Flour gold

[CampbellShaw]

Hey everyone! I could really use some help. I live in Northeast Georgia on about 500 acres of land. Over the past year or so my fiancé have been learning more and more about prospecting, gems, minerals, and of course gold. We really don’t know very much and have just been learning and explore in our free time. Anyways, we have a rock bottom small creek. We have what I call an underground river. It was a hole I happened to make because it was very soft ground and felt like if I jumped hard enough It would open. So I had to dig and find out more. Now I have a good sized hole which actually had water that flows under a tree and out to our creek area. So I have been digging in this whole and recent have been pulling up sand that appears to me to be half sand and half flour gold. What I wonder is, it is possible that this gold looking sand could be flour gold? And if so it seems to be a lot. How or who would I contact that I could send a sample of this sand to who would be able to let me know if this is gold in the sand? I have found some rocks that I believe have gold. Like I said I new to all this and hoping someone could help me identify this sand and maybe look at some of the rocks i have and let me know if I am on the right track of identity the rocks. Also, I did buy a gold tester kit with the different acids but that didn’t work out well for me. I ended up getting less than a drop on my skin and insisted on calling poison control. I was fine totally over reacted. After my fiancé laughed at me for calling poison control over a drop of acid on my finger, I decided it was probably best not to play with the acid anymore. If someone has time to help it would be very much appreciated! Thanks so much!

 

[Kustommolds]

Any pictures

 

[butcher]

Pan what you suspect to contain gold, put it in a pie pan old truck hub cap, or a gold pan, and add a few small pieces of lead (say 3 very small pieces of lead) in shot form or even in small cut slivers of lead...

Fill the pan of dirt sand and rocks with water. agitate the pan vigorously from side to side then tilt the pan forward with this motion (so lead or gold will sink to the bottom of the pan as lighter material moves and settles on top, with the heavy material in the corner of your pan.

From the tilted pan pour off the majority of the water with a good portion of the lighter sand and gravel over the edge of the pan, over half of the material is fine, dumping the pan of dirt and water into a catch basin or tub (anything dumped from your gold pan will remain in the catch basin tub so it could be panned again if you believe you dumped your gold or you pieces of lead from your pan. or he tub and its contents can be dumped later.

normally if you see gold color materials in sand or in your gold pan it is a light material mica pyrite or fools gold, real gold is normally not seen before you pan away all of the sand gravel dirt, and rocks as well as the mica or pyrite.

Continue to repeat the process of filling the pan with water, agitate vigorously tilting and dumping off half of the lighter materials with most of the water from the pan until all that is left is the small 3 pieces of lead, if you have any gold it will remain with your lead, the tub will hold dirt rocks sand gravel mica and pyrites of the fools gold.


other ways to test it,
Can you smash it flat like gold even under a hammer blow, or does it break apart crumble or smear to powders like fools gold, or pyrites...

Smear test or scratch the suspected material white porcelain portion of the bottom of your coffee cup, gold will leave a golden streak, mica or pyrites or iron ores will leave a black or reddish streak depending on the composition of the ore.

There are several other ways to test it but any one of these will tell you if you have gold.

 

[CampbellShaw]

Here are some pictures…. I believe I can see some gold flakes inside some of them, which was hard to capture in the pictures, and others I am just guessing, some I did scratch on a piece of tile and they had a yellow line but I wasn’t sure if that meant gold or if it was possibly gold. I like to have a definitive anwser from experts so I don’t keep questions myself, if I scratched the tile correctly. I feel I don’t have enough education and knowledge on this to be confident with test I do.
I have tried panning and I do get gold, or what I think could be gold, left in the bottom corner of my pan, but I just am not sure. And honestly, I don’t think I very good at panning. And it seems to take me a lot longer than the people I see doing it on youtube.
I am definitely be trying the lead technique tomorrow!!
Again, I’m sorry the pictures aren’t great. Another point I had read the rocks with gold or gold it’s self it heavier. I don’t have a small scale but they certainly felt much heavier that other rocks about there size.
Thanks so much for helping.

 

[nickvc]

One thing worth looking into is the history of minerals and ores in your area, has anyone else found values?

 

[CampbellShaw]

Well I live on old Cherokee Indian land. Most of my property has never been developed. Only about 20/500 acres has been developed. So, no one but my fiancé and I have been digging or looking around (that we know of) on this property. I live in northeast Georgia, not to far from the Dahlonega Gold Mines where the Gold Rush originated.

 

[nickvc]

Well if you have a history of gold in your area I’d certainly do some testing , panning as advised by Butcher should yield some more information .

