# need help with mass amounts of pyrite and mica



## MissRoxy (Jul 23, 2016)

hi everyone i wrote this letter to lazersteve first but thought i would post it hefe to see if i got more info
hi steve
i am michelle i have read a bunch of your post and you seem extremely well rounded in knowledge so i am hoping you might have an idea what will help me I am a glass blower and i use a lot of fire clay recently found a local free clay supply in the process of cleaning the clay of sand and stuff i found gold i was finding tons of mica and pyrite so i decided to throw a handful of the black sand i had cleaned from the clay into one of my kilns at 2000 with some borax and when i poured it off i found a nugget worth 50 plus dollars i know it was real gold cause i already sold it but when i tried to find the gold just by pulling the sand and didnt go through all the steps i did with cleaning the clay which included flitering and drying out high temps i didnt find any so i am not sure if in the process i basicly roasted thee high amount of pyrite in the clay if that is where the gold came from but the amount of pyrite dust and mica is crazy my black sand is not really black it is almost pure gold stuff with a little iron and silca so now that i have rambled on for a bit myy question is is there a way to disolve all thee mica and pyrite so i can atually tell the gold from the sand i know there is lots of gold there but i need to get rid of all the extra to be able to see it i live next to a under ground stream and it drains into a pond like reservor plus the whole city or area around me all the hills and such drain to this same place thanks in advance for any help you can give me oh when i went back to cleaning the clay and stop looking for the gold i again got gold when i tossed the waste into the kiln and i got 40 dollar nugget


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## jimdoc (Jul 23, 2016)

Periods, commas, and paragraphs are nice, they help get your thoughts and questions read.


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## Topher_osAUrus (Jul 23, 2016)

How big were these nuggets?
A gram each? Or..?

Edit to finish post. 

Sorry, fat thumbs hit the wrong thing.

Im only curious of the nugget size because a 10 dollar difference in gold thats pure 24k is just around .25 grams at the moment (ish...i didnt whip out the calculator)

So it just made me wonder.. Among other things like. How did they test the gold? Scratch or xrf?


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## Grelko (Jul 23, 2016)

MissRoxy said:


> Hi everyone. I wrote this letter to lazersteve first but thought i would post it hefe to see if i got more info.
> 
> Hi Steve,
> 
> ...



This should make it a bit easier to read.


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## UncleBenBen (Jul 23, 2016)

Grelko said:


> This should make it a bit easier to read.



Thanks Grelko!

How much material did you process for glass blowing to get the "hand full" of waste that gave the $50 nugget?

If the source material for your glass blowing has anything to do with a public water source, I would think twice about letting anybody know about it. I'd just keep on processing it for glass blowing while saving the waste for a good payday!

If it's just a pond in the middle of nowhere, and you are getting a gram of gold from a hand full of waste that came from only a few pounds of source material, then that's a different story...


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## MissRoxy (Jul 24, 2016)

jimdoc said:


> Periods, commas, and paragraphs are nice, they help get your thoughts and questions read.


sorry i am bad about that i write as i think i will try in the future to be better about it


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## MissRoxy (Jul 24, 2016)

UncleBenBen said:


> Grelko said:
> 
> 
> > This should make it a bit easier to read.
> ...


 i say i processed a wheel borrow full, but i wasnt looking for gold so i wasnt really careful about waste or wash out it was an after thought. Yes it is a very public place in fact they have already covered up most of my clay source it is a lake on the map but it is dry most of the time with a small stream feed by a underground stream. I am in calif looking at maps of the area i am surrounded by mines with in a 10-20 miles in fact the 2nd richest mine in calif is less than 20 minutes from here. the streams on thee map feed from all over ending here cause it is a resevoir techincally but it is more of a catch basin


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## MissRoxy (Jul 24, 2016)

Topher_osAUrus said:


> How big were these nuggets?
> A gram each? Or..?
> 
> Edit to finish post.
> ...



