# The "Rock Man"



## markqf1

Ok Rick,
This post is for you.
What do you know about gneiss?
It's also a part of the "Saprolite" around here.
Maybe the source of the small garnets I find occasionally?

Mark


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## Richard36

markqf1 said:


> Ok Rick,
> This post is for you.
> What do you know about gneiss?
> It's also a part of the "Saprolite" around here.
> Maybe the source of the small garnets I find occasionally?
> Mark



Thanks for starting a new post in regard to my knowledge of rocks & minerals.

Gneiss is a metamorphic rock created by partial remelt, foliation, (bending, folding, and stretching out of the minerals contained within the rock). Gneiss and Schist are closely related, and produced by the same processes. Gneiss is produced at higher temps, and shows remelt features, where as Schist is formed at slightly lower temps, and generally has a coarser appearance. Compare Granite Gneiss to Mica Schist and you will have a good visual reference to what I am referring to. Both are created by compression, though Gneiss is created at much greater depths near the upper mantle through a process called anatexiss, which is the process of subduction of surface material back into the mantle where it is remelted creating new magma, which in turn differentiates into various rock types as it migrates toward the surface. Gneiss and Schist can also be created from pre-existing rock by the compressive shear created by folding and uplift associated with mountain building. Fault zones create a particular type of Gneiss that is actually a rock type all its own called Mylonite. It has much the same features as Gneiss, but is contained in a narrow band of rock with the fault in the very center. Pressure and shear melt and smear out the mineral fragments within it. Gneiss and Schist can be created from any pre-existing rock type, and therefore have individual names, and are named after the rock type from which they are created.There are exceptions to this, some are named after the predominant mineral found within the matrix. Such as Chlorite schist, which started out as Basalt that was subjected to immense heat from an intruding mass of magma and metamorphosed into Greenstone, and then was further metamorphosed by heat created by compression into Chlorite Schist. Though the parent rocks for Gneiss are generally Granite, Syenite, Diorite, Gabbro, and feldspathic shales. Associated minerals of economic interest are Almandine garnet, Corundum (Ruby & Emerald), Staurolite, Epidote, Apatite, Tourmaline, Titanite, Pyrrhotite, Kyanite, Andalusite, and Augite. 

I hope that this has been informative, and helpful to you, as well as all who read it. 

I look forward to further questions. 
If you or anyone else has a question, comment, or suggestion, make a post. I will reply. 

Sincerely; Rick...


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## Palladium

He's good mark. 8) 

Richard, Could you go into black sands and the way gold is associated with it. I would like an expert's take.

I think Chris ( GSP ) might have a question on the origin of some black orbs he found some time back.

Chris, Richard might have seen or know what your talking about.


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## Richard36

Palladium said:


> He's good mark. 8)
> Richard, Could you go into black sands and the way gold is associated with it. I would like an expert's take.
> I think Chris ( GSP ) might have a question on the origin of some black orbs he found some time back.
> Chris, Richard might have seen or know what your talking about.



Thanks for the compliment. 

There are 3 minerals that make up the bulk of all black sands. Magnetite Fe Fe2 O4, Hematite Fe2 O3, 
and Ilmenite Fe Ti O3. Magnetite & Hematite form during the magmatic stage as well as during hydrothermal, and metamorphic processes. Ilmenite forms during the magmatic stage, as well as during metamorphic processes. 

Magnetite is associated with Andradite Garnet, Epidote, and Apatite. It sometimes contains small amounts of Manganese, Nickel, Chromium, Titanium, Vanadium and Phosphorus. It is a common constituent in many igneous rocks, including Diorite, Gabbro, Monzonite, and Nepheline Syenite. It occurs more specifically associated with Hedenbergite and Andradite in Hornfels; With Almandine, Talc, and Andradite in Talc Schist; With Calcite, Andradite, and Chlorite in Skarn; and with Barite, & Fluorite in Hydrothermal Replacement Deposits.

Hematite occurs with Biotite, Albite, and Barite in Carbonatites; with Diopside & Epidote in Hornfels; With Quartz & Siderite in Mesothermal & Epithermal veins; with Fluorite, Barite and Calcite in Lode and Disseminated Replacement Deposits.

Ilmenite occurs with Magnetite, Labradorite, and Hornblende in Gabbro. Also occurs in Pegmatites, Nepheline Syenites, Gneiss, Chlorite Schist, and Diorite.

The reason that Gold is associated with these minerals is that they have mutual emplacement as minerals created by hydrothermal processes within fractures of overlying rock that has been intruded by magma, usually of Granitic composition. Ground Water at great temperature and pressure mixes with Sulfur and Chlorine from the magma to produce solutions that dissolve all minerals, even Quartz, if Fluorine is present within the gasses that mix with the water. As this super heated solution makes its way toward the surface through cracks, fractures, and spaces between the grains of overlying rock, the solution begins to cool, and pressure is relieved. As this begins to happen, the dissolved minerals begin to drop out of solution by depositing on the cooler surface of the surrounding rock through which this solution is flowing. Deposition takes place in accordance to each minerals solidifying temperature, and solubility within the solution. This is the process that produces Mesothermal, and Epithermal vein systems, which in turn are the same vein systems that we all strive to find when hunting Gold, Silver, and other economically valuable concentrations of metallic ores. To put all this in a simple statement, the process that creates concentrations of Gold and Silver is the same process that creates the black sand minerals, and that is why they often contain Precious Metals. They formed together at the same time, from the same solution, in the same place. 

I hope that this has been interesting, informative, and helpful to you, and all who read it. 
I look forward to further questions, comments, and suggestions. 

Sincerely; Rick...


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## Palladium

Talking about hydrothermal deposits i was watching a Discovery show a couple of week ago that described the hot spot that is moving under the North American plate that moves around Yellowstone national park. It showed some of the hot springs and the various colors of minerals that were deposited because of the geothermal activity. I wondered then if it was possible that there were concentrated precious metal pockets because of the superheated water dissolving minerals deep in the earth and then depositing them once they reached the surface and cooled. Now i know. :mrgreen: 

What about Silica encapsulated metals. Do you know how they are formed ?

Thanks Richard. 8) 

Check out the vid's also :arrow: http://www.amnh.org/sciencebulletins/earth/f/yellowstone.20060601/essays/83_1.php

http://www.amnh.org/sciencebulletins/earth/f/yellowstone.20060601/assets/306/index.php


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## Palladium

Palladium said:


> He's good mark. 8)
> 
> Richard, Could you go into black sands and the way gold is associated with it. I would like an expert's take.
> 
> I think Chris ( GSP ) might have a question on the origin of some black orbs he found some time back.
> 
> Chris, Richard might have seen or know what your talking about.



Here's Chris's question. Hey! your from Oregon too. :arrow: 




goldsilverpro said:


> Once, about 25 years ago, I became fascinated with those tiny, perfectly spherical, black balls that are found in black sands, at least in the Oregon area. I found the black balls everywhere, even when I swept the floor in my apartment. Even with gold present, they were the last thing in the pan. Gotta be PGM.
> 
> I needed a 100 power scope to examine them. I treated them with various chemicals and powdered metals. Once, the surface of several balls turned a 24K gold color. I saw all sorts of unusual things. I seem to remember that the black balls weren't as magnetic as the sand, itself. Certain alloys of PGM's are totally insoluble in all acids. Probably need a fused salt.


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## Richard36

goldsilverpro said:


> Once, about 25 years ago, I became fascinated with those tiny, perfectly spherical, black balls that are found in black sands, at least in the Oregon area. I found the black balls everywhere, even when I swept the floor in my apartment. Even with gold present, they were the last thing in the pan. Gotta be PGM.
> 
> I needed a 100 power scope to examine them. I treated them with various chemicals and powdered metals. Once, the surface of several balls turned a 24K gold color. I saw all sorts of unusual things. I seem to remember that the black balls weren't as magnetic as the sand, itself. Certain alloys of PGM's are totally insoluble in all acids. Probably need a fused salt.




I am not sure. I found a few black spheres in A white Gabbro close to where I live awhile back myself. When subjected to gentle crushing pressure, a thin black shell pops away revealing a small spherical silver colored bead of native metal. I could not get this metal to dissolve in anything that I had. It would not react with Hydrogen peroxide, Ammonium Hydroxide, Sulfuric, Hydrochloric, Nitric, or Aqua Regia. I have never tried doing any fused flux bead tests on on them. I just figured that they were some sort of native Ti, though I do know better now. I do have a fragment with those spheres in it. It might be worth the cost of further testing to find out what metal they are, and I am capable of doing so. I am not sure if they would be the same thing that GSP found. I have never found any in my black sand from panning, sluicing, or dredging. I wish that I could have been of more help to you. I look forward to further questions. Sincerely; Rick...


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## Richard36

I just thought that I would say hello to all, and that I look forward to recieving a few more rock and mineral related questions from those reading this thread. I have not recieved any new questions for awhile, and look forward to reading and responding to them. No question is to small, or insignifigant. The only stupid question is the one not asked. 

Keep your eyes open for those soft (3 on Mohs scale of hardness, and can be scratched with a piece of copper wire)[though sometimes they can be as hard as 5 and require a knife blade to scratch them, and in this case they will feel quite heavy as well.] reddish brown rocks, such as cinnabar and ollitic ironstone. 
They can assay out as high as 30 oz per ton gold! 

I bet that gets some attention! lol!

Anyway, it is good to be back. I hope to answer some questions soon. 
General chat is welcome as well.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## allanwcoty

I'd sure be interested in hearing more about the black sphere's. I left a sample of some with a retired professor but haven't heard back from him. I was told they were possibly from welding in the area but have some from an area that has no known activity.


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## pinman

Richard do you have a collection of stones? If so it would be very interesting to see what someone with your knowledge of geology would hold in his collection. Do you have any photos you could post?


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## Richard36

allanwcoty said:


> I'd sure be interested in hearing more about the black sphere's. I left a sample of some with a retired professor but haven't heard back from him. I was told they were possibly from welding in the area but have some from an area that has no known activity.



If those spheres were from welding they should be magnetic, and to prove that they were iron would be a simple mater of dissolving them in nitric acid, and then adding ammonium hydroxide which would produce a reddish brown iron precipitate, that in turn could be dried, mixed with borax, and melted with a torch producing a bead of metalic iron, which in turn would be magnetic. Even If they were a nickel alloy of some kind, they would still disolve in nitric. The beads that I had were not magnetic, neither were they soluable in nitric, hydrochloric, sulfuric, or aqua regia. They came out of a white rock with composition somewhere between Gabbro and Carbonatite in a volcanic mountain range created from compresion and uplift aproximately 32 million years ago, which is the general age of the cascades from northern california through Oregon and up into northern Washington.

As I have stated, I have not done any tests on them by attempting to fuse them with various fluxes to look for specific colors, or dissolve the fusion in various acids to observe the color it turns in order to identify what metal it is. The rock that they came out of was only about the size of a baseball, and was found by metal detecting a mountain stream hunting for nuggets. I do have a small fragment of that rock left, and maybe some of the powdered material. If I am lucky, the powder will contain a few more of those spheres which I could recover and do further testing on. If so, I will post the results of my findings. Whatever it is, I am certain that it is valuable. It rang well within the precious metals range on my detector. The only reason that I have not done further testing allready is that chemicals are expensive, I only had the one chunck, and to date have not located the outcrop from which it originated. Had I found the outcrop, I would have done further testing in order to figure out exactly what it was.



pinman said:


> Richard do you have a collection of stones? If so it would be very interesting to see what someone with your knowledge of geology would hold in his collection. Do you have any photos you could post?



lol! Yes I have a collection of stones! Gold, Silver, Copper, Platinum, Lead, Antimony & Bismuth, Barium, Calcium, Zinc, etc. I will take some photos and attempt to upload them to this thread. Posting photos to this forum is something that I have not tried doing as of yet, but is an exellent idea. If I do that, school will be in session. lol! I have collected some interesting ore samples over the last 15 years, and would feel honored to share what I have learned with all who are interested. My collection spans Sulfides, oxides, and carbonates. I do not have any nitrates or borates in my collection of ores, but that day will come. Anyway, thanks for the idea. 

Thanks for the questions, and suggestions. 
Further questions, comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## Oz

Have you checked the density of the spheres?


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## Palladium

I'm finding these little spheres to be interesting. Especially the fact that you and Chris ( Goldsilverpro ) both have encountered these. Now that Chris has his assay lab set up maybe you to can compare notes or do some test on them. I think Chris said he might have had some of the spheres that he found. You might be able to compare them. And to close i must say Rick you are definitely the Rock Man as far as I’m concerned. 

Thanks for the knowledge. 8)


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## Richard36

Oz said:


> Have you checked the density of the spheres?



Thanks for the reply. 

No, I have not checked for the density of those spheres. A really good thought though. Checking them for their density would be nearly impossible due to the fact that they are are so small. most are smaller than a single grain of sugar. It would take several to make up the mass of a single pellet of #7 bird shot. Specific gravity???? I have no idea about how to accomplish such a thing with material so small, as well as the fact that I have so few of them to be working with. As I said, that is a really good idea, I just do not see how I could accomplish such a test. I wish that I could because that would help out alot. Excellent question though. I like it. All metals varry in specific gravity, so I do know where you were going with that.




Palladium said:


> I'm finding these little spheres to be interesting. Especially the fact that you and Chris
> ( Goldsilverpro ) both have encountered these. Now that Chris has his assay lab set up maybe you to can compare notes or do some test on them. I think Chris said he might have had some of the spheres that he found. You might be able to compare them. And to close i must say Rick you are definitely the Rock Man as far as I’m concerned.
> 
> Thanks for the knowledge.




Thanks for the compliment, and thanks for the post.

That could be an option. Has he tried applying pressure to them in order to crush free the black shell around them? Mine are black spheres that will yeild a silver collored sphere of native element if pressure is applied to them. What Chris and I have are probably the same thing. They are heavy enough to pan, and that is how I disscovered them in the powder I got from crushing that chunck of rock. I panned some of the powder and they are what was left in my pan. I do not recall checking to see if they would adhere to mercury, After seeing that they would produce silver beads of native element, I went straight to my chemical tests to see if I could identify what they were.

Thanks again for the questions, and suggestions. 
Further questions, comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## goldsilverpro

I presently have none of the black spheres. That's been about 25 years ago. I was fascinated with them, mainly because of their high density, and spent a lot of time messing with them and observing them with a 100 power scope. I remember treating them with something?? and a few of them, not all, turned a gold color.


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## allanwcoty

I'll try and find some of my sphere's. I found a picture of one of mine on photobucket but have not worked with photo's for over a year and will have to be retrained. If somebody can post it I'll e-mail it to them.


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## Rhodium

E mail :arrow: [email protected]


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## Richard36

goldsilverpro said:


> I presently have none of the black spheres. That's been about 25 years ago. I was fascinated with them, mainly because of their high density, and spent a lot of time messing with them and observing them with a 100 power scope. I remember treating them with something?? and a few of them, not all, turned a gold color.



To bad you do not have any of those spheres left. I am just as perplexed as everyone else is as to what they are. 
I wish that I had at least 1/2 a tsp full to work with. I would be playing mad scientist for the next few days untill I had identified what they are. lol!



allanwcoty said:


> I'll try and find some of my sphere's. I found a picture of one of mine on photobucket but have not worked with photo's for over a year and will have to be retrained. If somebody can post it I'll e-mail it to them.



Join the crowd! I have never posted photos here either, but have to learn due to the fact that I have been asked to post photos of the ore samples I have within my collection of rocks and minerals. It should be fun and informative once that takes place.

