be my case, so I wonder if dissolving this mud sample in aqua regia and them precipitating it with Na2SO3 will work at all?


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## 4metals (Feb 22, 2017)

From your original question, you stated the sample you obtained was from a gold refining machine. In my mind this implied concentrates. If you were dealing with concentrates, the scenario I suggested would work for you. And to handle the material I assumed it had the potential to be, the methods discussed in Hokes book would be helpful to you. 

After more detail emerged, I realized you are likely looking at a tailings pile. One thing is interesting about that. Tailings piles are usually huge and a 1 ton pile of tailings would be enough to fill 2 drums with the dirt. Maybe a little more but not a typical tailings dump. 

The sample you are likely sitting on needs to be assayed to attain a reasonably accurate old concentration, a small scoop of concentrates would not suffice. An assayer can negate the effects of the other minerals likely to be in ore and give you a true reading of the sample. 

Do not think that your lack of enthusiasm and the casual encounter makes it impossible for fraud. That is exactly what makes it possible. You weren't asking and he wasn't selling but he knew you were interested in gold. So a long casual conversation which was skillfully directed (by your new friend) towards the potential wealth pile all the time knowing he may be able to get a salted sample into your possession. This has all the markings of a well thought out sting. If he wasn't able to switch the sample you go away with a worthless bag and never return because the pile is worthless, but if he was able to switch the sample or somehow get you to take the sample he gave you, his investment of $60 in gold to salt the sample would almost guarantee your return. The hook has been set my friend! 

If you really think this chanced encounter can be a real deal, have the material assayed. And once the assay confirms what your Mexican friend told you, just remember the price of the pile will have gone up, not crazy up, but up enough to make their little sting worthwhile. 

They sensed you have been bitten by the gold bug, and they were ready for it. i have seen this before and seen some pretty intelligent men lose piles of money from that gold bug!


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## Zolotov (Feb 22, 2017)

4metals said:


> If he wasn't able to switch the sample you go away with a worthless bag and never return because the pile is worthless, but if he was able to switch the sample or somehow get you to take the sample he gave you, his investment of $60 in gold to salt the sample would almost guarantee your return.



Thanks for your insignts! No, he could not alter the sample , from the minute I met him to the minute I took the sample (myself) I was always with him. I could take it in different places of the pile but I didn't know I had to so I did it all on one side, but anyway, the pile looks uniformly distributed so I don't think there will be a big error. 

I understand an assay will be of good help, but here in my town there is no such laboratory and I will have send it to another city and all this process will take long time, about 2 weeks or so. So I thought: if I can just extract the gold out of my sample and measure it in grams that would be good enough to decide "to buy or not to buy" this thing and it would be done quickly as I am a quick learner + there are a lot of chemistry tutorials online. And given that an atom of gold will be an atom of gold in every place if I calculate the amount of grams these atoms weight there will be no doubt that this mud pile worths the try. The quicker I buy the pile the better for me, and once I have the pile in my possession I could wait 2 weeks for the assay and know for sure what metals does it contains besides gold.


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## rucito (Feb 22, 2017)

Hello
I want to add another scenario fraud:
sample that you took from the pile can be good and not be replaced
but there is no problem to replace the pile !!!


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## patnor1011 (Feb 22, 2017)

Zolotov said:


> 4metals said:
> 
> 
> > If he wasn't able to switch the sample you go away with a worthless bag and never return because the pile is worthless, but if he was able to switch the sample or somehow get you to take the sample he gave you, his investment of $60 in gold to salt the sample would almost guarantee your return.
> ...



Forgive me for what it sound like but your are not equipped with knowledge to be able to deal with this kind of project. You do not know much about refining yet you are willing to go all in? What may work in poker rarely work in this case. Your mindset is totally opposite of what is required and you absolutely need to have proper assay first in hand just to see not only how much of gold might be there but also composition of other material present. There may be other elements present which will hamper possible gold extraction to the extent that you will be unable to recover it yourself. (if there is any gold present) Some ore concentrates are so complex not everyone can successfully and easily extract all valuables from it.
Do not try to buy cat in a bag. While healthy risking can multiply investment in some cases greed can easily put you in a hole. 
If that was so casual conversation and "he was not trying to sell" nobody is going to take away that pile in a week or two. Dont also forget that person who you talked to do not own it and you do have no idea if it is for sale and under what condition. Also as previous poster mentioned it is quite easy to swap one pile of dirt for another. It only require to salt one pile and then keep selling visually similar dirt to impatient people blinded with gold fever.


