Cinnabar?

[kjavanb123]

Hi


I was able to collect the sample and take some pictures from a dried river and the hills around it that were mined for gold.


Hills around the river are mostly extrusive igneous rocks. Here are some pictures of the surrounding hills.






This was the vein that was mined for gold.

 

[kjavanb123]

This is the drainage that I took the sample from.


I collected 10.79kg (23.78 lbs) gravel from different spots, few inches from the surface. Here is the picture.


This is my sifting process. The top sieve is 1mm mesh and the bottom is 60 mesh.


Sifting produced two different sizes, coarse and fine. Pictures of those 2 sizes.




Now I will weigh the coarse and fine, wash and concentrate both, then weigh them, and finally smelt and cupel the concentrates.

Thanks
KJ

 

[Rick & Carrie]

Hi


I was able to collect the sample and take some pictures from a dried river and the hills around it that were mined for gold.


Hills around the river are mostly extrusive igneous rocks. Here are some pictures of the surrounding hills.
View attachment 49541

View attachment 49542

View attachment 49543

This was the vein that was mined for gold.
View attachment 49544

The iron stained rock by the label in the second photo is classic of hard rock gold ore; when it's gold content is high enough to be worth mining.

We would like a sample of the reddish orange quartz vein just to the left of the dark streak in the second photo; also the photo with the wrapper label.

In the photo of the vein workings;
were they processing the placer like material under the shale cap, or were they crushing and tabling the shale cap for its Gold content?

 

[kjavanb123]

The iron stained rock by the label in the second photo is classic of hard rock gold ore; when it's gold content is high enough to be worth mining.

We would like a sample of the reddish orange quartz vein just to the left of the dark streak in the second photo; also the photo with the wrapper label.

In the photo of the vein workings;
were they processing the placer like material under the shale cap, or were they crushing and tabling the shale cap for its Gold content?

Hi Rick


I have done some AR assay on the iron stained quartz in the past with result positive for gold but never assay for the gold content.


There was a massive quartz vein in the cavity under the shale, I believe they extracted and processed that for gold content most likely using smelting.


There has been no work on the placer gold that I am working on now.


Thanks

Kj

 

[Rick & Carrie]

Hi Rick


I have done some AR assay on the iron stained quartz in the past with result positive for gold but never assay for the gold content.

Why not???

Especially since the Gold content would be of prudent man rule status.

One milligram of Gold per CC of solution will test positive with stannous chloride.

In a fire assay, 1 mg represents 1 oz per ton, and a fire assay requires 29.16 g of ore.

So if you AR tested a small fragment and it tested positive, the ore is worth getting and processing.

 

[kjavanb123]

Why not???

Especially since the Gold content would be of prudent man rule status.

One milligram of Gold per CC of solution will test positive with stannous chloride.

In a fire assay, 1 mg represents 1 oz per ton, and a fire assay requires 29.16 g of ore.

So if you AR tested a small fragment and it tested positive, the ore is worth getting and processing.

Rick


I didn't fire assay thoss quartz rocks since I am focused on placer gold since nature already done the crushing and milling part.

 

[kjavanb123]

Updates


I finished concentrating on the coarse and fine sizes from that 10kg sample using my blue bowl.


Coarse size part weighs 2.12kg (4.62lbs).


Fine size part weighs 1.38kg (3lbs),


After concentrating their weighs are as following:


Coarse concentrate weighs 678g

Fine concentrate weighs 17g


Here is the picture of coarse concentrate and under the microscope these orange crystals.




Since the fine size concentrate is much smaller in volume. I smelted that, by placing the concentrates at the bottom of the crucible then adding the Flux plus litharge flour mix.


After cupeling completed I was left with a bead of lead and some oxides, I cleaned it with hot nitric acid and got this black bead which is insoluble in boiling nitric acid and weighs 0.54g


I am going to melt that bead with 20g of silver then dissolve in nitric to find out what this black bead is.

 

[Rick & Carrie]

Updates


I finished concentrating on the coarse and fine sizes from that 10kg sample using my blue bowl.


Coarse size part weighs 2.12kg (4.62lbs).


Fine size part weighs 1.38kg (3lbs),


After concentrating their weighs are as following:


Coarse concentrate weighs 678g

Fine concentrate weighs 17g


Here is the picture of coarse concentrate and under the microscope these orange crystals.
View attachment 49770

View attachment 49771

Since the fine size concentrate is much smaller in volume. I smelted that, by placing the concentrates at the bottom of the crucible then adding the Flux plus litharge flour mix.


After cupeling completed I was left with a bead of lead and some oxides, I cleaned it with hot nitric acid and got this black bead which is insoluble in boiling nitric acid and weighs 0.54g
View attachment 49772

I am going to melt that bead with 20g of silver then dissolve in nitric to find out what this black bead is.

It's been awhile,
but these are my calculations.

You started with a 17 gm sample.

An assay uses 29.16 grams of ore. Each milligram recovered equals one oz per ton.

So ... 29.16 ÷ 17 = 0.58299039 of an assay.

The bead weighs 0.54 GM.
0.54 × 0.58299039 = 0.31481481 mg

The bead turned black in hot Nitric Acid indicating a purity of 20% Gold.

So ... 0.31481481 × .20 = 0.06296296 oz tn AU.
0.47703704 oz tn AG

... Not exact but close.

 

[kjavanb123]

It's been awhile,
but these are my calculations.