Thanks for the replies.
Further questions, comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## markqf1

Thanks Rick,
We'll be awaiting the pics.

Ralph,
Strange cat, ... reminds me of a movie. :evil: 

Mark


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## Richard36

markqf1 said:


> Thanks Rick,
> We'll be awaiting the pics.
> 
> Ralph,
> Strange cat, ... reminds me of a movie. :evil:
> 
> Mark



Thanks Mark. 
Hopefully I will have those photos ready to post soon.

As far as the "strange kitty" reminding you of a movie,... "Pet Cemetary" maybe? lol! 

As allways, 
I look forward to further questions, comments, and suggestions.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## Rhodium

You can add pictures as an attachment just like you would a PDF or anything else. Just like kitty above.


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## Richard36

Rhodium said:


> You can add pictures as an attachment just like you would a PDF or anything else. Just like kitty above.



Thanks for the reply.
Hopefully I will be able to post those photos soon.
I look forward to reading, and responding to further questions, comments and suggestions.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## allanwcoty

I edited prior post with a couple of Microscope photo's, please let me know if it's preferred to have thumbnail prints.


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## Richard36

allanwcoty said:


> I edited prior post with a couple of Microscope photo's, please let me know if it's preferred to have thumbnail prints.



Thanks for the photos.

These spheres do look alot like the ones from that rock that I crushed and panned.
The only major diffrence is that these have an irridecent surface from oxidation due to exposure to the atmosphere. 

It would be my guess that these spheres came from a region with Rocks of Granitic composition due to the fact that the transparent colored minerals look like fragments of tourmaline and topaz, Which are often found within, and associated with rocks of Granitic composition, and indicate formation in a zone of high heat which cooled rather slowly. 

Granite Pegmatite maybe? 
You could hope! 

If that is the case, those spheres may be some type of "Rare Earth" metal, or compound thereof. 
If that is the case, that would explain alot for me as to why I did not identify the spheres that I had. 

I do not know much about the testing procedures for the "Rare Earth" metals, Such as Cerium, Ytrium, Lanthalum, etc. which are common within Granite, and Granite Pegmatites, and did not do any specific tests for them as a result. 

The possibility of them being a "Rare Earth" had not occured to me until just now.
"Rare Earth" metals are associated with Granitic rocks formed in a zone of high heat that cooled slowly, and that does not fit the geology of where I found mine, but the type of rock is correct for it to have contained those type of metals. 

Now I need to rethink the geology of the region in which I found the rock containing those spheres that I found.
Interesting thought! 

Thanks!

Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## Richard36

pinman said:


> Richard do you have a collection of stones? If so it would be very interesting to see what someone with your knowledge of geology would hold in his collection. Do you have any photos you could post?



Well lets see if this works.

I have taken a few photos, they are a bit grainy, I appologize for that, but this is the best that I could do with the camera I have.

I will edit this post as I go, adding more photos as they are ready.

Enjoy!

Questions, Comments, and suggestions are welcome.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## Harold_V

Rick,

I'll take a shot, but remember, I'm about as stupid as a guy can be and still get a computer turned on. 

Bmp files tend to be quite large, but they can be posted as jpg files at a huge reduction in file size. While I don't know that's the reason, if you open a bmp file with a photo managing program, then save it as a jpg file, it's likely to post just fine. 

Do shrink the pixel size, so it is no larger than 800 pixels in width, and 600 pixels in height. That may be the board limit on photo size, so it would be rejected by the software if those parameters were exceeded. And, keep in mind, a photo of good quality need not be huge in file size. Often one that has been saved reduced in file size as low as 50 kb will display perfectly well. That helps those that are limited to a dial-up connection, permitting faster downloads. 

Hope this helps. 

Harold

PS----If you need a photo managing program, IrfanView is a damned good one, and it's a free download. Here's a link: http://www.irfanview.com/


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## Richard36

Thanks Harold.

I managed to figure that out on my own, But if I had not, That info would have been greatly appreciated, and I am glad that you responded to it.

I am going to go back to taking a few more photos. 
Hopefully I will have them ready to post shortly.

Thanks again!

Sincerely; Rick.


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## Richard36

Here are a few more photos.

Enjoy!

Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## Richard36

Here are a few Photos.

Enjoy!

Questions, comments, ansd suggestions are welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## Brandt

Couldnt find the pictures of the red rock iron Brandt


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## Richard36

Brandt said:


> Couldnt find the pictures of the red rock iron Brandt



The last three of the first five photos that I posted speaking of that "Red Ore" look to me to be the same material that you posted in your photo in a diffrent thread.

I am pretty sure that it is created by by iron rich precious metal bearing hydrothermal solutions reacting with the calcium content in the surounding rock, which causes the Gold, Silver, and Iron to drop out in high concentration due to the fact that calcium dissolved into hydrthermal solutions will cause all other metals to drop out. 

Calcium is way high toward the top of the list in the "Electromotive Dissplacement Series" of metals dissolved within an acidic solution, which hydrothermal solutions are. 

Calcium is also a strong reducing agent, so we have both factors going for us in the creation of this type of ore. 

This is the exact reason that "Skarn" is the "Holy Grail" of mineral bearing "Rock Types". 
Pound for pound, it will hold more metallic minerals than any other type of rock. 

The only other "Rock Type" that even comes close Is "Pegmatite". 
"Granite Pegmatite", and "Nepheline Syenite Pegmatite" especially, though a great majority of its mineral constituents will be of the nonmetallic variety, and an abundance of them will be "Gemstones" which are abundant within these two Pegmatites.

I hope that this has been helpfull.
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick.


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## Richard36

For those who may be interested, 

I have posted additions to my list of books to read under "The Rock Man's Library". 
If you have found my posts on "Rocks and Minerals" interesting, The books in my list are recomended reading.

I hope that they help you, and all who read them.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick. a.k.a. "The Rock Man".


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## Richard36

Just a thought,

I have noticed quite a few posts with photos of minerals on other threads.

With a little cooperation, I would like for them to be posted here as well, and start to create a visual library of various minerals, especially those that have application as ores of metals.

Since I like to "Talk Rocks", 
It would be fun for me to Reply with a post stating what I know about each photo posted.

I also think that by doing so, it could, and hopefully would become a great resource for all those with an interest in prospecting.

I would like to see some photo's soon.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are allways welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick. a.k.a. "The Rock Man".


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## allanwcoty

I have crushed some rocks in the past and when panning out with soap in the water have come up with a dark floating froth/scum which I didn't pay much attention to but to get it off of my panning water. Today I saw a post that mentioned silver sulfide. I did save a dish of some scum and it has dried. Is there a quick way to test between Fe - Cu - Ag sulfides? Thanks & Have a great day. allan


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## Richard36

allanwcoty said:


> I have crushed some rocks in the past and when panning out with soap in the water have come up with a dark floating froth/scum which I didn't pay much attention to but to get it off of my panning water. Today I saw a post that mentioned silver sulfide. I did save a dish of some scum and it has dried. Is there a quick way to test between Fe - Cu - Ag sulfides? Thanks & Have a great day. allan



What you are describing is the same principle in the process of using forced air through a froth of Ore, water, and vegtable oils / or pine oils to float off the Precious Metal bearing ore minerals. The froth is recovered, dried, possibly roasted, then leached, or smelted to recover the values.

A simple way to test these ores for Fe, Cu, and Ag Sulfides is to dissolve the sulfides in Nitric acid, then to do a spot test with a few drops of the Nitric Acid, to which you add a few drops of Hydrochloric acid, or with the weaker comercial form called Muriatic acid.

This will produce a white precipitate of silver chloride.

Silver chloride will darken with time when exposed to sunlight.

It is also soluable in Ammonium Hydroxide, Where as Tin, Lead, and Mercury Chloride are not, thus allowing you to seperate it from them, if they are present.

It can be recovered from the Ammonium Hydroxide solution by reacidifing it with HCL.

The Silver Chloride can be converted to metalic Silver by placing it in a glass, or plastic dish with a solution of 15prts water, and 1prt Sulfuric acid and a strip of aluminum. 
Sloshing the Silver chloride over the Aluminum will cause the Silver Chloride to revert to a gray powder of metalic Silver, which can then be melted to produce the shiny white metalic form.

With a few more drops of the nitric leach solution, add some Ammonium Hydroxide to them. 

If Iron is present, it will produce a brownish iron precipitate. 
If Copper is present, it will produce a blue solution with a blue precipitate.

The precipitate, whether brown or blue, can be recovered, and dried. 

It can be mixed 1prt precipitate to 2prts Borax and melted with a propane torch.

If the precipitate was brown, then a bead of metalic Iron will be produced. 
If the precipitate was blue, then a bead of metalic Copper will be produced.

I hope that this has been helpfull.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## AKDan

None of the pictures that were posted earlier in this thread seem to be available any longer. I get this message on every one I select.

The selected attachment does not exist anymore.

The file ./../files/6611_3fd157a9d78a20195ea3d0c5b15dde0a does not exist.

Rick, or anyone have any idea about what may be happening here?


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## Richard36

AKDan said:


> None of the pictures that were posted earlier in this thread seem to be available any longer. I get this message on every one I select.
> 
> The selected attachment does not exist anymore.
> 
> The file ./../files/6611_3fd157a9d78a20195ea3d0c5b15dde0a does not exist.
> 
> Rick, or anyone have any idea about what may be happening here?



This sucks, but it's possibly from Hackers. 

I had an "Adobe Flash Player 6.0" thing flash on my computer screen a couple of days ago with a couple of "Embeded Trojans" in it. (HEUR/PDF. Obfuscated) 

When all was finished, I got a message that the file was Damaged, and could not be repaired.
My Anti Virus program caught it, so I suffered no harm, but others could if they do not have some sort of Anti Virus program to protect themselvs.

I also had a similiar experience with a Windows 2000 Update.

Mozilla Firefox has this site listed as a "Known Attack Site" because of this type of Trash.

Just a Thought.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


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## Richard36

Sorry about the Doom and Gloom post.

If it remains an issue, I can reload the photo's.
Hopefully whatever issue is taking place will be resolved so that I do not have to repost them.

Does anyone have any further Ore Related questions?
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## Richard36

I made the following post on a different thread, and thought that it had application here as well.

The following reactions take place with high grade ore.

Aqua regia (Neutralized) + Stanous Chloride = Purple to Black for Au. [Relavent to gold content]
--------------------------------------------------- = Yellow for Pt.
--------------------------------------------------- = Blue-Green for Pd.
---------------------------- + Potassium Iodide = Red Solution for Pt.
---------------------------- + Potassium Iodide = Black Solution for Pd.
---------------------------- + Acetone or Ethanol = Black precipitate for Rh.

Nitric acid + Hydrochloric Acid = A white precipitate of Silver Chloride.

Hydrochloric Acid = Orange Solution, + Nitric Acid = Black Precipitate for Ru.
(Precipitate redissolves quickly unless the HCL has been neutralized.)

This will get you started, lol!

I hope that this has been helpfull.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

By reading the landscape it is possible to locate enriched areas of economic minerals.

These enriched areas are always in a zone that has gone through some grade of Hydrothermal alteration, 
Which is the process of maggmattic gasses mixing with the water present within the melt to create acidic solutions that dissolve all metallic, and nonmetallic minerals at depth, and redeposit them close to the surface by precipitating out from solution as the pressure and temperature decreases. Oxides form toward the end of the cooling cycle, and sulfides form early while water is still present. 

Indicator minerals to look for will be those that have a melting point + or - 500F of the melting point of gold, if hunting gold, or of platinum, if you are hunting Pt.

With that being said,
Stream drainage patterns are directly related to the underlying rock of any given region, and reflect the type of geologic activity that took place there in the distant past.

I will focus one one.
That pattern is the "Dendritic Stream/River Drainage Pattern".

Here are a few photo's.


----------



## Richard36

Hello Everyone.

Anyone found anything of interest lately that you would like me to look at, 
or any questions that you would like to ask?

Just thought that I would say hello, and let everyone know that I am still here, 
just haven't been all that active here as of late.

Anyway folks, 
Make a post if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I will reply.

Sincerely; Rick, "The Rock Man".


----------



## Palladium

Here's a fellow you can talk shop with Rick. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=6770&p=60530&hilit=ask+rick#p60522


----------



## Richard36

Palladium said:


> Here's a fellow you can talk shop with Rick. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=6770&p=60530&hilit=ask+rick#p60522



Thanks Palladium.

I've had a dry streak as of late for being asked questions. 
Kinda surprised.

Questions, comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Sincerely; Rick, "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
Here are a couple of rocks I got with an element collection. I thought it was kind of odd, cosidering the rest of the collection was metals. Maybe you can help me ID them.
MVC-03s through MVC-08S are the first rock. It has obvious silver colored metal in it.
MVC-09 through MVC-11 are the second rock. It looks black and glassy like obsidean.


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
Here are the rest of the pictures.
MVC-15S is two melted pieces of metal that are either rhodium or
ruthenium, they came with the rocks, and a bunch of other metals.

Thanks.
Jim


----------



## Roy

here's one that I have had my uncle cut it in half there's lots of stuff mixed in it but i'll let ya look at it.


----------



## Anonymous

Hi - I'm new to the forum and have some pictures of some quartz rock. I live in Colorado, in the mountains, about 30 miles south of Idaho Springs. I am not aware of any gold ever being found in my area here. While doing some blasting for a septic system, the blaster drilled into and blasted a lot of white quartz rock. He was not happy, as he said it dulled his bits and required a lot more holes and powder.

Anyhow, after I got to looking at the quartz and granite rocks that flew out, I noticed a lot of them had layers of gold colored material attached. The material is soft, can be bent and broken and comes off in layers, or flakes. I don't know much about geology, so I am posting these here in the hope of someone being able to tell me what this gold colored material is.

Thanks.


----------



## shaftsinkerawc

Sounds like mica. Crush some of the quartz and then some of the granite and pan them both seperately and see what you come up with.


----------



## markqf1

Looks like mica to me too.
A specific gravity test (panning is a good tool for this) is your best first avenue for the detection of any native au.
If you find some heavys in your material, then dissolution in hcl/cl and a stannous test will usually confirm any gold content.
Keep in mind that, alot of the available gold could be in a form that isn't detectable to the human eye.
Hoke, is a very good place to start.

Mark


----------



## machiavelli976

sounds like mica but the pictures posted lookes like calcite


----------



## Richard36

Hello Jimdoc,

Sorry I haven't been around lately to answer questions.

Anyway, your samples look like they came out of some sort of Dolomite or Carbonatite type of hybrid rock from within a granitic region. As to what exact mineral, and thus what metallic elements they contain. I do not know without chemical testing to verify my guesses. It could be a mix of copper, lead, manganese, possibly zinc, thorium, and uranium. 

I have found a few samples of similar material in zones of anatexis, 
(zones that are being subducted back into the upper mantel.)

I do not know of any specific Precious Metal ore that looks like any of the photos.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Sincerely; Rick, "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
Thanks. Its good to see you back, I hope you were just on
vacation and having fun rock hunting.

Jim


----------



## Richard36

Hello Roy,

Your photo looks like a photo of massive Albite with copper, iron, and manganese causing the blue-green coloring.
It is often associated with regions of anatexis, and compression in areas with underlying rocks of Granitic composition.
Softball and larger pieces are sought by Rockhounds and Lapidairies.