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## rickbb (Feb 22, 2017)

People who do gold refining are not going to let "visible to the eye" gold walk out the door. (Assuming this really did come from a "gold refining machine".)

If you can see it, there is more than enough in the "mud" for this person to try and recover. Only 2 reasons why they would try to sell it. 

1. There is not any real gold there or it's mixed with something else that makes it too expensive to recover. (Arsenic, chrome, mercury come to mind.)

2. The whole thing is a fraud and it's not really gold at all, or a bait and switch, salted sample, etc.

Do yourself a big favor, take your time, find someone to do a real lab grade test on your sample. Don't be in a rush.


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## Zolotov (Feb 22, 2017)

patnor1011 said:


> Forgive me for what it sound like but your are not equipped with knowledge to be able to deal with this kind of project. You do not know much about refining yet you are willing to go all in?



I am not discussing this, of course I am not equipped with knowledge (chemical knowledge) to do this kind of project, but if I get stuck I can always consult a professional and get directions. And I agree , I am going all in because I have nothing to lose except time and some chemical reagents. The reward could be very good if it works. And if it doesn't at least I will learn how to extract gold from ores or other substances. So, if you think about it, for me, it is a 100% win case, if I don't poison myself with aqua regia emissions but I already checked the security measures, and I hope it won't happen. 

You said "proper assay" would be the thing to do, ok, fine, lets do it. I called ALS Global (Mexican branch) and they told me since I am not a member (an individual, not a mining company), I will have to pay 300 USD for an assay, because for members they charge only 27 USD. Guess what? We were going to pay the owner 150 USD for the pile itself! So the $300 USD is way over my budget. I was told assays cost only $15 USD (by some geologist friends), but never thought you have to be a mining company to get that price. BTW, do you know how do they test it? They told me the "4 acid test" for 48 elements with 4 acids and one of the acids is aqua regia. Excuse me? I can do aqua regia test myself now! I thought they had special equipment like Xray or frequency tests or kind of (advanced) stuff for the 21 century era, but no, it's a standard chemical test, the only difference is that they have a lab full of solutions, and I don't. If you ask me, this is not worth the $300 USD they want to charge me. But anyway I don't have that money for an assay, because first, I am not 100% sure there is gold. Second, we might not get the pile, so the only way for me to proceed is to learn chemistry and spend as little resources as possible.


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## Zolotov (Feb 22, 2017)

rickbb said:


> 1. There is not any real gold there or it's mixed with something else that makes it too expensive to recover. (Arsenic, chrome, mercury come to mind.)



Well, if the aqua regia will not produce enough gold to be worth it, I will consider this project a failure and move on to something else. This is why I am not understanding very well why people are telling me that it may be too expensive to recover. Because the aqua regia process is a test (of gold) and recovery (of gold) procedure at the same time.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Feb 22, 2017)

Why couldn't they recover the gold out of the pile?
Did you happen to ask what processes or machines they were using?

$150 for 500g of gold (or a ton of dirt)
-either a bargain or a beating, and I am pretty sure it's the latter.

Please. Heed the advice given by the professionals. They are not trying to discourage you, but trying to save you from gold fever. Which has claimed a great number of souls, with stories eerily similar to yours... Whether its dirt, "mil spec" escrap, or karat gold.. Its good to KNOW what the value is, before you buy (to the best of your ability)

The assay may cost 300, but, suppose you buy the pile. Then get all of the equipment..a blue bowl or other means to concentrate values.. .the beakers, chemicals, fume hood, melting dishes, torch, etc.. All of it.. Then you spend a month of your time working... Only to find out there is nothing - nada - zilch - zero - zilsky.
How much more than $300 do you think that may equate to?

If that assay is too costly, do as 4metals initially suggested:
Read Hoke (to get the fundamentals of refining)
Dissolve a small sample in aqua regia
Test with stannous 

And go from there. If you net a positive result from the stannous, then maybe it would be worth thinking about paying for that assay. Or maybe try to find another place to get an assay.