I dont know that much about all the techinical names of the test first rub nugget on like cermic plate then pulled out a bunch of bottles first dropping a drop from each one till it changed they paid me for almost pure i know now that the bottles test for 10 14 18 24. 18 no change but the last bottle changed it a little bit


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## MissRoxy (Jul 24, 2016)

i am going to try and take a good picture of the waste stuff so you can see just how much gold dust i am dealing with and i no the majority is junk but there is gold in there but since it is all flour or dust it is really hard to clean


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## UncleBenBen (Jul 24, 2016)

Michelle, be careful. If the place you were digging the clay has been covered and filled in, then it's probably some government agency that did so. Likely to stop erosion. Likely wanting to know who was digging in a watershed and why.

You may need to check on the legality of taking material from the area before thinking about processing it. Even if just for the glass blowing.


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## MissRoxy (Jul 25, 2016)

UncleBenBen said:


> Michelle, be careful. If the place you were digging the clay has been covered and filled in, then it's probably some government agency that did so. Likely to stop erosion. Likely wanting to know who was digging in a watershed and why.
> 
> You may need to check on the legality of taking material from the area before thinking about processing it. Even if just for the glass blowing.




thank you for the warning but they know i have been there it is the normal yearly process they are moving material that has washed out to the other side of the small dam. In about a month they will be removing most of it. If i flirt nice they will give me truck loads of material for free. They are always looking for close dump site. sadly they would bring me a mixture of everything there, where as i take my wagon or wheel barrow and hand pick my clay looking for lighter color and lots of mica for the refractory properties.

they haul away the sediment to landfill or other sites that want sand slit clay and decomposed granite. It is done by the county and water company and i did get permission to be there. I even told one of the bosses i found gold he laughed and said i am sure there is a tons of it buried here but wouldn't be worth it on large scale cause it would not be there all the time. They told me have fun just to be careful in the quicksand i laughed cause everyone in this area has either sunk waist deep or got a horse stuck in it lucky for all of us it hits hard ground about 3-4 ft down


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## Grelko (Jul 25, 2016)

MissRoxy said:


> In about a month they will be removing most of it. If i flirt nice they will give me truck loads of material for free.
> 
> It is done by the county and water company and i did get permission to be there.



Get as much as you can before its gone haha :wink:

Be careful with the quicksand.


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## UncleBenBen (Jul 25, 2016)

Grelko said:


> MissRoxy said:
> 
> 
> > In about a month they will be removing most of it. If i flirt nice they will give me truck loads of material for free.
> ...




What Grelko said! Load it up!! :mrgreen:


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## MissRoxy (Jul 25, 2016)

UncleBenBen said:


> Grelko said:
> 
> 
> > MissRoxy said:
> ...



It is a regular thing especially if we get a good rain season in calif. The boss i talked to said he knew that there is placer here but it varies so much from year to year is why no county or water co is mining it. it also has a very high pyrite content so i may be getting some of the gold by chance since in the process i use to clean my clay i dry it on a fire pit like thing i built that can get to 2000 degrees with the right wood and it has forced air to build the temps so i may be releasing the sulifides. there are a lot of factors that could be playing part. he just said it wasnt predictable enough for large scale mining but for me it is a bonu for a lot of hard work in cleaning my clay not only am i saving on the cost of refractory for molds and kiln building but it is paying me too.
but it should be back next rainy season i will start checking earlier next year for good clay sediment so that i have more than a month or two to collect


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## MissRoxy (Jul 25, 2016)

I am still in need of ideas to get rid of the mica and pyrite dust. Last night i stuck a sample in sulfuric acid to remove mica, then a second sample in nitric acid to remove pyrite. i check them both this morning mica looks mostly gone but the pyrite one looks like little change which i taking to mean one of two things. one i am mistaken in it being pyrite in the mix or i need to use AR instead. but at least i got rid of most of the mica in the first sample anyone got any ideas. I wish i was that skilled at panning but with it being basicly flour or dust i dont have that kind of skill


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## MissRoxy (Jul 25, 2016)

MissRoxy said:


> I am still in need of ideas to get rid of the mica and pyrite dust. Last night i stuck a sample in sulfuric acid to remove mica, then a second sample in nitric acid to remove pyrite. i check them both this morning mica looks mostly gone but the pyrite one looks like little change which i taking to mean one of two things. one i am mistaken in it being pyrite in the mix or i need to use AR instead. but at least i got rid of most of the mica in the first sample anyone got any ideas. I wish i was that skilled at panning but with it being basicly flour or dust i dont have that kind of skill




