# Microgold stuck in qaurtz



## Illicit (Mar 20, 2017)

Hi,My name is kevin, im rather new to the forum in terms of being a member although i have been referencing to this forum in my studies over the last 9 months. I have alot of questions but not sure if im in the right spot so please refer me if im wrong.

So i am in southern ontario, been studiying my area and doing some panning and have yet to see any nugget or flake of any sort, so i was quiet dissappointed and thought my spot was just barren.
One day while panning at my spot on the creek, i noticed a small spring forming as a puddle about 7 feet away, the mouth opening about 4 feet above the creek level. Just after the openinng,the water runoff was causing iron staining on the hill as it ran into the creek. There seemed to be also heavy sediment including black sands, minute qaurtz particles. I decided to bring that sediment, actually looks like sand with grey in from the clay, brought it home and put it under my usb microscope, and beleive that i can see small specs inside pieces of qaurtz that still had their chrystal shape and didnt look warn down . Im wondering if anyone can tel me if i am actually looking at gold( i can see some orange grains but every once in a while you see a goldish like nugget or wierd shaped string) again i am zoomed in maybe 600x. 
More about the creek, its in the only region close in my area that has higher elevation, a stretch of small mountainous ridge that extends east west. I went there my first time metal detecting and was getting all kinds of readings but found nothing but rocks. The creek it seems to have a whitesh grey clay bottom as one of the bends you can clearly see the clay. I only had a 6 foot level with me at the time so i managed to shove the whole 6 feet into this spring/hole. Im still lacking funds for a dredge to try and suck and heaveir particles out of there for testing. 
Im hoping that i have fallen on some type of carlin mine type ore. Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance. As soon as i figure out to upload video, i guess i cant do it from my phone with a .mov file


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## g_axelsson (Mar 20, 2017)

Golden specs with quartz that you can't separate by panning is usually pyrite.

Göran


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## Illicit (Mar 20, 2017)

g_axelsson said:


> Golden specs with quartz that you can't separate by panning is usually pyrite.
> 
> Göran


But doesnt pyrite have structure, like cube or chrystal, whereas the specs im looking at have no certain structure, they are random nuggets or string like peieces


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## g_axelsson (Mar 20, 2017)

Pyrite has no cleavage so it will break into irregular pieces. It is usually found in irregular masses and grains so the cubic crystals only grows when there is space for it or the rock is soft (mostly clay or high heat).

The important part is that if it is loose particles and you can't pan it then it isn't heavy as gold.

Göran


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## Illicit (Mar 20, 2017)

g_axelsson said:


> Pyrite has no cleavage so it will break into irregular pieces. It is usually found in irregular masses and grains so the cubic crystals only grows when there is space for it or the rock is soft (mostly clay or high heat).
> 
> The important part is that if it is loose particles and you can't pan it then it isn't heavy as gold.
> 
> Göran



Well for the most part its not loose. Most of what i see is still stuck inside the qaurtz peices. I ran the sediment through a makeshift sluice and these were my concentrates. Ill try and get some better pics up


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## 4metals (Mar 20, 2017)

Visual identification at 600X magnification is vague. Collect a quantity of this material which has these microscopic pieces and send it out for a fire assay. A fire assay can detect a fraction of an ounce per ton so if it is there it will be quantified. 

There is equipment made to recover "flour" gold in sluices and bulk recovery devices so once you verify it is gold you can take the necessary steps to recover it. 

Without an assay you're just chasing your tail.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 20, 2017)

Illicit said:


> g_axelsson said:
> 
> 
> > Pyrite has no cleavage so it will break into irregular pieces. It is usually found in irregular masses and grains so the cubic crystals only grows when there is space for it or the rock is soft (mostly clay or high heat).
> ...


Crush and pan it then. If it really is gold inclusions in quartz crystals, crushing will be needed to get to it in any case.

What I find strange is that you haven't found any gold when panning in the stream below. Some of the gold should have concentrated in placer deposits downstream.

Göran


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## rickbb (Mar 20, 2017)

Collect a small amount, crush it, then, (using the information in the sticky at the top of this section), digest it in AR, then test with stannous chloride. You only need a gram or 2 and small amount of AR. You could do the whole thing in test tubes. (Which is how the sticky describes the procedure.)


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## Illicit (Mar 21, 2017)

Thank you all for the replys. Im trying to locate where in my area i can do a fire assay, as im not yet comfortable with the a/r, i been avoiding it in my escrap recovery and been using acetic acid. 
Im hoping the next couple paychecks i can invest in a crusher because the old threaded pipe crusher isnt cutting it. 
And yes i been dissappointed that i havent found any visible gold in any of 4 creeks i been visiting, seems everything here is sedimentary and microscopic. I did my research too, to pick these spots and sisnt just randomnly select them so it kinda sucks. The most i have seen in my pan was a spec the size of a pinhead and that was it


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## Illicit (Mar 31, 2017)