You started with a 17 gm sample.

An assay uses 29.16 grams of ore. Each milligram recovered equals one oz per ton.

So ... 29.16 ÷ 17 = 0.58299039 of an assay.

The bead weighs 0.54 GM.
0.54 × 0.58299039 = 0.31481481 mg

The bead turned black in hot Nitric Acid indicating a purity of 20% Gold.

So ... 0.31481481 × .20 = 0.06296296 oz tn AU.
0.47703704 oz tn AG

... Not exact but close.

Hi Rick

Thanks for your calculation. I wonder what the black bead is, I will try to smelt it with silver then part with nitric.

Thanks and best regards
KJ

 

[Yggdrasil]

It's been awhile,
but these are my calculations.

You started with a 17 gm sample.

An assay uses 29.16 grams of ore. Each milligram recovered equals one oz per ton.

So ... 29.16 ÷ 17 = 0.58299039 of an assay.

The bead weighs 0.54 GM.
0.54 × 0.58299039 = 0.31481481 mg

The bead turned black in hot Nitric Acid indicating a purity of 20% Gold.

So ... 0.31481481 × .20 = 0.06296296 oz tn AU.
0.47703704 oz tn AG

... Not exact but close.

Your math is bit off I think.
0.54 g is 540mg and since he used less than a assay ton his percentage need to increase,
hence 540/0.58299039 is 926.26 mg?

 

[Rick & Carrie]

Your math is bit off I think.
0.54 g is 540mg and since he used less than a assay ton his percentage need to increase,
hence 540/0.58299039 is 926.26

Agreed. Groggy and math doesn't work well.

0.18524 oz tn AU
0.74096 oz tn AG.

 

[Rick & Carrie]

Hi Rick

Thanks for your calculation. I wonder what the black bead is, I will try to smelt it with silver then part with nitric.

Thanks and best regards
KJ

I just told you it was an alloy of Gold and silver.

 

[shadybear]

maybe you should think about cleaning up that chunk you have there before melting it nitric bath or sulfuric acid just to see what it looks like
cleaned up

 

[kjavanb123]

I just told you it was an alloy of Gold and silver.

Hi Rick

I was under assumption that silver alloyed with gold would dissolve in nitric.

Also this was from fine size concs, I still have to smelt the coarse fine concs which is few hundred grams. Then I can say how much gold per ton.

Thanks for the correction.

 

[kjavanb123]

maybe you should think about cleaning up that chunk you have there before melting it nitric bath or sulfuric acid just to see what it looks like
cleaned up

This piece was left in boiling nitric then hot water so it is pretty cleaned up.

 

[kjavanb123]

By the way I was wondering if gold content is 20 percent of the alloy, wouldnt the alloy be dissolved in nitric and leave the gold as brown powder?

I think the gold content should be a lot more than 20 percent in the alloy to not dissolve in nitric.

Thanks

 

[Geo]

By the way I was wondering if gold content is 20 percent of the alloy, wouldnt the alloy be dissolved in nitric and leave the gold as brown powder?

I think the gold content should be a lot more than 20 percent in the alloy to not dissolve in nitric.

Thanks

You can slowly leach 10K in hot nitric acid. It is very slow but very doable. 10K is 41% gold.

 

[kjavanb123]

You can slowly leach 10K in hot nitric acid. It is very slow but very doable. 10K is 41% gold.

Thanks Geo. I tried to dissolve that bead in boiling nitric acid for 40 minutes but nothing happened.

The only bead I have seen with similar look was 7.5g Palladium powder when trying to melt it with torch turned black bead with some gold color at the bottom of the bead.

I was able to dissolve that in nitric and found that there was 600mg gold which was dropped with Palladium when adding DMG.

I still think there are some PGMs along with gold in that sample from the dried River bed.

 

[Geo]

Any sample that contains gold should have trace amounts (or more) of all other precious metals. It's not unreasonable to find PGM's with native gold.

 

[Rick & Carrie]

Thanks Geo. I tried to dissolve that bead in boiling nitric acid for 40 minutes but nothing happened.

The only bead I have seen with similar look was 7.5g Palladium powder when trying to melt it with torch turned black bead with some gold color at the bottom of the bead.

I was able to dissolve that in nitric and found that there was 600mg gold which was dropped with Palladium when adding DMG.

I still think there are some PGMs along with gold in that sample from the dried River bed.

If the bead is inquarted with at least three grams of silver, then digested in nitric, it would part the Gold and any pgm's present as a fine powder. Brown powder for gold, and a silvery gray powder for pgms if I remember correct.

Try a partial digest in acid clorox, remove the bead, heat the solution to drive off the free chlorine, then swab test that solution with stannous to see what color it turns.

I also recommend the same swab test using Potassium Iodide to see what reaction color you get.

Add some salt water or hcl to the nitric used to digest the bead and see if white silver chloride forms.

Simple tests to see what you have by confirming known reactions.

It would be entirely possible to smelt enough of that sand concentrate to produce a small silver alloy ingot that could be refined by Electrowinning in a silver cell.

The Gold and any PGM's would fall to the bottom of the tank as a fine powder or slime that could be dissolved into Acid/Clorox or Aqua Regia; even Muriatic Acid (34%HCL) and Sodium Nitrate, then precipitated individually with the refining methods found on this forum.

Then of course melted or calcined to produce a high grade marketable bullion.

We hope this helps.