UPDATE
ok so i said earlier that nitric acid didnt eat the pyrite i was wrong just didnt give it enough time. so would it be worth two acid baths to remove the two elements or minerals that made it so dirty. I get free sulfric and nitric acid so that is not a cost issue. i am just worried about the release of things into the enviroment i am not totally sure of the make up of the pyrite and mica. I do know that i am not dealing with arsenopyrite i would have been dead months ago since i wasnt even thinking about stuff like that cleaning my fireclay i need to figure out the balance equation of the reaction and what i might be creating if any one off hand knows i would be grateful


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## Deano (Jul 26, 2016)

Free gold in clay is well known, generally it forms in bands of heavies in seams in the clay.

You use the other heavies as indicators as to where to dig and how to clean up your concentrates.

If you have mica in your concentrates then you have not cleaned them up enough. It is fairly difficult to lose gold whilst retaining mica.

Mica does not usually carry gold so do not fret about getting gold from mica.

Sulfides usually carry only a few hundred parts per million of gold at most. This is a few hundred grams per ton of sulfide.

At best you would expect to have to process at least 10 kg pure sulfides to get 1 gram of gold.

Most sulfides are not this rich so you would be looking at multiple 10 kg lots of sulfides to get your gram of gold.

Even so, the gold in these sulfides will not report to a gold button during a smelt.

What you have got is free gold which has formed a button in the smelt.

The best way to process the clay is to use gravity methods to get a gold rich concentrate, forget about getting useful quantities of gold from the sulfides.

When you have a concentrate you can smelt it direct as you have already done, this will get you a small button of gold but will lose most of the fine gold.

Better is to take your concentrates and leach the gold to get a gold rich solution.

Filter off the solution and recover the gold by any of the standard methods = precipitation, displacement etc.

As you have access to quantities of free acids for aqua regia, this is the obvious system for you.

Deano


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## UncleBenBen (Jul 26, 2016)

Deano said:


> Free gold in clay is well known, generally it forms in bands of heavies in seams in the clay.
> 
> You use the other heavies as indicators as to where to dig and how to clean up your concentrates.
> 
> ...



There you go Michelle! I was hoping you would get a post like this one. Deano is the man, one of the best here. I would follow his advice to very letter.

Good luck and be safe. Post some pics of those gold buttons when you get them done!

Ben


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## MissRoxy (Jul 27, 2016)

Deano said:


> Free gold in clay is well known, generally it forms in bands of heavies in seams in the clay.
> 
> You use the other heavies as indicators as to where to dig and how to clean up your concentrates.
> 
> ...


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## rickbb (Jul 27, 2016)

Read up on the AR process on the board here. It seems to be what you need.

Pay attention to safety, you will be generating some hazardous waste and toxic fumes so you need a place and some basic lab equipment to do it that won't cause harm to you, your pets or neighbors.


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## MissRoxy (Jul 27, 2016)

rickbb said:


> Read up on the AR process on the board here. It seems to be what you need.
> 
> Pay attention to safety, you will be generating some hazardous waste and toxic fumes so you need a place and some basic lab equipment to do it that won't cause harm to you, your pets or neighbors.



Thank you 
yes i have used aqua regia cant be nasty stuff 
but i just reliezed reading back over the post i thinki need to clarify why i was trying to do and why 
first i am not trying to recover gold from either the mica or the pyrite i just want to get rid of those things 
so that it is only gold and a very small amount of black sand i would be working with.

the process i use for cleaning my clay for my mold making and refractory use is basicly screening i do it in a couple steps so that one i dont lose clay and two so i am not dealing with massive build upon my screens.
i roughly screen off the major stuff with metal window screen then -100 mesh then finally i think the last mesh is 2 microns i might be off it may be slightly bigger but clay starts at 2 microns in particale size 

my waste from the process is very very small i am talking fairy dust a strong breeze it would all be gone so it is a real chalenge for some one who is not in the mining business and has very little experince panning to get the gold out smelting with that much impurites is not really good for my kilns kiln cost $10,000.00 vs so far 90.00 in gold not a good balance so i am only trying to destroy the mica and pyrite so that i am left with true black sand as in color and gold flour so i can actually see what i am working with if i cant find a fairly simple method i will just toss my waste it wouldd take a lot of gold to make it worth ruining one of my kilns and thee whole thing is just a cool bonus find i dont like to waste a good thing 

i hope that explains better what i am asking 
thanks in advance 
michelle


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## Deano (Jul 27, 2016)

The smallest screen size that you can readily pass water through is 20 microns, this is most likely the size you have.