So an update on my stream. I was curious and thought i could simulate a core drill sample. Infigured since it was clay u could punch a fence pole pipe in. To my surprise, the spring i have been eyeing, the pole went in fairly easy, i could feel a couple feet of loose mudd and organic sediment, treenark and aticks and soil, then about 6 feet down i could feel a gravel type layer of about a foot and then soft clay. Since i wasnt prepared for this outcome, i had no way of sucking anything out, and had to ry on covering the top of the pole with my palm to cause a lil. Bitof suction. So i wasnt able to come out with much other then mud and some sand. 
After using a paint mixer i made to sure to agitate and after rinsing out most of the organics, was left with an inch of sand in my 5gallon pail, and after panningwas left with whats in these pics, i beleive this is my very first time seeing what i think is gold in my pan, even though its a bunch of pinhead size specs and a light dust trail along my lines. Can someone please tell me that i have found signs of gold lol


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## everydayisalesson (Mar 31, 2017)

It may be the lighting or camera but I dont see anything. Many times gold will be very fine specks, called fly poop, almost stuck to the bottom. Are you getting your samples from the right place? Gold will find its way to the bottom of where ever you are. If you have scraped the entire area clean until you only see fine particulates of mud, Now its time to get your gold if there is any. Take a turkey baster and remove the rest. If its not clean enough to eat off of, your leaving gold behind if there is any. 

Might sound like a lot of work but its going to be. Always ask yourself, is this the bottom. Find some bedrock and do the turkey baster trick. Take your time, many times I have almost missed a crack that was there and thought I was done because it blended in so well. Hope this helps buddy, as far as gold in the pan, normally when its gold, your gonna know it.

Mike


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## 4metals (Mar 31, 2017)

Thanks for the update, it is encouraging when members follow up on projects discussed here. 

A bit of aqua regia and few drops of stannous chloride solution will tell you. If this was panned properly, that is what "flour" gold looks like in a pan. Suck out a little of the gold colored fraction and digest and test it. If it is truly gold in color and not the effect of the lighting or camera. The test will tell. 

The downside to this is your stream has a large amount of overburden which has been deposited over the millennia. To successfully collect this, you need to remove this overburden, usually by dredging (the least expensive way for a small operator), and collect the fines in the clay fraction with a dredge set up to catch the fines. This tends to piss off the environmental people because you are totally trashing the stream bed. The gold, if it is gold, collected in clay deposits is from an ancient sand bar where the fines dropped and collected based on the flow pattern of the stream back when the clay layer was laid down. That is why there is such an extreme overburden.


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## Refining Rick (Apr 2, 2017)

I had random thought generated question. 
Can the OP take the results of the panning and dry them, put them in a glazed torch dish with good flux and melt the whole thing with an oxy torch? I mean this for someone like the OP who may not want to use nitric. Would this make a crude, albeit unrefined button that could be tested by traditional means such as stone and acid or electronic testing? Even if it meant taking the button to someone else for testing?


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## Reno Chris (Apr 13, 2017)

Rick - Sulfides melt quite easily. and I've seen plenty of times people melt what they think is gold, but is pyrite, create a melted pyrite button and are convinced its gold. the one thing that could be done is melt it all into one piece then hit it real hard with a hammer. If pyrite it will shatter. If gold it will mash down as a malleable metal. 

Here is your hint from the original post:
*



the water runoff was causing iron staining on the hill as it ran into the creek

Click to expand...

*gold does not deposit a rusty iron stain - iron deposits a rusty iron stain and pyrite is iron sulfide, an easily decomposed iron mineral.


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## Eu_citzen (Apr 13, 2017)

ALS labs might be able to help you as far as assays go. I think they have offices in Ontario, to.

Otherwise crushing and panning is indeed the simplest form of testing at home for free mill gold.


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## Snowman2 (Apr 25, 2017)

I have similar specimen, treated it with HCL and nitric acids, first concentrated and then soaking in deluted for about one week, does not have hydrogen peroxide or similar oxidisers.

here is photos first after acids treatment and second beforer

host stone is gneiss with quartz, comes from hydropower tunnel construction site.
I tried to melt similar staff before with different fluxes, best result was button of something which split easily in half.


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## Platdigger (Apr 25, 2017)

Sure looks like pyrite to me.


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## Snowman2 (Apr 25, 2017)

Platdigger said:


> Sure looks like pyrite to me.


must be some gold trapped inside too, because this rock triggers Garret pinpointer.


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## Platdigger (Apr 25, 2017)

Well then, crush it up and put in some dilute nitric. Just don't breath any of the fumes that come off.


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## FrugalRefiner (Apr 25, 2017)

Snowman2 said:


> I tried to melt similar staff before with different fluxes, best result was button of something which split easily in half.


Snoman, the answer may have been a few posts above yours.


Reno Chris said:


> Rick - Sulfides melt quite easily. and I've seen plenty of times people melt what they think is gold, but is pyrite, create a melted pyrite button and are convinced its gold. the one thing that could be done is melt it all into one piece then hit it real hard with a hammer. If pyrite it will shatter. If gold it will mash down as a malleable metal.


Dave


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## Snowman2 (Apr 25, 2017)

Platdigger said:


> Well then, crush it up and put in some dilute nitric. Just don't breath any of the fumes that come off.



done, pyrite, small piece of magnetite of the right was triggering pinpointer


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