The Blue River District just south of me is a prime example of a region where this type of material can be found.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

jimdoc said:


> Rick,
> Thanks. Its good to see you back, I hope you were just on
> vacation and having fun rock hunting.
> 
> Jim



Thanks Jim.

For the most part I was just busy with friends and family.
Going camping for three days tomorrow morning with a family member and a couple of his friends.

Rick.


----------



## Richard36

joneekay said:


> ... Anyhow, after I got to looking at the quartz and granite rocks that flew out, I noticed a lot of them had layers of gold colored material attached. The material is soft, can be bent and broken and comes off in layers, or flakes. I don't know much about geology, so I am posting these here in the hope of someone being able to tell me what this gold colored material is.
> 
> Thanks.



Hello Joneekay,

From what I can tell by looking at your photos, It looks like quartz admixed with albite.
The soft flexible flakes are either Muscovite or Biotite Mica.

I do not see any specific mineralization within these samples, but if the specific gravity of those samples is greater than 5, it may well be worth having some assay, or chemical testing done on it to determine what elements it contains, if it would be possible to access the quartz vein, and mine it.

Just a thought.
I hope that this has been helpful.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Palladium

Rick, you old dog you. We were fixing to send out a search party for you.  
I figure it's summer time your out there like a kid in a candy store looking for rock samples. Good to see you again.


----------



## Roy

thanks for the response rick glad to know what i have now.


----------



## Richard36

Palladium said:


> Rick, you old dog you. We were fixing to send out a search party for you.
> I figure it's summer time your out there like a kid in a candy store looking for rock samples. Good to see you again.



Thanks.

It feels good to know that I am appreciated.
As for being something like a kid in a candy store, well that's pretty close to the way it is when I go out prospecting in zones that have underwent Hydrothermal Alteration. Multiple mineral veins occur such regions.

Anyone want to go prospecting together?
All my prospecting friends have moved away, and it isn't as much fun to do alone.

We might not find Gold, but we will find something, I always do.

Anyway,
Thanks Palladium.
I appreciate the warm welcome back.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

Roy said:


> thanks for the response rick glad to know what i have now.



You're welcome.
Thanks for sharing the photo.

Rick.


----------



## Roy

Richard36 said:


> Roy said:
> 
> 
> 
> thanks for the response rick glad to know what i have now.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're welcome.
> Thanks for sharing the photo.
> 
> Rick.
Click to expand...


Np when it was whole it was the size of a deformed grapefruit or a little bigger. that was a close up of the rock. I plan to head to coos river this weekend for some rock hounding and gold prospecting, then probably head to gold beach next week for the gold prospecting.


----------



## pinman

Wish I lived in Oregon.


----------



## Roy

pinman said:


> Wish I lived in Oregon.



that can be debatable lol.


----------



## Richard36

Roy said:


> Richard36 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Roy said:
> 
> 
> 
> thanks for the response rick glad to know what i have now.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're welcome.
> Thanks for sharing the photo.
> 
> Rick.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Np when it was whole it was the size of a deformed grapefruit or a little bigger. that was a close up of the rock. I plan to head to coos river this weekend for some rock hounding and gold prospecting, then probably head to gold beach next week for the gold prospecting.
Click to expand...



Good luck on your outing. 
I hope that you find some of the yellow stuff, as well as a few other good mineral and ore specimens.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

pinman said:


> Wish I lived in Oregon.



Nothing wrong with N.California.
The geology there is pretty good as well, if that is why you wish you were here.
From Jacksonville up to Galice, Oregon is an excellent place to look just over the border from you.
Northern Cal. has so much rock of granitic origin that finding high grade mineral veins where it is in close association with carbonitite, Dolomite, Skarn, or Marble should be as easy as finding sand on the beach.
It would be for me.

Just a thought, and one that I thought you should know.
I hope that this has been helpful.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## pinman

I just meant it would probably be a blast prospecting/hounding with someone with your knowledge of geology.


----------



## Richard36

pinman said:


> I just meant it would probably be a blast prospecting/hounding with someone with your knowledge of geology.




Thanks Pinman.
Plan a trip this way. I would enjoy the outing.

I would love to flip open a Topographic map of an area we would be prospecting, look for the areas with dendritic stream drainage patterns, and prospect the exposed rock outcrops and road cuts in that region, as well as sample stream and river sediments in that area.

The above is sound advice for all who seek the yellow stuff, and will definitely help you find multiple Metallic, and Non-Metallic Hardrock Ores. I seek it all when I am out prospecting. Precious, strategic, and rare-earth metals, as well as non-metallic industrial minerals.

Anyway, thanks for the compliment, and the offer stands to go prospecting together, with you, and others as well.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Roy

Richard36 said:


> pinman said:
> 
> 
> 
> I just meant it would probably be a blast prospecting/hounding with someone with your knowledge of geology.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Pinman.
> Plan a trip this way. I would enjoy the outing.
> 
> I would love to flip open a Topographic map of an area we would be prospecting, look for the areas with dendritic stream drainage patterns, and prospect the exposed rock outcrops and road cuts in that region, as well as sample stream and river sediments in that area.
> 
> The above is sound advice for all who seek the yellow stuff, and will definitely help you find multiple Metallic, and Non-Metallic Hardrock Ores. I seek it all when I am out prospecting. Precious, strategic, and rare-earth metals, as well as non-metallic industrial minerals.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for the compliment, and the offer stands to go prospecting together, with you, and others as well.
> 
> Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".
Click to expand...


your always welcomed to join me next week to the rogue river/gold beach area for gold/platinum prospecting and some rock hunting send me an IM if when ya have the time. and maybe I can absorb some of that rock knowledge from ya lol.


----------



## darshevo

I spent this last Sunday out with the family in an old mining area. For years its been our refuge to go camping, 4 wheeling, and collecting new and interesting rocks for the garden. This trip out a friend showed us a new area that he stumbled across last fall while hunting. It appears to be an area of test drills. There are quite a few holes that are up to 3 feet in diameter as well as a cave area that's about the size of a small house. I would guess that at least some of the material was taken away from the site by the fact that there isn't nearly enough laying on the ground around it to represent whats missing. Since joining the forum I have taken a different eye to the world as far as minerals in general are concerned (although what led me here was escrap). 

From reading through the hundreds of posts I have seen I know that Rick is the local expert on rocks and was hoping he would take a moment to take a look at these samples I brought home with me. Somewhere along the line I was told that gold was found in areas of quartz, so these have piqued my interest some.

All of the photos save for the last one came out of the same cave area, either off the floor or from the pile at the entrance. Most pieces are fist sized or thereabouts, the last ones that are pictured in a heap are generally football sized.

These 3 are of the same rock:

















These 2 go together











My girl friends 7 year old daughter found this one, she thought she'd struck it rich  Is this pyrite?






This one is very non descript, and is concentrated in 1 corner of the cave






I find the rust on this one interesting, it is not magnetic though.






Another one off the floor






These are an example of different rocks picked up along the way for landscaping purposes, an indication of the general composition of the area


----------



## Roy

darshevo said:


> I spent this last Sunday out with the family in an old mining area. For years its been our refuge to go camping, 4 wheeling, and collecting new and interesting rocks for the garden. This trip out a friend showed us a new area that he stumbled across last fall while hunting. It appears to be an area of test drills. There are quite a few holes that are up to 3 feet in diameter as well as a cave area that's about the size of a small house. I would guess that at least some of the material was taken away from the site by the fact that there isn't nearly enough laying on the ground around it to represent whats missing. Since joining the forum I have taken a different eye to the world as far as minerals in general are concerned (although what led me here was escrap).
> 
> From reading through the hundreds of posts I have seen I know that Rick is the local expert on rocks and was hoping he would take a moment to take a look at these samples I brought home with me. Somewhere along the line I was told that gold was found in areas of quartz, so these have piqued my interest some.
> 
> All of the photos save for the last one came out of the same cave area, either off the floor or from the pile at the entrance. Most pieces are fist sized or thereabouts, the last ones that are pictured in a heap are generally football sized.
> 
> These 3 are of the same rock:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> These 2 go together
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My girl friends 7 year old daughter found this one, she thought she'd struck it rich  Is this pyrite?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This one is very non descript, and is concentrated in 1 corner of the cave
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I find the rust on this one interesting, it is not magnetic though.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Another one off the floor
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> These are an example of different rocks picked up along the way for landscaping purposes, an indication of the general composition of the area



the first three are nice quartz those are the types of rock i look for when i go rock hounding those are very nice. the one 7yr old picked up looks like it has pyrite in it but you never know. I had tons of quartz with pyrite in them was bummed but they looked nice after being tumbled.


----------



## Richard36

darshevo said:


> Since joining the forum I have taken a different eye to the world as far as minerals in general are concerned (although what led me here was escrap).
> 
> From reading through the hundreds of posts I have seen I know that Rick is the local expert on rocks and was hoping he would take a moment to take a look at these samples I brought home with me.



Hello Darshevo,

Thanks for the compliment, and hopefully your new found interest in minerals has been a result of my various posts.

These two photos are most likely the ore body being worked. 
The reddish Ironstone patches are most likely what contained the values.











We have a similar ore around here that is commonly listed as "Cherty", 
and this is similar in nature, though it is not "Chert".

It appears to be quartz admixed with albite, that has came into contact with Peridotite, or Pyroxenite.
I say Peridotite, or Pyroxenite because of the somewhat oval greenish blotch in the rock shown in the first three photos.
That blotch is of a different type of rock, originating from a separate maggma.




darshevo said:


> Somewhere along the line I was told that gold was found in areas of quartz, so these have piqued my interest some.



You were told correctly.
Gold, especially native gold, is intimately associated with Quartz veins, especially those cutting through Granite, Andesite, Diorite,and Greenstone. These mineral veins often do contain some sort of sulfide mineral, and Iron Pyrite is the most common sulfide mineral present within these type of vein systems, with copper sulfides being rather common as well. 

Most hardrock veins that I have saw were sulfide veins with no visible free gold.
If it is sulfide, test it, and have it assayed, especially if it contains copper sulfides.

The hardrock sulfide veins that I have found around here contain between 1/4 of an oz, to 1.25 oz per ton Gold, 
and 1/4 of an oz to 4 oz per ton silver.

That brings us to this photo.



darshevo said:


> My girl friends 7 year old daughter found this one, she thought she'd struck it rich  Is this pyrite?








Yes, it is Iron Pyrite, with most likely Energite, a copper sulfide, which would be the rectangular crystals, and the cubic ones are the Iron Pyrite. The yellow blotch on the bottom appears to be Chalcopyrite, also a copper sulfide. 

It looks like good material, if they were mining gold bearing sulfide.
Go see if you can find the vein it came from. That vein is worth checking out.
I know that I would.

Another fact of interest for you, and everyone else, if a rock has quite a bit of heft, 
as in having a specific gravity above 7, it is worth investigating what it is that is making it so dense.

I hope that this has been helpful.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## darshevo

Thank you very much for the info Rick. We'll be up there multiple times this summer so I will see if I can trace the original vein. I will also get some pictures of the area so you can see the lay of the land. 

Overnight I came up with a couple more questions. Would it be worthwhile to crush the rock with the pyrite in it and pan it? My brother has a 60 ton press that I would imagine would make short order of the rock. Also, the cave area where I got the rocks from has multiple large diameter holes drilled in it. On the lower side there is are a couple pretty large pools of water. Would it be worthwhile to try to recover sand/gravel from those pools to pan? 

When the little one gets home from school today we'll get her some small samples and get them labeled up for her budding rock collection

Thank you again for the help!

-Lance


----------



## Richard36

darshevo said:


> Thank you very much for the info Rick. We'll be up there multiple times this summer so I will see if I can trace the original vein. I will also get some pictures of the area so you can see the lay of the land.
> 
> Overnight I came up with a couple more questions. Would it be worthwhile to crush the rock with the pyrite in it and pan it? My brother has a 60 ton press that I would imagine would make short order of the rock. Also, the cave area where I got the rocks from has multiple large diameter holes drilled in it. On the lower side there is are a couple pretty large pools of water. Would it be worthwhile to try to recover sand/gravel from those pools to pan?
> 
> When the little one gets home from school today we'll get her some small samples and get them labeled up for her budding rock collection
> 
> Thank you again for the help!
> 
> -Lance




You're welcome.
I look forward to seeing the photos.

As for crushing some of the rock, and panning out the sulfides, yes, that would be a good idea. 
If you were to crush 100 lbs of ore, and separate the sulfides from it, 
you could determine how many lbs of sulfide you can recover per ton of ore. 

At that point you could have the sulfides assayed, and then know the concentration of PMs per ton of sulfide.

This is part of what's called a "feasibility study". 
This is done in order to determine the cost of processing the head ore to recover the sulfide ore concentrate. 
There are further aspects of the study as well, such as the cost of transporting the ore, and recovery of the values from within it.

The sulfide minerals are what contain the PMs. 
Concentrating them from the head ore is a process called "Benification of the Ore".

As far as panning sediments from the pools?
Try it. It might have a little native gold, maybe some sulfides within it.
If it does, recover it. The gold especially, if it is there.
If only sulfide, that would be an easy way to get a sample of the sulfides that are available in that area.

As for the "Little One's" Rock Collection, teach her well.
I started out as a "RockHound" in search of Agates, Quartz crystals, Jasper, Carnelian, Obsidian, 
and all other types of glassy rocks.

I hope that this has been helpful.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
Any idea what this is?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390204184797&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Jim


----------



## Richard36

jimdoc said:


> Rick,
> Any idea what this is?
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390204184797&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
> 
> Jim



Yup, I sure do.
Thanks for the photo.

It is a mineral in the Skutterudite series.
It is a three-member series consisting of Skutterudite, the Cobalt-rich end member, 
Smaltite, the intermediate member, and Chloanthite, the Nickel-rich end member. 

(Co,Ni)As3 (Skutterudite, Smaltite) 
(Ni,Co)As3 (chloanthite)

All three are high grade sulfide ores of the metals that they contain, 
and samples showing crystal structure such as this specimen are highly sought after by collectors.

This particular mineral series is associated with high temperature mineral veins, and often contains some percentage of Platinum, as well as gold, and sometimes silver in addition to the essential metals within its chemical composition.

It develops in mesothermal veins in association with 
Cobaltite, Nickeline, Arsenopyrite, Native Silver, Calcite, Siderite, and Quartz.

Skutterudite alters to Magenta-colored Erytherite and Chloanthite alters to green Annabergite.

I hope that this has been helpful.
Thanks again for the photo.

Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
Thanks for your wisdom.I knew The Rock Man would have the answer.
I thought it would be a cool paperweight, and mess with my niece and nephew telling them its platinum.I guess it is worth 99 cents plus the shipping.

Jim


----------



## Richard36

jimdoc said:


> Rick,
> Thanks for your wisdom.I knew The Rock Man would have the answer.
> I thought it would be a cool paperweight, and mess with my niece and nephew telling them its platinum.I guess it is worth 99 cents plus the shipping.
> 
> Jim



Lol, It would be worth more than that if it were listed for sale on fabreminerals.com

Here's the home page link. 
http://www.fabreminerals.com/fine-mineral-specimens.php

All high grade mineral specimens like this can be sold there.
The prices asked on specimens for sale by other mineral collectors will shock you.

I hope that this helps.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## darshevo

Is the red color in the photos natural to the material or is it a reflection of something red in the background? It would indeed be a very cool paperweight. If I came home after a day of chasing rocks with that unit I would be a very happy camper

-Lance


----------



## jimdoc

darshevo said:


> Is the red color in the photos natural to the material or is it a reflection of something red in the background? It would indeed be a very cool paperweight. If I came home after a day of chasing rocks with that unit I would be a very happy camper
> 
> -Lance




Lance,
The auction just ended today,so I can't say about the red until I get it.I noticed the red also, and was curious about it.I wish I lived where I could go out and find cool rocks,my area is kind of boring rockwise.