Even a 10 micron screen is incredibly difficult to pass just water through, let alone any solids.

If you have a minus 20 micron concentrate and you can remove all of the sulfides and mica you will still have a problem with trying to smelt the black sand residue, the finest end will all report to the slag.

The fact that you have been able to get gold buttons from a smelt indicates that you have a fair quantity of gold in the cons.

My advice is still to forget about smelting and just digest the cons in aqua regia, simmer gently until the fumes change from orange to white, filter and rinse the solids and recover the gold from the filtrate.

You can displace it with zinc or precipitate it with any sulfite you have available.

What ruins the elements in the kilns is temperature, the higher the temperature the shorter the element life.

If you are running the kiln at say 700C you will go for years before killing the element.

If running at 1200C you will get only a few runs before the element dies.

Deano


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## Grelko (Jul 27, 2016)

MissRoxy said:


> I wish i was that skilled at panning but with it being basicly flour or dust i dont have that kind of skill



After concentrating the black sand, put it into your pan and add a little water (about an inch or so). If anything is floating, add a little dish soap or jet-dry to lessen the water tension and the dust on the top of the water should drop, "you can mix it a little". If it foams up, wait until the bubbles are gone, since the particles will stick to them.

Go back and forth, "stratify" swirl, shake like normal panning. Tap everything into a pile on the side of the pan. 

Set the goldpan on a flat surface like a table, then tap the pan easily to slightly flatten out the pile.

Slowly swirl the water around in the pan while it's still sitting on the table "don't lift the pan from the table, just slide it around". The lighter particles will move towards the middle of the pan (basically the same way a blue bowl works, but you have control of the speed). If you go too fast, everything will end up in the middle, but if you find a good speed, most of the dust/flour will stay near the wall of the pan.

You can use a suction bottle to remove the black sand from the middle, or remove the flour, then tap everything back to the side and continue on. Refine it afterwards if you want, since there still might be tiny pieces of black sand mixed in.

------------------------------------------

I've checked the creeks and beaches around my area (the only gold in my area IS flour/dust :lol:  , just a few particles here and there) I've also done this with pounds of IC chips that I've "dry crushed" without incinerating first, so alot of the bonding wires break into even smaller pieces which are harder to remove.

The large 14" pan works, but I've had better luck with my 10" pan. It's easier to control.


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## MissRoxy (Jul 27, 2016)

Deano said:


> The smallest screen size that you can readily pass water through is 20 microns, this is most likely the size you have.
> 
> Even a 10 micron screen is incredibly difficult to pass just water through, let alone any solids.
> 
> ...



hehe giggles i wish i was dealing in running my kilns at 700c i work with boro glass so they fire at around 1300c(2375f)but i guess i could just use my glory hole no not that kind of glory hole you dirty minded people since it is gas heated well it is a combonation heat sorce but i wouldnt have to worry about my elements getting carbon on them ok so you think the best wa to go then is to use AR to disolve everything basicly then the precipitate only brings back the gold if i am right in my understanding


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## MissRoxy (Jul 27, 2016)

Grelko said:


> MissRoxy said:
> 
> 
> > I wish i was that skilled at panning but with it being basicly flour or dust i dont have that kind of skill
> ...


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## MissRoxy (Jul 27, 2016)

i just had to post this to give you all a good laugh and to give an idea of just how much gold dust i am dealing with 

my best friend was just hear she is the kind off blond jokes are made about but i love her just the same 
she says "ok michelle i know you love shiny things but dont you think it is going to far to paint your area up by your shop in gold glitter" (i have a 30' by 30' concrete pad in front of my work shop)
i start laughing andtell her it is the stuff i pulled out of the clay 
she looks at me confused i told dont worry it will wash off


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## Grelko (Jul 27, 2016)

MissRoxy said:


> the boss on this job talked to the head boss at the county told him i was moving the clay by wheelbarrow loads. He asked me how much i could use he said he was given the ok to dump *15 bobtail trucks* on my property. They started dumping this morning all good clay loads i am so excited.