 

[CampbellShaw]

Did my rocks looks like they have potential? If so, I would love to have some assayed or my sand looked at by a professional. The problem I have is I have been searching the internet for an assayer in my state and haven’t actually found anyone who stated they assay ore or rocks. If anyone on here could point me in the right direction, that would just be amazing!

 

[Lino1406]

Color suggests sulfur or gold.If not sulfur, which you can check by burning, it looks of high content

 

[jphayesjr]

Take a sample of each type of rock to process separately. Weigh it. Pulverized the rock, pour onto an old iron skillet, roast and stir over a propane fire several hours until any odd odor stops. Then pulverized again. Get a #20 screen, use it to classify. Set up a big tub to pan into. The first few flows can probably be tossed into their own bucket. Save it for micron gold processing. Pan both the screened and passed material separately using a little jet dry to make flour gold settle fast. Save any heavy dark material that shakes out for leaching. When you have a layer of black grit in the bottom, look for gold in that. You can wrap a powerful magnet in plastic wrap, while you still have an inch of water run it above the black sand in your pan. Hold the magnet above a container, unwrap it from the plastic the release the black magnetic grit. I save it for roasting, pulse fixation to <100 screen. Continue to pan what remains until you have removed most of the remaining black grit. Save it it goes directly to a leaching bucket (if you find gold). Use a dropper or shutter bottle to remove your gold from the pan.Squirt the shutter or dropper into a bowl. Let sit until the gold settles. Then, gently pour off the water until just a little remains. Get it evaporate to dry. Then, weigh your gold. You'll get a rough idea of how much to expect per 100 lbs of ore or by the ton by doing some math. Maybe you'll want to refine yourself, maybe you can sell batches of ore yourself here and make more money. Either way, good luck, hope you have lots of Georgia butter gold, usually runs 22k or 23k straight from the ground.

 

[jphayesjr]

If you decide to do it all yourself, you need some equipment, chemicals, physical and chemical processing plans, and safety plans. And cash.

 

[jobinyt]

Nice pictures. To my eyes, mineralized appearance could be many things, but doesn't look like placer gold. Wish I still lived in your area, zId come take a look, but right now I'm about 5,000 miles away. Anyhow,, learning to pan takes some practice, dont be discouraged. 'Half gold' is so unlikely, I think we can safely conclude it isn't - but that doesn't mean there isn't some gold.

You might visit one of the touristy gold/gem panning places in our area to learn how panning is done and how gold behaves /looks in your pan. Take a sample of your material along and if you still think you've got gold, ask someone to look at your material.

PS: this is a great hobby - don't loose interest if this first thing isn't gold - it may be a good sign. Your local library, clubs, internet, museums, GA geologic agency, rock/prospecting shops, etc contain a wealth of information. Prospecting is both art and science. Science applied to random spots is unlikely to be successful. Art is what finds places to apply even higher art and then, if good, turn to science. This is good field for the self-trained. Good Luck - but mostly - enjoy and have fun - let your curiosity run wild. Seek out like minded people to talk with - friends and neighbors that know nothing of the subject are not good sources of inspiration or learning.

 

[goldshark]

It does look like you have some partially oxidized pyrite in some of the lower specimen pictures. Dark cubes in the quartz material. This is sometimes associated with a hydrothermal vein, or sheeted zone, depending on local geology. Gold is known to occur with or in the sulfides (pyrite). I also would look into the nearby type deposits, and read up on them. The US Geological Survey may have some info online. It might take some digging, pun intended. The other yellow looking rock may have some fine disseminated Gold in it, but you won't know until you have it fire assayed, or some other test for quantities of elements in your sample. An ICP will test for all elements. I would have 1 or 2 samples run, just so you know for sure if there is any potential at all. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[Lightspeed]

if you cannot get a bottle roll done on the sulphdes or fire assay.
Dolly a sample to fine sand, pan off the gangue, so you are basically left with heavy black sands, get enough together so you can get a decent sample maybe 200 grams or so, roast it in a metal container get it really hot to help the sulphides break down, you may not a sulphur smell coming off of the sample as its roasting, let your sample cool and place into a beaker and heat with nitric acid and a little distilled water, this will break down the sulpides but will not disolve gold give it a good amount of time and monitor your sample.

Return this sample to the pan and wash of the remaining gangue, if there are values there they will be easily visible. You may even be able to see them in the beaker and simply rinse of the gangue.

Thing is about gold when working by elutriation the Specific Gravity of gold is many, many times more heavy than suphides and other black sands in your dish, Flour gold almost sticks to your pan in a way so unless you are really a newb at panning you should still be able to get a corner in your dish if you are washing correctly.
If there is fine gold in your prospect, an amount will be free gold as the suphides over millions of years of weathering will have broken down releasing whatever gold is held within them.

