# What Have I Got Here?



## thesilverfox111 (Nov 24, 2011)

Hi guys/gals, I'm brand new here. I was guided here by a member at a gold prospecting forum where I am a member at.

I have been amateur prospecting for a bit more than a year now and I have a large interest in both placer and hard rock prospecting. There are a few areas where I have been collecting samples from some exposed out crops with sulphide quartz in them. I am only just trying to learn more about geology by reading stuff on the net and asking questions in the forums.

I haven't crushed and panned these samples yet. I have just broke them up and have been looking at them with my new usb microscope. I haven't tried roasting yet or any chemical separation's although I have read a bit about them in the past couple of days.

I am not sure exactly what I have here. I took pics with the usb microscope on the areas of the ore that look interesting to me.

Any help identifying what I have and suggestions on what to do from here would be greatly appreciated!

The first 5 pics are the sample before breaking it up, then in next posts I'll post the usb microscope pics.


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## thesilverfox111 (Nov 24, 2011)

Here are the USB microscope pictures.


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## thesilverfox111 (Nov 24, 2011)

More USB microscope pics of the ore.


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## butcher (Nov 24, 2011)

Very interesting, rock, with my untrained eye I see quartz iron and pyrite, I really like the microscope computer pictures, we have some members here that are very good with ore, they can probably help you with what this ore may contain, and possibly the name of it and how it was formed
They usually post in the prospecting section (I really do not know how much they read all of the posts in other sections, but if you go to the prospecting section and ask Rockman or Chris to look at this post, I bet they will tell you what they think.

Welcome to the forum.


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## thesilverfox111 (Nov 24, 2011)

Hey Butcher thank you. I'll see if they think I should move the thread over there.


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## butcher (Nov 24, 2011)

Good lets get all our rocks in one spot.
I like the purple color, Hmmm


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## 4metals (Nov 24, 2011)

Moved with all the rocks, Welcome to the forum.


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## Reno Chris (Nov 24, 2011)

Some ore material with sulfides. Hard to tell from blurry photos if it could be gold. Crush some up to powder and pan it, and check the concentrates. Get some of it assayed. Then you will know what you have.


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## thesilverfox111 (Nov 25, 2011)

4metals said:


> Moved with all the rocks, Welcome to the forum.


Thank you for the move and the welcome!



Reno Chris said:


> Some ore material with sulfides. Hard to tell from blurry photos if it could be gold. Crush some up to powder and pan it, and check the concentrates. Get some of it assayed. Then you will know what you have.



Hey Chris thanks for your reply. I was hoping someone might be able to identify the pyrites so I could feel safer about playing with this ore. I thought there might be aresenopyrite in it so I am hesitant to mess with it too much after reading about the harmfulness of the arsenic. If it's chalcopyrite and iron pyrite then I am tempted to experiment with this ore to learn more about trying to assay ore's myself.
I have a few chunks of this ore so I am going to be sending some in for assay but I would like to learn the assay process my self as well and hopefully learn more about geology along the way.

The USB micro pics are at around 600 to 700 x so I'm not too sure if panning it will do any good because if it is gold that tiny then it may just float out of the pan even with soap added to the water. Do you agree on that? I'm thinking it may have to be chemically separated/roasted?

Right now when I am prospecting I am looking out for more sulphide type of quartz outcrops to sample from just because that's what I've been advised to do from people on the prospecting forum I am on but I don't have any talent at the moment to personally identify types of minerals on the cuff to know what is more likely to hold valuable elements etc.

If anyone recognizes certain minerals in my pictures it would be helpful if you guys could identify them so I can research more about what I have in my ore. Not sure if the "buttery" yellow spots are gold or not. It's hard to tell even at 700 x magnification. Hopefully the pyrite pics may be more recognizable.


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## Richard36 (Dec 3, 2011)

Hello silverfox,

Welcome to the forum.

The Matrix material (Bulk of the rock sample) is Quartz and Albite.
It formed in a zone associated with mountain building processes, and differentiated from a Granitic Magma.

The Ore Minerals that I could recognize are Stibnite (Antimony) and Sphalerite (Zinc), 
both of which commonly contain Gold and Silver, how much is the question. Each deposit is different.

Nice photos, and definitely nice material. 
If I were to find a deposit of such material in decent concentration, I would definitely assay it.

I have found small deposits of similar material that assayed 3 oz per ton gold.

Sorry that I haven't replied sooner. 
I'm quite busy with phone calls, assays, ore leach tests, and refining.

Sincerely, Rick. "The Rock Man".


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## TBarrow (Dec 4, 2011)

thesilverfox111 said:


> I have a few chunks of this ore so I am going to be sending some in for assay but I would like to learn the assay process my self as well and hopefully learn more about geology along the way.



Welcome to the forum silverfox!

If it were me, I would crush it and split it before sending a sample for assay if you want to experiment with the process. Giving the assayer half of same sample you're working on will let you compare the results of your experimenting with his professional results, both samples coming from the same chunk.

Best of luck!

Todd


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## thesilverfox111 (Dec 13, 2011)

Richard36 said:


> Hello silverfox,
> 
> Welcome to the forum.
> 
> ...


Hi Rick nice to meet you! That's a great bunch of info on my samples thank you! I am definitely going to be assaying these samples and a bunch of others from two other areas I have been prospecting in. This vein is by far the most interesting one I have found yet. There's so much sulphides and decomposing material in this vein. I hope it has some value to it! There has been a gold, silver, copper, zinc deposit found not too far from where I am prospecting at. I've got around 40 samples now to assay. The location is really hard to get to so packing out samples is quite difficult. I drive a 4 x 4 truck up logging roads for about an hour then take an atv for another hour to 2 hours depending on weather, then hike in for about an hour or more if bad weather. So I can't get up to this area too often but when I do I try to pack out as much samples as I can. Who knows it might lead to nothing but it's nice being out there poking around in the outdoors anyways. Rather be in the woods than anywhere else!
When I get the samples assayed I'll be sure to post up the results to see what you guys think of them and if you can offer some more advice at that time that would be great!
Take care and thanks again!



TBarrow said:


> thesilverfox111 said:
> 
> 
> > I have a few chunks of this ore so I am going to be sending some in for assay but I would like to learn the assay process my self as well and hopefully learn more about geology along the way.
> ...


Hey Todd nice to meet you too! Thanks a lot for the advice I will for sure be doing that and keeping at least half of the samples when I send them for assay.
I'm looking forward to learning about that process too.


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