I'm guessing that you did flirt with the boss after all :lol: That should give you enough material to work with until spring... of 2035.



MissRoxy said:


> i guess i could just use my glory hole no not that kind of glory hole you dirty minded people



I'd say get your mind out of the gutter so mine can float past, but my mind already grew roots and built a house down there years ago. :lol: 



MissRoxy said:


> i just had to post this to give you all a good laugh and to give an idea of just how much gold dust i am dealing with
> 
> my best friend was just hear she is the kind off blond jokes are made about but i love her just the same
> she says "ok michelle i know you love shiny things but dont you think it is going to far to paint your area up by your shop in gold glitter" (i have a 30' by 30' concrete pad in front of my work shop)
> ...



Instead of washing it off, you could REALLY confuse your friend by asking her to vacuum the concrete pad, so that you can collect all that gold dust. :mrgreen:


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## MissRoxy (Jul 28, 2016)

Grelko said:


> MissRoxy said:
> 
> 
> > the boss on this job talked to the head boss at the county told him i was moving the clay by wheelbarrow loads. He asked me how much i could use he said he was given the ok to dump *15 bobtail trucks* on my property. They started dumping this morning all good clay loads i am so excited.
> ...


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## MissRoxy (Jul 28, 2016)

oh for those off you who have not seen a glory hole for glass blowing i promise you it is nott something you would want to play naughty with look upon google glass blowing glory hole you will understand


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## Grelko (Jul 28, 2016)

MissRoxy said:


> good lord i could just see it if she used my shop vac it would be sparkle city from the light stuff all the mica and pyrite we both look like we were going to some crazy night club covered in head to toe in gold dust and that is just the stuff that has blown away while doing the last sifting which is a dry sift to get to the clay size i need to know it is pretty much pure clay cause not many other things are that small of size



Sounds like fun, all you need now is some good music to go with it :lol: 

When you quote someone, it's easier to find it, if you just put your response below everything, since the last few posts you've made, have had the responses within the quote itself. You can also add, delete, *bold*, change the color or do a few other things to parts of the quoted messages, so that you don't accidently make a giant quote window after you submit your post (like the one above). You can also use the "edit post" button to go back and [stt]dfjjyt trthgh[/stt] fix things in your messages also. _You'll get the hang of it. _  

As long as you keep the (quote= "name"), you can quote the certain parts of the message that you want to specifically quote.


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## MissRoxy (Jul 28, 2016)

Grelko said:


> MissRoxy said:
> 
> 
> > lets see if i did it right this time and thank you believe it or not this is the first forum i have ever posted in my life i am not big into using forums i am dyslexic so i dont like writing in public places cause if i am not super careful nothing will make sense


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## Grelko (Jul 28, 2016)

Close, but you erased the message inside of the quotes. Make sure to keep the


name" said:


> at the begining and [ /quote] at the end. Whatever you leave between those areas will be the quoted part.
> 
> Don't worry about it too much, I still mess up writing on here once in a while, even after being on forums since the 90s.


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## g_axelsson (Jul 29, 2016)

Use the "preview" button and experiment, nothing will be saved until you press "submit".

Soon you'll get the hang of it.  

Göran


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## rickbb (Jul 29, 2016)

MissRoxy said:


> ok so you think the best wa to go then is to use AR to disolve everything basicly then the precipitate only brings back the gold if i am right in my understanding



It won't dissolve everything you will need to filter/wash the sediment good then drop the gold from the filtered liquid.

If you want really pure gold you'd do the process again on the dropped gold power, but the first drop will give you 97%+, depending on your skill at. The more you do the better you'll get.


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## MissRoxy (Jul 30, 2016)

g_axelsson said:


> Use the "preview" button and experiment, nothing will be saved until you press "submit"


i think i got it now thank you
i wanted the first line only and it worked i think


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## MissRoxy (Jul 30, 2016)

Grelko said:


> Close, but you erased the message inside of the quotes.




i only wanted to show close, but ... quotes.
lets see if i did it right


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