Jim


----------



## Richard36

jimdoc said:


> darshevo said:
> 
> 
> 
> Is the red color in the photos natural to the material or is it a reflection of something red in the background? It would indeed be a very cool paperweight. If I came home after a day of chasing rocks with that unit I would be a very happy camper
> 
> -Lance
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lance,
> The auction just ended today,so I can't say about the red until I get it.I noticed the red also, and was curious about it.I wish I lived where I could go out and find cool rocks,my area is kind of boring rockwise.
> 
> Jim
Click to expand...




Well, if I remember right, Magenta is a shade of red, 
so it probably is a natural color produced by surface oxidation of the mineral, 
and not a reflection of something in the background.

If you follow the prospecting advice that I have given in my various posts, 
you will be able to find similar grade specimens.

I hope that this helps.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

Here's a YouTube Video on the formation of mineral deposits.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4g-pxmqt-g[/youtube]

Enjoy!

Here are the links to the other videos in this series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LvKmFO5i_c&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPwZtLTCnfg&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C88Fc8twP9M&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHmMFzNbPoo&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF-IVIokALM&NR=1

Check out my page on facebook for other videos of interest.

Here's the link.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Geo-Tech-Analytical/108943585815920?v=wall&ref=ts

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

Here's a YouTube video showing some pretty high grade ore.
Keep your eyes open for mineralized outcrops of similar material.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnopckj7OI&feature=related[/youtube]

Enjoy!

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Barren Realms 007

Rick where is that site at?


----------



## Richard36

Barren Realms 007 said:


> Rick where is that site at?



I am not sure about any site.
The videos that I posted were ones that I found on youtube in a subject search.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## qst42know

Western Nevada from the report.


Wanna buy a map?


:lol:


----------



## Barren Realms 007

qst42know said:


> Western Nevada from the report.
> 
> 
> Wanna buy a map?
> 
> 
> :lol:



I was curious to know if it might have been around where the Comstock load is located because I have a company I keep track of around that area called Timberline Resources that is in parteners with SMD in reworking the area.


----------



## jimdoc

darshevo said:


> Is the red color in the photos natural to the material or is it a reflection of something red in the background? It would indeed be a very cool paperweight. If I came home after a day of chasing rocks with that unit I would be a very happy camper
> 
> -Lance



The red must have been a reflection, no sign of any red at all.
This is the coolest rock I ever bought for 99 cents.

Jim


----------



## Richard36

jimdoc said:


> darshevo said:
> 
> 
> 
> Is the red color in the photos natural to the material or is it a reflection of something red in the background? It would indeed be a very cool paperweight. If I came home after a day of chasing rocks with that unit I would be a very happy camper
> 
> -Lance
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The red must have been a reflection, no sign of any red at all.
> This is the coolest rock I ever bought for 99 cents.
> 
> Jim
Click to expand...


Cool.
Post a photo of it.
It quite a high grade specimen of the Skutterudite series.

(Co,Ni)As3 (Skutterudite, Smaltite)
(Ni,Co)As3 (chloanthite)

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
I sent you a bunch of pictures by email. I didn't want to post a bunch on the forum that may not be worth posting. If you want to post any that are worthy,thats OK with me.If you want any different angles or better pics,let me know.
It is very heavy for its size, it feels like a chunk of metal.
Thanks again for your help identifying it.


Jim


----------



## Richard36

Thanks for the Photos.
As far as I am concerned, any and all photos of high grade ore are worth posting, and these are classic.
Thanks again.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Richard36 said:


> Thanks for the Photos.
> As far as I am concerned, any and all photos of high grade ore are worth posting, and these are classic.
> Thanks again.
> 
> Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".



Here are a couple pictures for everybody.

Jim


----------



## Richard36

Sweet.
I would love to find an exposed vein of material of that grade 18" wide in some outcrop somewhere.
Nice photos. 
Thanks.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
Not that I would want to sell it, but what do you think a
sample like this would sell for? I am just curious, and maybe
I won't use it as a paperweight.

Jim


----------



## Richard36

jimdoc said:


> Rick,
> Not that I would want to sell it, but what do you think a
> sample like this would sell for? I am just curious, and maybe
> I won't use it as a paperweight.
> 
> Jim



What are it's dimensions, and it's weight?
I would recon $25.00 for a starting price on a chicken egg size piece, if I were to buy it from a seller on Fabre Minerals.

Here's the link.
http://www.fabreminerals.com/fine-mineral-specimens.php

Here is the link to the search page with samples of Skutterudite for sale.
http://www.fabreminerals.com/search_results.php?LANG=EN&SearchTerms=Skutterudite+&submit=Search&MineralSpeciment=&Country=&Locality=&PriceRange=&Currency=USD%28%24%29&SizeRange=

Look up Skutterudite and Smaltite, (Co,Ni)As3 and chloanthite (Ni,Co)As3.

The price asked for specimens of this grade will probably shock you.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
It is about 4" long and 3" wide at is widest part. The auction said it is about 2 1/2 lbs, but it is only a little under 1 1/2 lbs.That seemed light to me as this is the first I weighed it,I thought the 2 1/2 lbs would be right.Thanks.

Jim


----------



## Richard36

jimdoc said:


> Rick,
> It is about 4" long and 3" wide at is widest part. The auction said it is about 2 1/2 lbs, but it is only a little under 1 1/2 lbs.That seemed light to me as this is the first I weighed it,I thought the 2 1/2 lbs would be right.Thanks.
> 
> Jim



You might well have got took as far as the weight is concerned, but it is worth enough to cover that discrepancy.
That is an exellent shelf specimen, $75 for a starting price would not be unreasonable.

Check out the link that I sent, and the photos of the other sulfide minerals.
Just cause it looks like "Pyrite" doesn't mean that it isn't valuable.
I know better.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## jimdoc

Rick,
Thanks.I will check out the link.
Like I said I was just curious,I don't
want to sell it.I doubt I could find any
samples like this in my area of south
eastern PA.Funny that the seller was 
pretty close to me in New Hope.
Jim


----------



## Richard36

jimdoc said:


> Rick,
> Thanks.I will check out the link.
> Like I said I was just curious,I don't
> want to sell it.I doubt I could find any
> samples like this in my area of south
> eastern PA.Funny that the seller was
> pretty close to me in New Hope.
> Jim



If the seller found this sample on an outing somewhere, it would be worth finding out, and preferable where it was found.
Like I said, a vein of this material would be a really nice find!

Nice sample.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## dtectr

Rick,
Would love your opinion on this:
*Regional Geological Survey*
_Kingsley - Charles - Dunham, 1935_
“The mountains have been carved out of Tertriary [sic] igneous rocks. Both lavas and intrusive rocks are present, the lavas, described on pages 169-170, including rhyolites, rhyolite-tuffs, latites, and andesites, the intrusive being syenite porphyries. The total exposed thickness of the lavas is not less than 2000 feet. The syenite porphyry masses have the form of broad dikes and sills; they appear to be discordant and concordant intrusions into a structural basin of lavas. A few dikes of rhyolitic composition occur.

PROSPECTS

“The vein consists of interlacing narrow quartz stringers in a rhyolite dike 4 feet wide which strikes N. 80° W., and dips 85° north. The dike cuts purple andesite, which is altered to a greenish rock containing much chlorite and a little pyrite up to 2 feet from the dike. The dike was evidently subjected to stresses after it consolidated, forming fissures and locally brecciaing the rhyolite. The mineral filling of the fissures consists of slender quartz crystals, forming combs in open cavities, and small amounts of pyrite. A small amount of very rich gold-silver ore was found in this vein. Two assays of this material, made in 1913, gave gold, 13.50 ounces, silver, 1835.30 ounces; and gold, 13.60 ounces, silver, 1526.05 ounces. Mr. Bentley informs me that a strong tellurium test was obtained. The minerals may have been hessite and petzite. This material is no longer obtainable. Near the outcrop the stringers contain limonite with the quartz; the oxidized material is said to contain some silver. The vein seems to be an example of the epithermal type of deposit, but a very feeble example.

“The developments consist of a shaft 80 feet deep at the east end of the property. There is a shallow opencut 70 feet long west of the shaft, then a 25 foot hole. Twenty-five feet farther west there is another shaft 50 feet deep. The workings are on the east side of a low ridge; the course of the dike can be followed over the crest of the ridge.

“A small amount of high-grade ore has been shipped. A considerable quantity of quartz with pyrite or limonite has been taken out and piled on the dumps, but this has evidently proved of too low grade for shipment. Further prospecting might reveal another shoot of high-grade ore, for the developments up to the present as compared with the length of the dike in which the vein fissures occur.”

I've had this for a number of years, in case gold ever went over $400! :lol: Any insights would be greatly appreciated - the area is mid- to -high desert terrain.
thanks in advance for your advice.
jordan


----------



## Richard36

Hello dtectr,

Thanks for the post!
This is as good as anything that I have in my metal mines handbook.

As far as a good place to take samples and have them assayed, get on it! Now!
That is my advice before I say anything more.

I know the type of terrain, as far as geology is concerned.
This is a description of one of those Granitic hot spots that I have described briefly in my various posts.

Rhyolite is a differentiation product of a granitic magma formed in a volcanic region.

Andesite is a volcanic rock that is a mix of basalt and granite found in continental sheilds associated with mountain building within the crumple region created by subduction of the oceanic plate under the continental plate.

Latites are associated with Nickel, and thus Platinum. 
I bet that got your attention, Lol!

porphyry of all types are associated with Copper, usually of significantly large deposits.
Ever heard of Copper Porphyry? Large open pit operations exist that mine this material.

Syenite is a Granitic differentiation product as well, and is associated with Gemstones,
such as Garnet, Apatite, and Titanite. (Nepheline Syenite Pegmatite in particular for Rubies, and Sapphires.)

Pay attention Here,
The Quartz stringers crosscutting the Purple Andesite in association with the greenish Rock with Chlorite, (Which would be a variety of Greenstone, created by Basalt being subjected to intense heat from the intruding magma.) is the zone to look for any veins of Sulfides such as Pyrite. These sulfides will be the ore minerals.

Hessite is a Silver Telluride Ag2Te
It is found in medium and low temperature Hydrothermal Veins.

Here's a couple of link's to photo's of Hessite.

http://www.fabreminerals.com/search_results.php?LANG=EN&SearchTerms=&submit=Search&MineralSpeciment=Hessite&Country=&Locality=&PriceRange=&Currency=USD%28%24%29&SizeRange=

http://webmineral.com/specimens/picshow.php?id=3046

Here is another link that you can use to research Hessite.

http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&safe=active&client=pub-9622954662695732&cof=FORID%3A1%3BGL%3A1%3BLBGC%3AFF9900%3BLC%3A%230066cc%3BVLC%3A%23336633%3BGALT%3A%230066CC%3BGFNT%3A%23666666%3BGIMP%3A%23666666%3BDIV%3A%23999999%3B&domains=YupRocks&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=Hessite&btnG=Search&sitesearch=

Here is a PDF page on Hessite.
http://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/hessite.pdf

Petzite is also a Telluride, Ag3AuTe2.
Here are some links that you can use to research Petzite. 

http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&safe=active&client=pub-9622954662695732&cof=FORID%3A1%3BGL%3A1%3BLBGC%3AFF9900%3BLC%3A%230066cc%3BVLC%3A%23336633%3BGALT%3A%230066CC%3BGFNT%3A%23666666%3BGIMP%3A%23666666%3BDIV%3A%23999999%3B&domains=YupRocks&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&q=Petzite&btnG=Search&sitesearch=

http://webmineral.com/data/Petzite.shtml

Here's a PDF page on Petzite.
http://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/petzite.pdf

Thanks again for the post.

I hope that this has been helpful.
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## dtectr

Yeee-ha-ha-ha!  
(i think that's the proper response). A prof THERE pooh-poohed the report. ("Oh, back then, they could quote anybody's report !!"") I hope her tenure keeps her warm at night. (was that catty?)
When Au was $30/oz., maybe. But now...!!??
I know its been 95 yrs since 1st prospects, but if the tailings or mine dumps are what they say, even a little ...
TOWN *NOW* is only 12 mi.
Thanks, Rock Man. I just have to figure how to get there, sooner rather than later.
All the best,
Jordan


----------



## Richard36

You're quite welcome.
I would like a chicken egg size piece of tailings showing the sulfides that they were tossing aside to add to my ore collection.

I wish you all the best.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Oz

A lot of things have changed for mining sites since the gold price used to be fixed by government decree. One of them is the profitability of working a site. Recently many non-profitable mines are being reopened due to the gold price going up. 

There are large mining operations today that can show a profit at less than a gram per ton. Do not get too excited though as it is a very different game on a small scale. Go slow and easy and spend spare time, not spare money, in pursuing your dreams. Just keep it as a fun hobby and you will be safe. If you get lucky, there is nothing wrong with earning a bit of profit from a hobby. No matter the assay I can guarantee that any profit will be hard earned in small scale mining.


----------



## Richard36

Oz said:


> A lot of things have changed for mining sites since the gold price used to be fixed by government decree. One of them is the profitability of working a site. Recently many non-profitable mines are being reopened due to the gold price going up.
> 
> There are large mining operations today that can show a profit at less than a gram per ton. Do not get too excited though as it is a very different game on a small scale. Go slow and easy and spend spare time, not spare money, in pursuing your dreams. Just keep it as a fun hobby and you will be safe. If you get lucky, there is nothing wrong with earning a bit of profit from a hobby. No matter the assay I can guarantee that any profit will be hard earned in small scale mining.



Very true Oz.
A market for our ore concentrates is badly needed.
The days of the smelter operations such as the one that used to operate in Anaconda, Montana do not exist anymore,
at least that I am aware of.

Back in the day, there were less regulations, and there were plenty of places that "Weekend Miners" could ship their hard earned ore off to in order to sell it, or to have processed for a percentage.

Oh how I wish that there were some place like that here in the U.S. in today's world.

I know of many old abandoned mines with high grade ore shoots in them.
If such a place were to be brought to my attention, I would make a post in search of prospectors, and small miners interested in re-opening them, as well as pursuing operations on the High Grade veins that I have found.

For that matter, if anyone here has the equipment needed, and the "Know how" needed to leach ores, and strip the values from the leach solution with a recovery resin, Zinc, or Activated Charcoal, we need to talk.

There are plenty of places that will process those materials for a percentage, or buy them.

Anyway, my dilemma is now dtectr's dilemma.
Those sulfides in the tailing piles are worth recovering and processing, that I'm sure of.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## darshevo

Hey Rick, found a couple more interesting pieces on a recent camping trip, thought I would run them by you and see what you think.

This first one looks like it has some small fossilized remains in it. I cleaned around one edge a little to see if the marks would come off, and with just a gentle brush with a medium bristle toothbrush there was no change to the surface:












This next one I spent some time trying to clean and the green will not come off of it. It looks almost like paint, but due to the amount I found, the area it was in, and how spread out it was I am thinking that is not the case. 
















And my last question. I was back in the cave where the green rocks I posted a couple months ago came from and my girlfriend found a good sized boulder out front (somewhere in size between a coffee table and a love seat) that had a really pronounced vein of what I believe to be pyrite in it. She chipped off some really nice chunks that had 'crystals' (for lack of a better term) that seem to be about 1/4" cubed. I am going to spend some time and free them for us to display and enjoy later in the week and get a good pic if needed. Am I correct in assuming from your answer to my last post that the cubic crystals are pyrite?

