Large gold in quartz how should I go about extracting?

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Does my find hold any value?

  • No, stick to your day job

    Votes: 1 25.0%
  • Yes, winner winner chicken dinner

    Votes: 1 25.0%
  • Mabe, if you consider paperweights to be of great value.

    Votes: 1 25.0%
  • I don't know I just wanted to poke at your poll

    Votes: 1 25.0%

  • Total voters
    4

Evalee

New member
Joined
Oct 3, 2021
Messages
2
I have huge chunks of quartz with gold and other metals along with a bunch of chunks of metal witch gold in it. I say it's gold because it passed an acid test. Im not trying to break it down and turn it into bars or anything I would just like to break it down enough to be able to get it to a point we're places are willing to buy it. I have so much of the stuff and just need some cash out it. I am so new at this. I welcome any and all advice,tips,refferals ECT. Anyinfo that you think might help or if you could point me in the direction of someone who can help or someone willing to buy as is or as will be. Thank you for your time. Also let me know if you need more pictures, these are just what I have in my phone from first trip.
 

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Pictures of first tripe continued;
 

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Hello.

When you say "it passed the acid test" ...what do you mean, precisely?

The acid /touchstone method, is a comparative dissolution.
Are you just making a streak and seeing if it dissolves or not?

What "K" are you using?
It's either nitric or weak AR.
Either way though, There are plenty of things that can make a mark but pass the acid test.

Not tryin to poo all on your parade. Just curious

The pics look nice to me, but i know absolutely nothing about gold ore. Except that I'll buy it... the gold that is, not the ore :)
 
I’m far from an expert on mining and ores but I would suggest that your first step should be crushing the rock and gravity separation by either panning or sluicing to remove any elemental gold, you may well have sulphides which can hold significant value but assays may well be needed to ascertain that.
 
Some of that reminds me of what I was finding on my amazonite claim. With how large your quartz is, you need to crush and condense it down via gravity separation. To have better aid in finding a buyer. There's a lot out there that will make an offer or not on an assay of your cons.
 

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To me it looks like a lot of iron stained mica. If you think you have visible gold in quartz, crush and pan it. It will reveal the truth. No gold in the gold pan, no gold in the rock.

Once you have seen visible gold in rocks then you will never mistake it again. It has a yellow metallic look that's unique and it will form sharp edges and hooks when it is at a freshly broken surface. It is pulled out and sticks out of the surface while most other minerals just breaks. It has to do with the malleability of gold.

Göran
 
g_axelsson said:
To me it looks like a lot of iron stained mica. If you think you have visible gold in quartz, crush and pan it. It will reveal the truth. No gold in the gold pan, no gold in the rock.

Once you have seen visible gold in rocks then you will never mistake it again. It has a yellow metallic look that's unique and it will form sharp edges and hooks when it is at a freshly broken surface. It is pulled out and sticks out of the surface while most other minerals just breaks. It has to do with the malleability of gold.

Göran

1849 California gold rush miner's saying to new prospectors:

"If you think it's gold - it ain't!" :wink:

Peace and health,
James
 
cosmetal said:
g_axelsson said:
To me it looks like a lot of iron stained mica. If you think you have visible gold in quartz, crush and pan it. It will reveal the truth. No gold in the gold pan, no gold in the rock.

Once you have seen visible gold in rocks then you will never mistake it again. It has a yellow metallic look that's unique and it will form sharp edges and hooks when it is at a freshly broken surface. It is pulled out and sticks out of the surface while most other minerals just breaks. It has to do with the malleability of gold.

Göran

1849 California gold rush miner's saying to new prospectors:

"If you think it's gold - it ain't!" :wink:

Peace and health,
James
Not happy with the old prospectors answer, the new prospector pressed the old-timer for more information that he could use to become rich. The old-timer said:

"Gold is where you find it!"

Glad I could be of help. 8)

Peace and fun,
James
 
What does the assay tell you? Many minerals in nature can have, to the inexperienced, the appearance of gold. Some will even pass what some call an acid test. Without an assay, you have yellowin your rock.

Time for more coffee.
 
i have seen many gold/quartz samples, many of them i found personally digging on old mine dumps. pictures arent focused and zoomed, so from that what is available to see, i cannot conclude it. but it resembles me exactly what goran said: slightly weathered/iron stained mica :) gold sometimes form leaf-like structures, but it is not transparent nor translucent.
crush your sample with hammer to sand-like consistency (piece with obvious "gold"), and using a gold pan, you will very quickly see if it is gold :) i you hadn´t goldpanned yet, look up for some tutorial on YT, there are plenty. train in with some iron/copper filings (also heavy material, heavier than sand or black sands) if you are doing it properly.

if you have gold in the crushed sample, it wont wash away. mica, on the other hand, is one of the lightest materials commonly encountered in rocks. it will wash away extremely easily.

if you have some bits separated, and still not sure, hit or two with hammer will tell you for sure. place suspected "gold" on some steel plate or anvil or anything strong and smoothly flat, and lightly tap it with hammer. gold, being soft will flatten, and you will see shiny metal surface. on the other hand, mica, and any other sulfide, chalcopyrite will crack and crush - being brittle, you will obtain some kind of powder dont resembling anything metallic :)
 
I'm only on my 4th year of learning All Things Mining. We've got some very nice free mill gold in hardrock quartz veins and I'm getting very good at recognizing it, liberating it, and smelting it down.

What I'm seeing in your pics. looks like Sulphides and Mica as noted by others here. The third pic "Almost"
looks like gold, but it does appear translucent and that's not right. I can't see any crystaline gold in the pics, but you P1070015.JPGP1050669.JPGP1050688.JPGmay have some values locked up in the Sulphides and there may even be small free mill gold in the mineralized zones that is covered by oxides and dirt.

If you're serious about figuring this out, and you lack the hard rock tools for crushing and smelting, then you should follow the Gurus advice here and have a few assays done. Far better to learn this on the cheap end than to dump good money to play with bad ore.
I can see some similarities to our ore and I do think it may be worth assaying.
I'll try and attach a few pics for reference.

Good Luck with this and I hope there's something good in there.
Les




The result of a few hours of detecting the talus.

A sample bucket from one of the veins.

Quartz and Sulphide Vein in one of the Adits. Running 8g-16g per yd
 
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