Your sample rocks look ok for mineralisation with the iron content, gold does not change with the light if there is visible gold, it is constant, its either there or its not within the rock and contact with the iron and sulphides you will see it under a loupe, mica flakes and iron pyrite( a sulphide) generally reflect on certain angles where gold is consistant, here in W.A. we do not generally look at samples in the light before 10 am and after 2 pm this is when sunlight here is optimal for looking at samples so be careful when observing with or without a loupe with or without a light source other than day light, look at you pan tail under a loupe as well, even flour gold is highly visible.

 

[orvi]

1. Learn how to pan the gold. Purchase lowcost gold pan with classifier - not gonna cost you more than 30 bucks. Added value - it is a lot of fun Try to make few lead shavings (scratch a piece of lead, eg old wheelweight, pipe or fishing sinker etc) few mm big. Go somewhere to the creek, watch few videos on YouTube - "how to pan for gold", and try yourself.

Fill your gold pan with classified material, and add the lead shavings on top of the sand (remember how many you placed there). Then perform your best and reduce the material to the few spoons worth of sand. You should be able to recover ALL of the shavings you placed in before. If you try this like 5 times and always get all shavings - you know how to pan If you still missing the shavings you added, you are doing something wrong and you need to tune your technique. Stratifying is sometimes more important than anything else. Also liberation of the gold particles from muddy/clay-ish material can be painful and require manually mix the material underwater to wash away all of the silt and clay. Remember - if gold isn´t liberated from balls of clay or mud etc., it cannot sink to the bottom of the pan.

2. Take the sample you want to inspect. If it is a rock sample, crush it as fine as you can. Then wet it completely and add some surfactant (like dish washing soap) to lower the surface tension of water. Very small flour gold tend to float on the surface tension of the water.

3. Inspect the concentrates - gold is the heaviest thing you could encounter in your pan (if we do not count platinum) - so the gold will be sitting on the bottom of your pan to the end. There are circumstances, when this is only partly true - for example if the gold is attached to the host rock = this lower the overall density of the particle, which is then difficult to pan.

4. Don´t get fooled by pyrite or mica. Both are very similar to gold, but mica is light, wash away easily in the pan. And pyrite is also lighter than gold, most of the times is in form of the sharp edged particles.
And both of them can be rushed to powder. Gold isn´t brittle, so you cannot crush it into the powder.

 

[4metals]

It is my experience that where there is flour gold there are likely nuggets. The way solid placer gold travels in a stream is the same as it behaves in a gold pan. It is dense and it sinks right to the bottom of the pan. Similarly, in a stream, natural curves and eddies which trap larger stones will trap gold as well. Gold only moves during the 100 or 500 year storms when the big old boulders in the stream get moving and eventually comes to rest in a place where the bends or curves in the stream block the bigger stones. Eventually, when a crack in the bedrock is exposed, a heavy chunk of gold will be rolling along in a mammoth storm which has exposed bedrock and it will fall into these cracks and be there for eternity. Obviously flour gold will move with less of a flow of water but it still is very dense and will settle out quickly.

Study the stream and look for the places where there are natural eddies or whirlpools. These places trap gold and the more extreme the bend or whirlpool is, the better the chances you will find nuggets if the stream in fact is carrying placer gold. Nuggets are easier to find and identify than flour gold and if you get a few it is good indication you should look further to identify the flour gold.

Plus, hanging out by a stream in the woods is a great way to spend time.

 

[4metals]

The image of a gold pan I posted above was a screen shot and obviously loaded up with gold by the marketing people trying to sell them. Don't get your hopes up and expect to fill up the pan like that!

 

[CampbellShaw]

Thank you everyone for all your help!! It is so much appreciated!!

 

[kosmow]

The yellow color is most likely to be faded iron staining that turns yellow after brown or rust colored. The area where you are located is the same geologically as it is here, within reason. We have fine gold in the rock which the State Geological Survey totally missed and a lot of silver in the darker rocks.
I'm grappling with the best way to recover the microscopic gold from the rocks here also. If you want to send a sample I'll gladly check it out and let you know for sure what you have.

 

[kosmow]

A few more fun facts: manganese coats gold in our area thereby masking the real thing turning it black. At least grind it before tossing it out.
Start collecting rocks in buckets based on heft and color. That way when you do get equipment to process your pay dirt you'll have plenty to do waiting on you. Get yourself some cheap pocket microscopes and start looking at the sands as it will tell you a lot about it of how it was formed and how far it has traveled. A good metal detector is a great asset for zeroing in on what you are looking for. Iron and gold hang out together so a strong magnet is a must have for prospecting. The places where you pick up the most magnetic pieces are ripe for holding flour to microscopic gold.