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## 4metals (Feb 22, 2017)

If you listen to all of the details you will see it happened in a mining town at an old, non functioning mine so the pile is likely an old tailings pile. These do not lend themselves to a blue bowl concentrator very well, and since the gold is not visible a table isn't likely to work well either. This would leave leaching to recover the values followed by zinc to drop out the values.

What the OP does not realize that using Aqua regia was just a test to identify gold if it was there when we thought the sample was a concentrate from a gold refining (concentrating) machine. So even if we could get a qualitative test on the gold using Aqua Regia it would not be the way to process an entire ton. 

If the material was placer gold, (alluvial gold) the aqua regia would work fine, and yes it is a method of recovery and refining but it is not for ore. Different materials require different processing, it's just like shoes, one size doesn't fit all. 

As far as switching the pile that would mean the entire pile assays close to 16 oz per ton so the value of any sample is close. As true as it is the pile could be worth that quantity and the pile could be substituted for a pile with no gold now that you're gone so it is possible. But I doubt a small mining town guy would just be sitting on this pile that would keep him in high end Tequila the rest of his life just waiting for someone to come take a sample so he can give it away. 

So Zolo, I would get an old frying pan on a windy day standing down wind with a good hot fire pit heat the entire 3 pound sample and after it gets good and hot try using a torch to get it all even hotter, glowing is good but if it is mostly minerals it will never glow. It may require heating the entire sample and then scooping out a few small scoops and torching it until all has seen good high heat. Then take a small scoop (1/4 teaspoon) from a few places in the sample and try the acid test.

If the sample is 16 oz per ton, you should get a positive test on stannous. 

If you do get a positive test, and you go back and get the pile for very little money, I will be quite surprised but happy for you. Don't let them raise the price and if you get the material, come back here and we will walk you through the testing and processing to get the gold. But if it is a scam, still come back and tell us and stick around to learn how to refine gold anyway.


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## 4metals (Feb 22, 2017)

Oh and one more thing, I have never heard of a good fusion and cupellation fire assay on an ore sample for anything under $100 and that is for guys sending a lot of samples. $27, get me an address, I could get them a lot of work!


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## Platdigger (Feb 23, 2017)

Zolotov, you said "with 4 acids and one of the acids is aqua regia"
When they (assay labs) do AR as an assay, the pregnant (if there is gold) AR is then subjected to either AA or ICP.
The AR test 4metals is suggesting is just that, a test to check for the presence of gold. Not so much the amount.


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## Iggy-poo (Feb 23, 2017)

Be aware that heating the ore to red heat can passivate any Palladium due to formation of a chemically resistant oxide coating. Covering the sample towards the end to exclude aid will help. At the beginning, the air is helpful in eliminating the Sulfides. A blue-creen cast to the ore may indicate Palladium Oxide.


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## nickvc (Feb 24, 2017)

One further thought about this pile, if the owner has a pile of possibly toxic waste that he has to dispose of properly or face fines or worse if he passes it on to someone else it becomes their responsibility and liability to dispose of legally and within the guidelines set by any agency responsible to oversee it.
Depending on the composition of the pile it may well have gold in it still, but is totally uneconomic to recover due to the other elements except by large scale mining operations with the necessary equipment and knowledge, a ton would not get them excited so what can the present owner do with it, sell it to a newbie with dreams of getting rich or even making a living from it.

I think the phrase buyer beware comes to mind here, as has been pointed out which miner anywhere on earth is going to give away or sell for cents gold rich material :shock:


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## justinhcase (Feb 24, 2017)

Remember if you are going to out lay on assays to go there your self and dig deep for your samples.
Salting is an age old ploy when selling low return ore for inflated pricing.


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## Platdigger (Feb 24, 2017)

One thing more, if you do heat that ore, or use acids on it, do it either under a fume hood or be up wind of it.
If there is any arsenic there, you sure don't want to breath it.


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## Iggy-poo (Feb 24, 2017)

Platdigger said:


> One thing more, if you do heat that ore, or use acids on it, do it either under a fume hood or be up wind of it.
> If there is any arsenic there, you sure don't want to breath it.



Same with Mercury and Selenium.


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