As always, thanks for taking the time to look over my finds!

-Lance


----------



## Richard36

Hello Lance,

I would have replied sooner, but my computer has been giving me issues with loging in through Firefox.
I got lucky, and got logged in through internet explorer.

Anyway,

Yes, you were correct in calling those "cubes" crystals. That is what they are, crystals of pyrite, or some other sulfide mineral.
I would like to see a photo of those cubes.

The "White Rock" with the rust colored spots is either marble, limestone, or Carbonatite.
The rusty spots are created from the weathering of the sulfide minerals within it.

As for the photos of the green rocks that you posted,
They look like "High Grade" Nickel or Copper ore to me.

There is also the chance of it being a mix of Zinc and Manganese, but I say Nickel, possibly copper.

Test it yourself, crush some up, digest the soluable portion in Nitric acid, and then add some Amonium Hydroxide (household ammonia will usually work, if it is concentrated enough, some brands aren't.) A deep cobalt blue solution with a blue precipitate indicates copper, a light blue solution with a light blue precipitate indicates Nickel. 

If I remember correctly, (I need to go re-read my notes) adding Dimethylglyoxime to the Nitric acid will produce a red precipitate if Nickel is present.

I would like to have a couple of chicken egg size chunks to put on my ore shelf, This is classic material.

I'm pretty sure that I have photos of this same ore posted in my thread "GoldBug University".

Thanks for the photos, and the post.

I hope that this has been helpful.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## lazersteve

Richard36 said:


> If I remember correctly, (I need to go re-read my notes) adding Dimethylglyoxime to the Nitric acid will produce a red precipitate if Nickel is present.



Rick,

You were almost right. The solution must be made basic with ammonia hydroxide then tested with DMG. A pink color indicates nickel.






Steve


----------



## Richard36

That's why I said that I needed to go re-read my notes.
I have way to many chemical test procedures to have them all memorized.

Anyway, thanks for the photo of the solution color.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## CHARLIE GREENLER

Oh another thing if you want to get high enough heat for your pgm,s try a good electromelt, it looks like a pitcher that you can pour from.They smelt rock with them too.


----------



## Harold_V

CHARLIE GREENLER said:


> Oh another thing if you want to get high enough heat for your pgm,s try a good electromelt, it looks like a pitcher that you can pour from.They smelt rock with them too.


If you are making reference to the typical electric furnace, the ones that use graphite crucibles and have resistance heating elements to provide the required temperatures, you are giving misleading information. They don't have anywhere near the temperature that is required for "smelting" ores, and if they are used with heavy fluxing, which tends to dissolve ore, not melt ore, they experience an extremely short life. Such a furnace is a worthless device for that type of work, and is borderline worthless for simple melting. There is precious little to recommend in one of them, particularly when you consider the cost of crucibles. 

If, by chance, you are discussing some form of induction heating, I may agree with you. Feel free to express your views if I am misinformed. 

Harold


----------



## Richard36

CHARLIE GREENLER said:


> Oh another thing if you want to get high enough heat for your pgm,s try a good electromelt, it looks like a pitcher that you can pour from.They smelt rock with them too.



If I decide to step up to doing PGM assays, I'll get a "T-Bone", 
and use oxygen injection in my propane furnace.

As far as I know, that would be the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to do that.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

This is a site that I just found.
It is full of all sorts of information related to all aspects of mining,
and a multitude of economic minerals are covered, not just Gold, Silver, and PGM's.
From what I could see, most ores are covered in this site.
This is truly a one stop resource for a great variety of info.

Here's the link.
http://www.mining.com/

Check it out, and enjoy.
Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

Here's another really cool site on mining related information.
It will take me at least six months to go through all that is presented there.

Here's the link.
http://www.infomine.com/

Check it out, and enjoy.

Sincerely, Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## darshevo

Found another interesting one while out kicking around the back woods today. Looks like it has one heck of a nice piece of pyrite in it, but want to make sure. Also, any idea of the green material in there? This sample is about the size of a basketball. The pyrite piece is probably about 2 inches long or so. I broke up a smaller piece I found. In it the green material is only about 1/4" or so deep. The white looks like quartz, but I had to really wail on it with my rock hammer to break it up. 

As always looking forward to your take on the rock


-Lance


----------



## Richard36

Hello Lance,

The bulk of the rock appears to be a mix of Quartz and Albite, 
possibly some mixed in Feldspar.
To me, that would indicate an underlying "Granitic Rock" of some sort. 
Possibly "Alkaline Feldspar Granite" for instance.

That's all good, mineralized Granitic zones are Sweet.
Most veins found there will be of the Mesothermal variety, 
and will have substantial ore reserve potential, 
though some will be "Pocket Loads" yielding approximately 5 to 30 tons of ore.

The Sulfide Mineral is most likely Chalcopyrite, or Arsenopyrite.
I doubt it being Iron Pyrite, the color is off.
The sulfide lacks crystal structure, which I need in order to tell for sure which mineral it is.

The only green that I can see is in contact with the lower left corner of the pyrite.
That indicates Iron as being present in the sulfide, so it might well be Iron Pyrite admixed with some other sulfide to give it the off color that I mentioned.

I should note that the Chalcopyrite and Arsenopyrite samples 
that I have tested contained Iron as an accessory element.

What interests me about this rock is the Black Streaks.
I'm undecided for sure on what mineral it is, but it is a mineralized streak.
The admixed mineral is probably Hematite or Cuprite.

So, in all, I would say that this rock will yeild Copper, Iron, 
and probably some percentage of Gold and Silver if assayed. 
I'm sure it would show gold and silver, how much is the question.

If you can find a zone in some outcrop where the sulfide 
is admixed with the blackish streak material, take a sample and get it assayed.

I hope that this has been helpful.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

darshevo said:


> This next one I spent some time trying to clean and the green will not come off of it. It looks almost like paint, but due to the amount I found, the area it was in, and how spread out it was I am thinking that is not the case.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As always, thanks for taking the time to look over my finds!
> 
> -Lance



By the way, 
These are samples of "Way High Grade" Copper Ore.

If it truly is abundant in that area, 
File a claim on the area that it came from and start mining it, or sell the claim.
The Ore is that good. 

Thanks for the Samples.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

Lance,

Are you sure that the metallic spot is actually a sulfide mineral like Pyrite?
Scratch a knife blade across it and see what it does.

If it is a sulfide, it will fracture into small fragments, or turn into a powder 
as the knife blade cuts across it. 
(The scratch mark will be a different color from the exposed surface). 

If it is "Native Element", meaning that it is metal, and not a sulfide mineral,
It will peel in curls or spread apart where the knife blade cuts through it.

I'm curious, that might be native metal.
If so, it looks brassy enough to be Native Gold, though low on purity.

That would be cool if that's a vein of Native Gold in that chunk of rock.

I assumed it to be a sulfide due to your speculation.
It might not be "Fools Gold", it might be "The Real Thing".

Do the scratch test, and let me know what happens.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## dtectr

Richard36 said:


> Lance,
> 
> Are you sure that the metallic spot is actually a sulfide mineral like Pyrite?
> Scratch a knife blade across it and see what it does.
> 
> If it is a sulfide, it will fracture into small fragments, or turn into a powder
> as the knife blade cuts across it.
> (The scratch mark will be a different color from the exposed surface).
> 
> If it is "Native Element", meaning that it is metal, and not a sulfide mineral,
> It will peel in curls or spread apart where the knife blade cuts through it.
> 
> I'm curious, that might be native metal.
> If so, it looks brassy enough to be Native Gold, though low on purity.
> 
> That would be cool if that's a vein of Native Gold in that chunk of rock.
> 
> I assumed it to be a sulfide due to your speculation.
> It might not be "Fools Gold", it might be "The Real Thing".
> 
> Do the scratch test, and let me know what happens.
> 
> Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


 did you notice how the "metallic element" appears mashed back into rock? looks like a relatively malleable element, just based on eyes only. :wink: :wink: 
I know I"M excited.. (seriously, I'm excited).
jordan


----------



## darshevo

I did the scrape test as instructed and it scrapes away in powder form. While out yesterday it was a overcast and having come out of the stream the rock was wet. Today in good outside light and with the rock dry the material has a greenish/gold iridescent look to it. There was a smaller piece in the rock as well (1/2 a pencil eraser sized) which I pried out with my knife, its quite light weight and crushed easily. 

Being a family outing we had a long my girlfriend's 8 year old daughter and as such I wasn't able to head up the water too far. I was finding smaller pieces (softball sized) as far up as I went that had the really dark green / nearly black streaks in them. Its now at the top of my list of places to return to to see if I can back trace it to its origin. 

A little history on how I determined to drop in there to look anyway. Having read much of what you have posted and taking the info I have gotten from you in replies to posts and PMs to heart I got out my topo atlas and started searching for some interesting dendritic drainages. Once I had a few areas that looked interesting I back searched current and closed lode and placer claims in the area. Where we stopped was down the mountain and a little down stream from a lode claim that has long since been abandoned. While I was checking out the sands along the bank with my metal detector my girlfriend was wading around in the stream. She saw this large white rock and went to work digging it out. When she got it flipped over that's when she saw the metallic area. It was the only one in the area to have that in it, although we picked up several other pieces that had the streaks in them. 

I am a rank amateur with a pan, but we had a heck of a good time, found some really cool rocks and I have about 1/3 of a 5 gallon bucket worth of cons to go through now with my pan and a catch basin so I can build up my skills some

Jordan: It does indeed seem to be mashed into the rock, but doesn't seem to be malleable

-Lance


----------



## darshevo

Oh ya, as far as getting an assay done, how large of a piece do you need? I picked up quite a few 'just in case' and I imagine if I was serious about it I could probably get a fair bit more of it. Maybe drag a canoe up stream and fill it up 

-Lance


----------



## HAuCl4

darshevo said:


> Oh ya, as far as getting an assay done, how large of a piece do you need? I picked up quite a few 'just in case' and I imagine if I was serious about it I could probably get a fair bit more of it. Maybe drag a canoe up stream and fill it up
> 
> -Lance



About a 30 gram homogenous representative crushed sample will do for an assay. Probably a good idea to do 2 or 3 at a time since they take about the same time and effort than doing just 1.

p.s.: Your rock looks quite rich, but without an assay there is no way to tell if it's just copper or there's more excitement to the story!.


----------



## Richard36

HAuCl4 said:


> darshevo said:
> 
> 
> 
> Oh ya, as far as getting an assay done, how large of a piece do you need? I picked up quite a few 'just in case' and I imagine if I was serious about it I could probably get a fair bit more of it. Maybe drag a canoe up stream and fill it up
> 
> -Lance
> 
> 
> 
> 
> About a 30 gram homogenous representative crushed sample will do for an assay. Probably a good idea to do 2 or 3 at a time since they take about the same time and effort than doing just 1.
> 
> p.s.: Your rock looks quite rich, but without an assay there is no way to tell if it's just copper or there's more excitement to the story!.
Click to expand...



All True.
That Ore would be a reasonably decent deposit for the Copper alone, 
even without any Gold or Silver.

That "Green Ore" in the photo with the Lincoln Cent is the better material though.
That Ore is Really, Really Good.

It is a "#1 Grade Ore for Copper", and has "International Market Potential".
As rich as it is in Copper, I'm sure that it also has some percentage of Gold and Silver.

Most Ores that contain Copper will contain Gold and Silver. 
Usually with the Silver content being roughly 3 times the Gold content.

Keep that in mind while prospecting.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## darshevo

Here are some better pictures of the gold toned material in the albite/quartz rock. (safe to assume the part I have to wail on it albite while the easily chipped stuff is quartz?)

As a natural pessimist I tried not to get into the mindset that it might be natural gold (even though it looked very much like it) Had I started in on it like i did today with the rock hammer I would have known instantly it was not, it broke up very easily. I didn't even get too rough with it. Was hoping to get the mineral out of it in 1 piece, did not turn out to be part of the plan 

-Lance


----------



## Richard36

Yes, the more Albite that there is mixed in with the Quartz, the tougher the material will be.
So the metallic stuff crumbles? It is a Sulfide then. It looks like Iron Pyrite, or Chalcopyrite.

Pretty good nodules though. A vein of that stuff would be cool.
Even if it didn't contain any Precious Metals, it would still be valuable as Ornamental Rock.
A yard of 2" rock would be worth $450 at "Pacific Stonescape", 
(An Ornamental Rock Yard close to Corvallis, OR.)

That material is for sure worth having Assayed though, 
since the sulfides accumulated in large masses within the melt.
If the values are there, you would have a reasonable amount of Sulfide Ore versus Waste Rock. (Waste Rock is commonly called Tailings.)

Try to find the source outcrop of this sulfide material.
I know that I would.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

darshevo said:


> As always, thanks for taking the time to look over my finds!
> 
> -Lance



Thanks again for the Samples.
These are samples of "Way High Grade" Copper Ore.

Curiosity got the best of me, 
and I did a chemical test on the samples you sent to verify what I suspected.

I broke off a 1/4" fragment from the small high grade specimen that you sent, 
and dissolved it in Nitric Acid. To my astonishment, it is at least 90% soluble.

The acid took on a Transparent Powder Blue color, and with the addition of Ammonium Hydroxide, (Household Ammonia)the Solution turned a deep Cobalt Blue color indicating Copper. 

I did not get a light blue precipitate, but the solution did make the color change, 
so I am convinced that this is Copper ore.

It isn't a Sulfide, and it isn't an Oxide, at least it doesn't appear to be one.
I am suspecting that it is a "Copper Phosphate" of some sort. 
As to which specific mineral, I'm not sure as of yet.

I'm looking though. 

Thanks again for the samples.
They're a nice addition to my Ore Shelf.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## Anonymous

Hi everyone, I've been exploring and researching an old abandoned copper and gold mine near my house. Local history says it closed in 1850 when one of the mines in the area was caught falsifying yields, which caused a panic amongst shareholders and ended up with all the mines closing. I haven't found any native gold but there are loads of pyrites and all the usual signs around. I've collected a selection of minerals from around the mine area:






There's a collection of high resolution pictures of them here: http://www.vftshop.com/images/minerals 

Where a stream comes out of the lowest shaft I dug around in the mud and tried a few pans, this is what I got:






Trev.


----------



## Richard36

Hello Trev,

The rusty rocks are highly oxidized material containing Iron Pyrite.
The white rocks on the right are a mix of Quartz and Albite.
The large center rock is Granite Gneiss.
The small green and white one is mostly Kaolin with tracers of Copper or Manganese giving it the green color.

The gray rock on the lower left is most likely a Quartz/Albite/Kaolin mix with very finely divided Iron pyrite scattered all through it. 
It should have a pretty high heft if it does. (Density/ Specific Gravity)

The green piece is proof enough for me of copper, and the Pyrite is what they were recovering, and processing in order to recover the Copper.

There is a decent chance that if those sulfides were assayed, 
that they would contain some percentage of Gold and Silver. 
Most likely with the silver content being three times that of the Gold content. 

Just a guess based on the fact that I have assayed several Iron Pyrite deposits containing Copper, and Those are the results that I got.

How much Gold/Silver is the question though.
You would only know that with a Fire Assay.

If the area is open for claim, it might be worth your while to get an assay done on those sulfides, and see what percentage of Gold/Silver they would contain.

I doubt that you will find any native gold in that rock. 
Any Gold present would most likely be micron in size, 
and bound up in solid solution with the sulfides.

I hope that this has been helpful.
Thanks for the post, and the photos.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## Anonymous

Hi Rick, thanks, I appreciate the help.

I just found some old mine records relating to the site which says:



> small-scale mine intermittently worked an east-west lode containing pyrite, chalcopyrite and malachite throughout the nineteenth century. On the 6 inch GSI map sheet, the lode is shown as striking east-west and dipping steeply to the south. Cole (1922) reported that the copper ore was auriferous and quoted a value of 3.4ppm gold in dressed ore. A sample analysed by Canadian Superior Exploration Ltd in 1976-78 yielded an assay of 1ppm Au.



Is the sparkley green grey part the Malachite?:






Is this some form of copper?






Trev


----------



## Richard36

Hello Trev.

Both photos are of the same material.
The top photo is not as oxidized as the lower one.
Both are samples of Iron Pyrite.

The white material in the top photo is a mix of Quartz and Albite.
The White material in the lower one is Quartz.

Those assays seem to be rather low for the type of material that is.
I'm sure that it contains more Gold/Silver than the report says.

Good Ore though.
It is definitely worth more investigation.

The sample in the Lower photo came out of a "Hypothermal Vein System" of "Hydrothermal Activity" within a "Granitic Region" associated with "Mountain Building".

That is understandable, 
since the center rock in the photo from your previous post is Granite Gneiss.

It is what created the "Heat Energy" & "Gasses" necessary for the "Ground Water" (The proper term is Meteoric Water.) to become acidic, and dissolve the minerals out of the overlying strata, then redeposit them as mineral veins within the overlying fractures fairly close to the surface where the "Meteoric Waters" cool, and deposit/drop out it's mineral load in accordance to solubility, and solidification temperature.

The melting, and Solidification temperature are the same.
For indications that Gold is in an area, look for minerals that have approximately the same solidification temperature as that of the melting temperature of Gold.

I hope that this has been helpful.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## Anonymous

Hi Rick,



Richard36 said:


> Hello Trev.
> Both photos are of the same material.
> The top photo is not as oxidized as the lower one.
> Both are samples of Iron Pyrite.



I wouldn't have guessed that it's Pyrite, the green/grey stuff is very common here, It's what they seem to have been mining, as all the spoil heaps are crushed Quarts and Albite with almost no green/grey bits in it, so It must have been removed. They dont seem to have been interested in the dense rusty clumps, as they are littered all around, I tested a few with my hand held metal detector and about half set off the detector but none are magnetic or deflect a compass. 

I spoke to an old local man yesterday that worked for the company who did the 1976-78 survey, he told me they drilled 2 difference cores both about a mile from the actual mine because that was the closest they could get the rig... probably why the assay was only 1ppm.

Just been reading up on the geology of the area, but not sure what any of it means:
"Witwatersrand type deposits". "Fluvial clastic sedimentary". "boundary between Devonian and Carboniferous siltstone". "Phanerozoic".

Thanks,
Trev.


----------



## Richard36

trev said:


> Hi Rick,
> I wouldn't have guessed that it's Pyrite, the green/grey stuff is very common here, It's what they seem to have been mining, as all the spoil heaps are crushed Quarts and Albite with almost no green/grey bits in it, so It must have been removed. They dont seem to have been interested in the dense rusty clumps, as they are littered all around, I tested a few with my hand held metal detector and about half set off the detector but none are magnetic or deflect a compass.



My suggestion is to have some of the Sulfide material assayed, and crush a few samples of the material that made your detector ring, (Crush it to as close to a powder as possible.) and pan it to see if it might contain any Native Gold. 
Beyond that, an assay would be needed to double check. 



trev said:


> Just been reading up on the geology of the area, but not sure what any of it means:
> "Witwatersrand type deposits". "Fluvial clastic sedimentary". "boundary between Devonian and Carboniferous siltstone". "Phanerozoic".
> 
> Thanks,
> Trev.



"Fluvial Clastic Sedimentary" means that angular fragmented material was concentrated in low lying areas without the help of flowing water. If water was involved, it wasn't flow enough to abrade the fragments, or sort the material being deposited by specific gravity.

"boundary between Devonian and Carboniferous siltstone" is a reference to the time period of deposition, and that the layer is deposited between two layers of sandstone of different age.

One Sandstone layer was deposited in the "Devonian Period", (409 million years ago)
One Sandstone layer was deposited in the "Carboniferous Period", (362 million years ago)

"Phanerozoic", means mostly "Light Colored Minerals, or Rocks", if I remember correctly.

"Witwatersrand type deposits" is a reference to the type of "Ore Deposit Model".
This Ore Deposit has the same features as the deposits of Witwatersrand, south Africa.

I hope that this has been helpful.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## patnor1011

Hi Rick.
Can you tell me what "Carlin-type gold targets" means? There is something like that about 20km from my city an old mines where silver and copper were mined few years back.


----------



## Richard36

patnor1011 said:


> Hi Rick.
> Can you tell me what "Carlin-type gold targets" means? There is something like that about 20km from my city an old mines where silver and copper were mined few years back.



Hello Patnor,

Here are some links that should answer your questions.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlin–type_gold_deposit
http://www.agiweb.org/environment/publications/mapping/graphic... 
http://www.prospectorsparadise.com/html/geology.html 
http://www.smedg.org.au/oct01.html 

I did a quick Norton "Safe Search" and found these links.
I hope that they help. 

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## drifter

Hi Rock Man,

took a few pics of a typical piece of ore from a mining lease I've just taken over..... any idea what the black stuff is? I haven't yet sent any samples off for assay.
HCL doesn't touch it and it sometimes also has a graphite grey look to it.


----------



## Richard36

Hello drifter,

The coating is an oxidation product of whatever metal is predominate within the rock.
On exposed outcrops it would be refered to as a "Gossan", and in this case, most likely an "Iron Hat", due to the matrix rock containing a fair amount of Iron Pyrite.

If it's iron, it will dissolve in Nitric acid, 
and when ammonium hydroxide is added, a rusty brown precipitate will form.

It might be a manganese oxide of some sort, and if so, 
it will boil in room temperature hydrogen peroxide, producing oxygen gas.

These are the two most likely possibilities.

The upper photo clearly shows that the white material is a mix of Quartz and Albite.
So, in my opinion, this material came from an area of good ground for working hardrock prospects.

The lower section of the rock in the bottom photo shows that it was highly altered by Hydrothermal Solutions in the past, thus decomposing the rock into other products.

The product most likely produced would be Kaolin, from the reduction of Feldspar within a hydrothermal vein system, and the metals redeposited as sulfides within the Kaolin, and overlying rock.

Native Gold might be present within the ore from this deposit, but I doubt it. 
My bet is that the most of the gold to be found in this ore will be in the form of micron gold bound up in solid solution within the sulfides present as an accessory metal.

So, grind up the ore flour fine, use froth flotation to recover the sulfides from your ore, dry the froth material recovered, and roast it at around 800f for a couple hours to drive off the sulfur and oxidize the metals, let the stuff cool, then leach it with whatever method you wish, then recover the gold from solution by electrowining, precipitation, or concentration through the use of activated carbon or recovery resins.

I hope that this has been helpful.
Thanks for the post, and the photos.

Sincerely, Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## drifter

Thanks Rick - yeah I reckon the hosting rock could have some values. A fair bit of the surrounding sandstone has what appears to be pyrite specks through out it. Will be sending a fair bit of the host rock off for assay as well!

cheers and thanks again!


----------



## Richard36

drifter said:


> Thanks Rick - yeah I reckon the hosting rock could have some values. A fair bit of the surrounding sandstone has what appears to be pyrite specks through out it. Will be sending a fair bit of the host rock off for assay as well!
> 
> cheers and thanks again!



You're welcome.
Keep me in mind for any assays that you will be needing.

Thanks again for the post and the photos.

Sincerely, Rick."The Rock Man".


----------



## drifter

Richard36 said:


> drifter said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Rick - yeah I reckon the hosting rock could have some values. A fair bit of the surrounding sandstone has what appears to be pyrite specks through out it. Will be sending a fair bit of the host rock off for assay as well!
> 
> cheers and thanks again!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're welcome.
> Keep me in mind for any assays that you will be needing.
> 
> Thanks again for the post and the photos.
> 
> Sincerely, Rick."The Rock Man".
Click to expand...



I am on the other side of the world, but hey I reckon it would be worth sending 20kg of milled ore over to you. Is there any import / quarantine dramas in doing this? It would be a quicker turnaround too, all the labs in Aus are booked solid for months ahead. Do you take paypal?

cheers


----------



## aussco999

Hey Drifter:

Just a helpful side note for you as I often get mineral samples shipped to me for analysis from other countries, and from experience have learned the proper procedure to reduce the import drama into the U.S.A.

On your Bill of Lading, in large letters, list the package content as;

“Mineral samples of no commercial value”.

DO NOT,,, call it soil or dirt, as these both are banned imports. And, make sure that your samples are dry, as water from other countries is also banned.

Wrap your mineral sample up in a plastic bag to reduce dust exposure, and place in a suitable size container. I often get samples in sealed 5 gallon buckets. If you keep the overall weight below 70 lbs (32 kg), then companies like UPS, FedEx and DHL can handle the paperwork and delivery for you.

Hope this was helpful and good luck on your project. :mrgreen: 

John


----------



## Richard36

drifter said:


> I am on the other side of the world, but hey I reckon it would be worth sending 20kg of milled ore over to you. Is there any import / quarantine dramas in doing this? It would be a quicker turnaround too, all the labs in Aus are booked solid for months ahead. Do you take paypal?
> 
> cheers



Hello Drifter,

If you follow the suggestions from aussco999, we shouldn't have an issue.
I do not have a paypal account, but will accept a Western Union Money Order.

I look forward to receiving your samples, and to being of service to you.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## Richard36

Hello Everyone, 

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have started to read a book on leaching ores, 
so shortly I should be able to start answering questions related to that topic.

Way cool story on how I obtained that book too.

Someone from a refinery on the east coast called me up wanting me to consultant his company on how to process 85,000 tons of slag with Au, Ag, PGM's, and Rare Earths.

I stated that I did not quite have the skill to get that job done, and needed to buy a particular book on that subject. He offered to buy it for me if I would become a consultant to him, and help his company to be able to process their slag. I accepted the task, he ordered the book for me, and I received it a couple of days ago. 

In regard to that,

Thanks Tom.
I'll be running some test batches shortly on the slag that you sent.


If anyone has any questions that they would like to ask, make a post.
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome, and appreciated.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## aussco999

Hey Rick:

Well, 85,000 tons of slag should keep you busy for a few days anyway. :lol: Did the refinery by chance tell you the sampling and analytical procedures used on the slag to determine the PM and RE values, and do you think it can be independently verified again?

I had an embarrassing experience  recently when an unknowing novices grabbed a good looking mineral sample from an exposed vein and was convinced the whole mountain had that kind of high values. It really rained hard on his get rich fast retirement parade when he found out that the only value he had was a little 2” wide stringer that quickly pinched out. And, he was mad at me for telling him the sad news. Go figure?

Based on what little info you might have at this time on the slag material, have you come up with any ideas on how to handle and process that much tonnage? It sounds like you could treat it as a modified head ore and process it as such. Maybe utilizing either a gravity, floatation or leaching system or a combination of all to go after the values. I think you’ll be looking at some complicated, but interesting solutions on this project.

I have a half dozen or so books and several in-house lixiviation manuals for both base and precious metal leaching from head ores. If you hit a wall on a problem, let me know and I’ll see if I have anything helpful. And, out of curiosity, what is the title and author of the book you ordered?

Good luck and keep us informed on your progress. It sounds like a fun project with a little less work because you didn’t have to do the mining phase. :mrgreen: 

John


----------



## Richard36

Hello aussco999,

Some of the slag has already been tabled, and I'm not the one processing it, 
only consulting on possible ways to process it. I have a few reports to go with the sample sent to me, and it is the tabled material that was assayed, and to be leached by the refinery after I figure out what method would be the best approach for them.

From what I have read so far, slag is not an easy product to leach, due to permeability issues. If the slag is insoluble in water, It will need to be ground to nearly a powder, and agitated in the leach solution, say Cyanide for example.

My book calls for 0.10g/L NaCn for the leach solution. (0.10g of NacN per Liter of water.)
A max leaching temperature of 85 degrees C.
At a PH of 9.0 to 9.5.
and agitated by mechanical means or by the churning action of compressed air, 
or oxygen being bubbled through the slurry.
The addition of oxygen to the leach slurry is necessary from what I have read so far.

The gold can be recovered from the filtered leach solution by electrowinning, precipitation by the addition of zinc to the leach solution, or by passing the leach through activated charcoal, mossy zinc, or recovery resins.

Some feedback, and input by Harold would be cool. 
Harold has done this before, but with a sulfide ore.

My book does go into other leach methods, thiosulfate, thiourea, chlorination, and others. 
I have plenty left to read up on.

Anyway, Thanks for the offer to help out if it is needed.
I would love to have your library on leaching ores.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## aussco999

Hey Rick:

It sounds like you are on the right track, and the fact that they are tabling the slag might be a promising development for improving the recovery from the get go. It shouldn’t take them more than 3 or 4 years to process 85,000 tons by using tables, if they run 24/7. My only recommendation at this time would be getting a mass-spec analysis (either a 55 or 70 element), done on the table head and cons, before deciding on which leach, if any, to use.

Permeability issues may not be your only problem as a sodium cyanide leach will be expensive or even ineffective if the leach material contains high cyanicides in the form of certain base metals, such as copper, antimony or zinc, to name a few. The mass-spec will give you a better idea of what your dealing with.

Also, as one consultant to another, when working with some of the more dangerous “hazardous to yourself and surroundings” leaches, I wouldn’t recommend you doing the leach testing yourself based upon info from a book. There are still some good certified labs around that will do the bottle roll test for you and make recommendation on a suitable leach formula. If you are really interested in seeing the testing procedure done, make an appoint with the lab to watch them do the test. I guarantee it will be the most boring 16 to 24 hours of your life.

IMHO, a lot of the technical and chemical books are written with the assumption that the reader has a basic knowledge or experience of the process, and practices basic safety precautions. Ergo, book learning should only be used as a guideline, while relying on field and “hands-on” experience from those “whom have gone before you” to be the real life savers. Another reason for this great forum. And remember from a legal standpoint, you’ll probably be passing your processing recommendations on to the lesser experienced and less cautious “monkey see, monkey do” people. No offense meant, but that’s real life.

So, please :lol: accept my constant preaching on safety in the spirit it’s given, with my sincere concern for your health and welfare.

With that being said, it’s full steam ahead time. Good luck, :mrgreen: 

John


----------



## Harold_V

aussco999 said:


> Also, as one consultant to another, when working with some of the more dangerous “hazardous to yourself and surroundings” leaches, I wouldn’t recommend you doing the leach testing yourself based upon info from a book. There are still some good certified labs around that will do the bottle roll test for you and make recommendation on a suitable leach formula. If you are really interested in seeing the testing procedure done, make an appoint with the lab to watch them do the test. I guarantee it will be the most boring 16 to 24 hours of your life.


I'd be inclined to agree, although in my case, I did my own research and landed smack on top of a solution. 

No, I do not consider myself qualified to make such judgments. I was damned lucky! 

To be clear, the results I achieved removed in excess of 99% of the gold contained in the ore I processed. I was not so fortunate with the silver, removing, maybe, 50%. There is much to know about processing ores, often more than can be achieved by the novice. 

Harold


----------



## newgold

allanwcoty said:


> I'll try and find some of my sphere's. I found a picture of one of mine on photobucket but have not worked with photo's for over a year and will have to be retrained. If somebody can post it I'll e-mail it to them.


 I have found similar metal spheres in sufficient quantity which would only smelt with an oxy. When the flame was removed the metal button (about 100 grams became a sponge).
Took said sponge to universities and laboratories ----no acid would break it down despite repeated attempts over three weeks by a chemistry professor--
SEM analysis came out as iron . i came out shaking my head .PGM Refinery could not identify platinum but sure as eggs had similar characteristics .

We did identify rhodium and palladium by SEM analysis.

Any thoughts on what we found? There is a heap of this material just lying around .


----------



## stihl88

What do you guys think about what this guy is trying to flog on Ebay, Pyrites perhaps?


http://cgi.ebay.com/GOLD-SUPER-RICH-24hr-ROASTED-GOLD-ORE-MUST-SEE-/280608228302?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41558dc3ce

http://cgi.ebay.com/RICH-GOLD-ORE-5-LB-LOT-ONLY-45-BUY-NOW-BLOWOUT-/280609015411?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415599c673

http://cgi.ebay.com/1OZ-SUPER-RICH-GOLD-CONCENTRATE-MICROSREENED-FROTH-/280608061965?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41558b3a0d


----------



## dtectr

stihl88 said:


> What do you guys think about what this guy is trying to flog on Ebay, Pyrites perhaps?
> 
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/GOLD-SUPER-RICH-24hr-ROASTED-GOLD-ORE-MUST-SEE-/280608228302?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41558dc3ce
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/RICH-GOLD-ORE-5-LB-LOT-ONLY-45-BUY-NOW-BLOWOUT-/280609015411?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415599c673
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/1OZ-SUPER-RICH-GOLD-CONCENTRATE-MICROSREENED-FROTH-/280608061965?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41558b3a0d


Someone should initiate legal action against both this eBayer & eBay as an entity. This is fraud, and it violates the basic laws of precious metal/jewelry description.

eBay allows the description "GOLD" as a description of COLOR, not content. This is a violation of BASIC precious metals descriptions from the industry & is blatantly fraudulent! 

eBay is NOT an indifferent 3rd party, but a beneficiary & accessory to fraudulent activity. Since they receive a percentage of all final auction values, it is in their best financial interest to allow this fraud to continue. Watch, if confronted, they will claim ignorance & do the "tape-on-the-glasses" geek thing.

The ONLY LEGAL description of COLOR is "GOLDEN". There is no way, with their billions of dollars that eBay does not know this.

I'm sick.


----------



## Richard36

stihl88 said:


> What do you guys think about what this guy is trying to flog on Ebay, Pyrites perhaps?
> 
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/GOLD-SUPER-RICH-24hr-ROASTED-GOLD-ORE-MUST-SEE-/280608228302?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41558dc3ce
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/RICH-GOLD-ORE-5-LB-LOT-ONLY-45-BUY-NOW-BLOWOUT-/280609015411?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415599c673
> 
> http://cgi.ebay.com/1OZ-SUPER-RICH-GOLD-CONCENTRATE-MICROSREENED-FROTH-/280608061965?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41558b3a0d



The "Rock Type" in this sellers list of photos is a "Skarn", and contains "Sulfide Minerals", not "Free Milling Gold". I would not be surprised at all if this ore contains gold, but the golden colored material is not native gold, that much is for sure.

The only gold in this ore, if it contains any, 
would be in the form of micron gold bound up in solid solution within the Sulfides as an accessory metal, and would require leaching it in quantity in order to recover any gold that it may contain.

I didn't see an assay report anywhere disclosing it's gold content, so as far as I am concerned, it's only speculation at this point that this ore even contains any gold.

Without an assay report disclosing gold content, 
this ore is nothing more than ornamental rock.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## DarkspARCS

lol, the Ebay dude has 3 bids already, maybe he's onto something! :twisted: 

hey Rich, finished the mine survey today and had a chance to venture over to the backside to look at the mine there... lots of turquoise on the tailings...

That turquoise colored wall I mentioned is an outcropping of KAOLINITE!! :twisted: 




The outcropping is about 30' wide, 20+' in hieght, and is entirely a rich Turquoise blue with reddish veins and nodules. The deposite rests next to a deep red deposite I suspect being comprised of iron bearing cinnabar.

Lol... so when you comming to Vegas so we can stamp this claim?


----------



## Richard36

DarkspARCS said:


> That turquoise colored wall I mentioned is an outcropping of KAOLINITE!! :twisted:
> 
> 
> 
> The outcropping is about 30' wide, 20+' in height, and is entirely a rich Turquoise blue with reddish veins and nodules. The deposit rests next to a deep red deposit I suspect being comprised of iron bearing cinnabar.
> 
> Lol... so when you coming to Vegas so we can stamp this claim?



Hello DarkspARCS, 

I would love to, but circumstances are less that conducive to making that trip at the moment.
I made a blog post on my website and posted your photos along with it as related material, 
so if you would like to read it, it's there.

Thanks again for the offer.
I hope that I'm able to make it over that way sometime soon.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## drifter

Just found another reef on the lease with a rather larger amount of these surface floaters that have been shed..

The photo doesn't do justice the red / brown colour of the deposit, but anyway it looks real good under a 60x scope. Whish I had a 200x

few questions... 

Is this classic decomposed pyrites?

as it well oxidized will a hcl bath remove the free iron oxide thus enabling a quick and easy aqua regia (or acid bleach) test for values? 

Cheers


----------



## Richard36

drifter said:


> few questions...
> 
> Is this classic decomposed pyrites?
> 
> as it well oxidized will a hcl bath remove the free iron oxide thus enabling a quick and easy aqua regia (or acid bleach) test for values?



Hello Drifter,

It looks like some variety of Hematite to me.

It has been my experience with similar ores that unless the gold content is high, a stanous test will not detect minuscule amounts of gold, as in 1 mg or less in a couple of tbsps of ground ore digested in 10 cc of Aqua Regia. 

Keep in mind that 1 mg of gold in 29.16 grams of ore is equal to 1 oz per ton gold.
That amount of gold dissolved into enough AR to digest the ore thoroughly is usually far to dilute for the stanous test to detect it's presence.

If you find an ore that will react for gold with the stanous test, 
it's time to do a serious Wha-Hooo!

It's worth a shot though to try to remove the base metals with HCL, 
then go for the gold with AR, and then test for gold with stanous chloride.

Aside from all that, 
check out the similarities of this ore with the photos below.


This ore is from a mine in Alaska.
It is an Antimony-Gold Ore.
The reddish ocher is the oxidized sections of ore body.

View attachment 2


This is a similar ore mineral that I found, if the not same as yours.
It's a variety of hematite that assayed slightly over 3 oz per ton Gold.




This is a variety of the ore in the above photo.
I found this deposit last summer. 




The point I'm making is that I believe the ore in the photo 
you just posted is well worth an assay. 

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


----------



## drifter

Cheers mate, I'll be sending a batch off for assay next week - will post the results.

Funny thing another reef nearby has the exact same coloured clay like stuff. Its in the zone that has been left by a fault that dissects the very top of the quartz reef. Reckon I'll send off a sample of this too.

BTW, can see visable gold in these samples under 60x. (well pretty sure it's gold - it's very fine, hence the need for more mag power)


----------



## DarkspARCS

That rock in font looks like a rich piece of plumb pie... :lol:


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## shaftsinkerawc

Are you using a hand held system or a microscope with the x60 power? Did you crush a sample or just look at the face of the sample? Could you isolate any of your golden specks and test?


----------



## drifter

shaftsinkerawc said:


> Are you using a hand held system or a microscope with the x60 power? Did you crush a sample or just look at the face of the sample? Could you isolate any of your golden specks and test?




Hi mate, this is the scope.. 






The visable gold is in the brown oxide stuff, especially where the layer is thin - it's on the quartz. Very small though and thats the trouble, too small to be 100% sure as I can't make out it's shape / structure and they're too small to capture with a sluice or pan. I'll run a 50kg batch through the mill and pan it anyway. A fire assay will tell me for sure (few weeks off)


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## shaftsinkerawc

Just a thought, try and remove some of your reddish material and scope to see that you have some of the golden specks. Then add a little Muratic Acid outside with good ventilation and see whats left after an hour. Your golden specks could be more of the sulfides that leached before you found the sample, hopefully for you they are Au that was tied up in the sulphide at deposition. Definately have the fire assay or any other testing you can afford. What kind of mill are you running, wet/dry? If wet, pay close attention to any material floating off.


----------



## drifter

shaftsinkerawc said:


> Just a thought, try and remove some of your reddish material and scope to see that you have some of the golden specks. Then add a little Muratic Acid outside with good ventilation and see whats left after an hour. Your golden specks could be more of the sulfides that leached before you found the sample, hopefully for you they are Au that was tied up in the sulphide at deposition. Definately have the fire assay or any other testing you can afford. What kind of mill are you running, wet/dry? If wet, pay close attention to any material floating off.




Yeah its funny stuff - outside in the sun with the handheld scope it looks good, inside with the cheap usb scope it looks bland. (but all gold looks grey with this cheap POS)
I've got some soaking in hcl now, i'll let it sit for a few hrs..

I've got a small prospecting impact mill - but it's too big for little samples like this as way too much dust gets left behind from previous runs, wont give an honest result. Should get a dolly pot for this stuff!

I've also got a 4 head stamp mill feeding a big sluice - if I can get onto payable stuff i'll upgrade to a centrifuge (falcon / knelson) The sluice tailings aren't going anywhere so can be rerun...


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## shaftsinkerawc

Just my experience when dealing with sulphides that the wash water looks like it got oil in it as they produce a dirty scum that floats. I've experienced the lack of flash under artificial light so don't give up on it yet. I was in Australia little over 20 years ago but don't recall hearing of a dolly pot? What is it, mortar & pestle? I've used several crushing systems and you have to wonder if you got it clean enough from prior samples. Nice to be able to see it in a cut or fresh cracked sample. Even cut samples can be suspect because of the braze on the blade. Many Blessings


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## darryl123

The Rock Man
Good morning. A friend and I have 60 tons of raw ore we have had it analysed and it has high levels of all kinds of minerals gold is one of the lower ones but ridium, silver and several others are very high we need to find a refiner any suggestions. Thanks Darryl Bjorgaard


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## Richard36

darryl123 said:


> The Rock Man
> Good morning. A friend and I have 60 tons of raw ore we have had it analysed and it has high levels of all kinds of minerals gold is one of the lower ones but ridium, silver and several others are very high we need to find a refiner any suggestions. Thanks Darryl Bjorgaard





Hello Darryl,

Do you have an assay report that you could send to me?
I do have market contacts that would be interested in buying your ore.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## pendoreille

Hello Rock Man, could you help me identify the following? The last two were found in the same area. The first picture is the interior wall of an undocumented mine where opening is heavily overgrown with brush. This mine is close (1/2 mile) from where the other specimens were found. Thanks for your help and time.


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## Richard36

pendoreille said:


> Hello Rock Man, could you help me identify the following? The last two were found in the same area. The first picture is the interior wall of an undocumented mine where opening is heavily overgrown with brush. This mine is close (1/2 mile) from where the other specimens were found. Thanks for your help and time.




Hello pendoreille,

The first photo is a Kaolinite / Talc Schist containing obvious Copper content in the blue halo area.

The second photo is an oxidized chunk of Hybrid Rock composed of Dacite and Skarn.
The heavy rust stain is from oxidized Sulfides within it.

The 3rd and 4th photos are admixed Quartz / Albite with a small portion of a blue Copper Phosphate mineral.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this blue copper material contains some percentage of Gold and/or Silver.
Get an assay and find out, if you haven't done so already.

Surrounding Rock Types should be of Andesite and Granitic origin,
and formed in a region of mountain building subjected to the compressive forces of metamorphism.

I hope that this has bee helpful and informative.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## Richard36

The second photo may well be the best specimen for probable Gold/Silver content.
The wall in the first photo is a "High Grade" Talc deposit regardless of Copper, and/or Gold/Silver content.

Just an additional thought about what you found.

Somewhat envious, as it is a really good find.
Nice photos. Thanks for sharing them.


Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## pendoreille

Richard36 said:


> Hello pendoreille,
> 
> The first photo is a Kaolinite / Talc Schist containing obvious Copper content in the blue halo area.
> 
> The second photo is an oxidized chunk of Hybrid Rock composed of Dacite and Skarn.
> The heavy rust stain is from oxidized Sulfides within it.
> 
> The 3rd and 4th photos are admixed Quartz / Albite with a small portion of a blue Copper Phosphate mineral.
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised at all if this blue copper material contains some percentage of Gold and/or Silver.
> Get an assay and find out, if you haven't done so already.
> 
> Surrounding Rock Types should be of Andesite and Granitic origin,
> and formed in a region of mountain building subjected to the compressive forces of metamorphism.
> 
> I hope that this has bee helpful and informative.
> 
> Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".



Thank you Rick, it does help, also the other information you have provided throughout the GRF has been excellent. I appreciate that you share your knowledge so freely!


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## DarkspARCS

Hi Rich!

Sorry I didn't get back with ya sooner. Thanks for the PM, I'll keep it on file, as currently I've placed everything on stand by until I can secure some finances.

Right Now I've been grabbing every sort of electronic/ non electronic componants available that contain PM of any sort to attempt to process and purify for negotiable value.

I've got bins for gold, silver, palladium, REE, and unknown componants... lol, with it taking a substantial amount of time to produce processable materials

This has taken alot of my time, esp. time away from my wife, - she's starting to let me know about it... But things are closing in around me financially, pretty soon I may have to pitch a tent and park my beautiful car (chrysler 300) due to astronomically increasing gas prices. I wish I could figure out how to incorporate a hydrogen fuel cell into the intake system to get a major boost in fuel efficiancy (30% savings) - but that's not a reality at this time.

I was hoping to have some tangible results by now but two of my efforts, one in ore and the other in electronics have been either destroyed or altered due to both my faulty idealism, incorrect instructions, or due to my cons in solution getting dumped by a cat knocking over a wobbly table I had the project on (that also shattered my only pyrex dish).

Once I can get something going I hope to be able to initiate the next phase with you, til then keep the faith!

DON"T forget to take 1 kelp capsule daily, to keep your good iodine levels high, along with 2 bananas to produce the needed Potassium Iodide to protect yourself from Rad exposure levels I am possitive that are saturating your area. I tell ya, the latest imports from Japan really suck, esp. when it's us that has to pay the tarrif!


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## darshevo

With the snow finally melted I have headed back into the hills. I found this one while digging in a creek near a culvert. The first picture accurately represents color. The other 2 ended up a little blueish when I went to macro (all taken at the same time) 

I saw a picture of this yesterday morning and had convinced myself it was somehow associated with Sphalerite. Upon trying to find the photo again I realized I was pretty far off track :lol: I went back through all of the different ore types I had researched and cannot find the photo anywhere now. I don't expect this is a potentially valuable find, but would like to know for my own knowledge what the crystaline type structure inside is.

Thanks to everyone for taking a look (particularly you Rick, thanks to your photos and posts I am having to ask a lot fewer questions)

-Lance


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## Richard36

darshevo said:


> I don't expect this is a potentially valuable find, but would like to know for my own knowledge what the crystaline type structure inside is.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for taking a look (particularly you Rick, thanks to your photos and posts I am having to ask a lot fewer questions)
> 
> -Lance



Thanks Lance.
You're welcome, and my pleasure. I'm glad that I could help.
Maybe you and everyone else that reads my posts will find something good as a result,
and send me a chunk to assay, hint, hint, lol.

As for your find, it looks like an Aluminum Silicate to me.
Not sure which, there are several of them that look a whole lot like what you posted.
Does it have a silky luster on the cleavage face of the mineral going from the iron stained base to the former surface along the directional orientation of the crystals, or is it a course mass of fine crystals?

I can narrow it down with those details.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## darshevo

I initially thought it a mass of crystals. I just took a piece off the back with a rock hammer and it turned out to be quite durable. The texture is only on the surface, once chipped off it looks like any white quartz type rock, although it seems harder than quartz. If it's any help the piece I chipped off I dropped into a vial with some hcl and it produced no results. To make sure it was getting good contact I took another small piece and crushed it and dropped it in, also with no results

-Lance


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## Richard36

Fair enough.
It is an Aluminum Silicate though.
I'm just not sure which, due to lack of detail in the photo.

High mountain terrain in close proximity to a zone that has had some degree of intrusion by magma into existing rock is the type of area that this series of minerals form.

It may well be an Aluminum Silicate of the Zeolite Group.
I'm pretty sure it is.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help on this one.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## darshevo

Its raining (as usual) and I don't feel like working in the shop  What would be the best method to get this rock nice and shiny? I tried a pretty stiff brush on it yesterday with water from the hose and it helped very little. I spent some time looking at the Zeolite group as recommended and by shape it looks similar, but it doesn't seem to have the luster that the samples on mindat had (hence my want to get it really clean) 

-Lance


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## shaftsinkerawc

I'm no expert but it looks like stained cocks-comb quartz to me formed in a void in metamorphic rock or by hydrothermal fluids. Oxalic acid is said to remove iron staining pretty well but I haven't tried it. I just run mine through a crusher. awc


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## Richard36

Oxalic acid is recommended by all the local rockhounds.
An A/P tank with just Chlorine Bleach and a bubbler would work too for removing stains.
I haven't tried that yet, but I have soaked rocks in bleach to remove stains, and it works pretty well.
HCL works to clean minerals that aren't soluble within it.

Those are my suggestions.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## Hephaestus

Wow, this thread is like an encyclopedia! Too bad some picture links are broken.  

Anyhow, here's something different.


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## Richard36

Hephaestus said:


> Wow, this thread is like an encyclopedia! Too bad some picture links are broken.
> 
> Anyhow, here's something different.



Hello Hephaestus, 

Thanks for the compliment.
As for your photo, I don't see anything particularly revealing about it. It's a piece of Andesite, tending toward Dacite, a basaltic differentiation product formed in regions of volcanic activity associated with mountain building processes.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## Hephaestus

Yes, my area has a dead volcano. I don't have a photo of the place I took it from. It was just a 30-50 cm layer sandwiched between some dirts. Any chance for something valuable near this? If this isn't.
Edit: stupid mistakes


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## Richard36

Possible sulfides within that region, and they would be worth checking out.


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## Hephaestus

Good, will have my eyes open. 

Another thing. The stream from which I took the Andesite/Dacite is said to have placer gold... in fact, some decades ago there was a company that tried to extract it (if that's what it's called) a couple hundred meters upstream. They stopped as they couldn't make a profit I think; too much gold was slipping away they said. Should I be looking for alluvial sand? Is there any connection with the previous find? (I guess not)


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## Richard36

Chances are that there's a Diorite outcrop in the area, and the drainage runs over it, thus dislodging Hematite, and magnetite crystals, both of which are often coated with a thin film of gold, and that may well be the source of the gold in that stream, and partially why it was being lost, due to the incredibly fine particle size of the gold in that drainage system.

Width of box, length of box, incline, size of feed material, and water flow come into play with such an issue, 
and experimenting is the only way to figure out what you need in order to recover what is available.

Dig out those depressions in the bedrock, and pan that material to see what possibilities the stream currently has.

I hope that this helps.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## Hephaestus

Hm... Hematite and magnetite as in black sand?

I also found a study that mentions this placer deposit!  The author took a sample 1,8 km upstream. That's half a km from my house!

I'll read the study and will probably go prospecting in a couple days.


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## dtectr

Hephaestus said:


> Hm... Hematite and magnetite as in black sand?
> 
> I also found a study that mentions this placer deposit!  The author took a sample 1,8 km upstream. That's half a km from my house!
> 
> I'll read the study and will probably go prospecting in a couple days.


My friend
Is this a _wet_ area or a _dry_ one? Your sampling methods will vary, as will recovery, depending on those factors. Follow Rick's instructions exactly. Use something to get even the finest particles out of those depressions. If this gold is very fine, its most likely to be there. Don't forget to record, for your future reference, what stock came from which holes 8) 

I would add - If practical, take these black sands deposits ("Concentrates") home to sample. Are you already an experienced panner? You likely are, but if not, take the time to practice with some tiny lead shot or scraps. Better yet, make them of a unique enough shape to easily identify when you recover them. Always count the number you put in and compare it to the number you recover. In this controlled environment, practice until recovery is 100%. You'll never find such ideal circumstances in the field!  If you have trouble finding visible gold, don't throw out your materials just yet.

Gold, while not magnetic itself, can form quite an electrostatic attachment to "magnet-loving" ferrous materials (What word am I looking for?  :roll: ). I will admit that I am most familiar with dry, desert-like conditions, where the dry air is very conducive to enhancing the principle above. It is one of the bases (plural of "basis") of the Dry Rocker & electrostatic recovery systems. If the gold is very, very fine, a similar method might be looked into, to be used on extremely dry stock, of course.

This may seem very long and drawn out - but its already very hot outside today, the air quality is horrible, and I have "prospecting fever"! :mrgreen: 

Keep us posted!
dtectr


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## Hephaestus

I'm feeling I'm thread-jacking.  Amazing how easily a thread can go off.

Better continue this very interesting conversation in my thread:
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=10574

:idea: And I think the posts regarding the placer deposit (starting with mine posted on _June 30th, 2011, 1:53 am_ post #) should be moved there too. This one too. :idea:

Thank you for taking the time to answer dtectr.
By _wet or dry_ you mean if it has water running and how is the surrounding? It's periodically running -that is mostly on winter and rainy days. Now it's running but It's a matter of days before it stops. It's dry dirt basically.

I like your idea to practice panning --I never thought of that. I'm not experienced so I will definitely try it.  

Thank you both for up to now!


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## Richard36

You're welcome, and no, you're not hijacking this thread.
I'm glad to see it revived.


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## Dirtdiggaler

allanwcoty said:


> I'll try and find some of my sphere's. I found a picture of one of mine on photobucket but have not worked with photo's for over a year and will have to be retrained. If somebody can post it I'll e-mail it to them.



I see them all the time when I look at black sands in my scope. I live in bend oregon and have been wondering what they are.


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## froot

Hi, I was referred to this topic from here. Hope I'm not hijacking this topic. Rock man, if you could assist I would be truly greatful.

Copy/paste:



> Now here's something else I pulled out of a winch from a Platinum mine:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am assuming it's a chunk of chromite from either the Merensky or UG2 platinum reefs in the Bushveld complex here in South Africa. It's heavy compared to an average rock that size, it crumbles easily and has a nice glitter about it.
> Here's a closeup of the grain:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If anybody here is familiar with this material how would you go about turning it into shiny metal, assuming it is bearing?
> 
> My thoughts at the moment are to crush it fine in a bar mill I'm building, dissolve the prospective PM bearing matrix in molten NaOH to form soluble products (FeCr2O4 + NaOH + O2 -> NaCr2O4(sol) + Fe2O3 + H2O. I would then dissolve the solubles and seperate this from the insolubles. The insolubles would then be washed and treated with HCl to remove Fe and other unwanted metals. Filter, wash then treat as per Hoke for multiple PGM with hot AR. Make sense?
> 
> Thanks in advance.


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## rookieminer

Hey Rock man,

I had a thought,

I found a decent load deposit where the pm content is about 80% silver and 20% gold. To my knowledge there has never been any gold found in the river below.

My question is this, Can/will the pm's stay an oxidised silver color (black) when they reach the river? I was just wondering if there was a chance that the black sands in this placer could be holding gold in the black sands. I know the only way to know for sure is to test it, but I was just wondering for future knowledge if this is a possibility?

rookieminer


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## DarkspARCS

froot said:


> Hi, I was referred to this topic from here. Hope I'm not hijacking this topic. Rock man, if you could assist I would be truly greatful.
> 
> Copy/paste:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now here's something else I pulled out of a winch from a Platinum mine:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am assuming it's a chunk of chromite from either the Merensky or UG2 platinum reefs in the Bushveld complex here in South Africa. It's heavy compared to an average rock that size, it crumbles easily and has a nice glitter about it.
> Here's a closeup of the grain:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If anybody here is familiar with this material how would you go about turning it into shiny metal, assuming it is bearing?
> 
> My thoughts at the moment are to crush it fine in a bar mill I'm building, dissolve the prospective PM bearing matrix in molten NaOH to form soluble products (FeCr2O4 + NaOH + O2 -> NaCr2O4(sol) + Fe2O3 + H2O. I would then dissolve the solubles and seperate this from the insolubles. The insolubles would then be washed and treated with HCl to remove Fe and other unwanted metals. Filter, wash then treat as per Hoke for multiple PGM with hot AR. Make sense?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...


THAT'S a nice ore specimen... would love to see what an XRF spectrometer would read in that sample


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## AztekShine

That my thoughts exactly! Have you had it sent off?


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## NobleMetalWorks

I have a question, but it requires a short explanation first, so please bear with me.

I was working on a mine deal in 2007, long before I knew anything about reclaiming or refining precious metals. It was a real estate deal involved Iron Mountain Mines in Redding California. The mine has been shut down since the early 60s because it was contaminating the local water supply, and running eventually into the Sacramento River with heavy metals. At the time my business partner hooked up with some chemists that designed a process for extracting the heavy metals out of the water. We were trying to put together a deal so that would could buy the process to clean up the water, recovering the heavy metals at the same time which would pay for the clean up effort, as well as enable the mine to start up again. What we were hoping to do was to create a situation where the EPA super fund would be released. The old man that owned the land, who had lived on it since before it was Iron Mountain Mine, was very old, and not in real good health. Here he was sitting on this property that had been minded out underneath him, in a toxic soup of heavy metals, all around him, yet he was dirt dirt poor. He was working with us so that the property could generate an income for him, and hoping at the same time to get the EPA to release the superfund so we could process the metal heavy water, etc etc etc. We wouldn't process it ourselves, we would have brought a company in to do so. But you get my point.

So my question for you is two fold. There are some very unique things going on with Iron Mountain Mine, some type of rare bacteria that produces some sort of excrement that adds to the pollution problem, the water is extremely acidic and fissures of different minerals have been cracked open. Whatever it is going on there is dissolving heavy metals and being carried away by water. If these things are naturally occurring, is there some way we can recreate this at home, and maybe use it as a safer way to process metals, besides gold? And my other question, because I didn't sign the NCND (Non disclosure, non circumvention agreement) and my partner did, I have no idea what process these chemists were going to use that would precipitate the metals out of water, and leave the water clean enough to pass EPA standards (which are probably not nearly strict enough). If we can use a different process to strip all other metals except Au, then precipitate them so that what was left was clean water, it seems like that would be a far better way of reclaiming heavy metals from solution. Any ideas how this was achieved?

I don't believe the old guy owned the entire mine, if I remember right he owned land, on the same site as the huge mine that closed down in 1963, and much of the actual mining was done on his property, there is part of an open pit mine, and hydro strip mining and even tunneling all on his property. I asked my business partner about the process I am talking about, and he can't remember anything particular, he cannot legally tell me anyway. I have tried to find out what happened to the old man, I think his relatives put him in a home and have taken possession of his property, or he may have passed away, but someone with his same last name owns the property now so I am assuming it's a relative. I haven't tried to find anything else out.


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## ejay111

hay rock man i very new to the fourm i been reading back aways and read a post you did about useing mercury with a tumbler for gold dust is there a vido showing this step by step im a small scale gold panner and read the process on line it may have been yours not shore thanks for any help you can give me


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## Irons2

Stardust
It's what's left when a Meteor enters the atmosphere. The coating is what remains of the host rock that burned up in the atmosphere. All that remains are metals that won't burn up, usually PGMs.
The golden colored ones are probably Iridosimine, which might explain why they don't dissolve or melt. Iridium has a golden tone to it and some mistake it for Gold.

You can find them everywhere Bedrock is exposed. They rain down 24/7/365

I love the smell of Osmium in the Morning.


----------



## DarkspARCS

Irons2 said:


> Stardust
> It's what's left when a Meteor enters the atmosphere. The coating is what remains of the host rock that burned up in the atmosphere. All that remains are metals that won't burn up, usually PGMs.
> The golden colored ones are probably Iridosimine, which might explain why they don't dissolve or melt. Iridium has a golden tone to it and some mistake it for Gold.
> 
> You can find them everywhere Bedrock is exposed. They rain down 24/7/365
> 
> I love the smell of Osmium in the Morning.






Try Again... need info?

Iridium


----------



## Irons2

DarkspARCS said:


> Irons2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Stardust
> It's what's left when a Meteor enters the atmosphere. The coating is what remains of the host rock that burned up in the atmosphere. All that remains are metals that won't burn up, usually PGMs.
> The golden colored ones are probably Iridosimine, which might explain why they don't dissolve or melt. Iridium has a golden tone to it and some mistake it for Gold.
> 
> You can find them everywhere Bedrock is exposed. They rain down 24/7/365
> 
> I love the smell of Osmium in the Morning.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Try Again... need info?
> 
> Iridium
Click to expand...


Sure, tell me all about it..... 8)


----------



## rookieminer

Hey, 

What happened to the Rock Man?

I have'nt seen any posts from him in a while, and I always enjoy reading them.

Hope he starts posting again soon. Or if not, hopefully he's to busy mining out some high grade ore!!

rookieminer


----------



## SodbustinClaimjumper

im new to this forum so pls excuse my misplaced questions.
:| 
been diggin ,got something ,help. my email is [email protected]
email me ill show some pics of this material ive been collecting,specimens galore .crushed and panned some ,seems to be some AU present . complex sulfide in quartz ,im guessing ,not exactly sure.ill even send you some specimens to keep for helping ,ps im in georgia usa . on the lower belt between atlanta and alabama.thanks anyone.


----------



## Richard36

rookieminer said:


> Hey,
> 
> What happened to the Rock Man?
> 
> I have'nt seen any posts from him in a while, and I always enjoy reading them.
> 
> Hope he starts posting again soon. Or if not, hopefully he's to busy mining out some high grade ore!!
> 
> rookieminer




I'm still around, I just don't post often anymore.


----------



## Richard36

For those who know me, I'm still around, I just haven't been posting anything here for a long time.
Since I haven't, I figured I'd post some videos of places that I've been for your viewing pleasure, enjoy!

Sincerely; "Rick, The Rockman".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXdEM6n-5yw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjpOhJYfWco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtQBdMOloy4


Sorry for the links, I simply could not get the videos to post.


----------



## kurtak

Thanks for posting the videos Rick & good to see your still around

Kurt


----------



## Richard36

Thanks kurtak, 
It's nice to be remembered and feel appreciated.


----------

