"The Ore Bin"

[Oz]

I will take a pic for you when I dig it out but you will be unimpressed. The picture will be no better than picking out the color of paint you want from a color chart. While there are probably ore type deposits of this material that have character, what I have is exceedingly homogenous in nature and slabed, which is what makes it ideal for carving a pipe.

 

[Richard36]

I will take a pic for you when I dig it out but you will be unimpressed. The picture will be no better than picking out the color of paint you want from a color chart. While there are probably ore type deposits of this material that have character, what I have is exceedingly homogenous in nature and slabed, which is what makes it ideal for carving a pipe.

Fair enough.
I was hoping though.

Here's a couple of Photos by Brandt that show the same Ore.
Here's the thread link.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=6091#p53355



The Ore in the photo below looks like a Rhyolite/Andesite mix
that has been Enriched with Hematite.



Check it out,
it looks like the same material to me.

Sincerely; Rick. "The Rock Man".

 

[turtlesteve]

Rick,

Thanks for the quick response. I am quite knowledgeable on pegmatites in the area as I am a mineral/gemstone collector and did my BS in geology at Clemson. Not too many sites in upstate South Carolina are accessible for collecting, but I spent a lot of time in the Spruce Pine, NC area - lots of REE minerals there, and easy to prospect with a scintillation counter. Also found columbite/tantalite, beryl, garnets, & Li-minerals. From SC I have collected tourmalines, U/Th/REE minerals, zircon, some beryl, and rutile from various pegmatites. I also remember a really interesting metamorphosed "monazite sand" river deposit I visited once, but never found any good specimens. Rock is a fine-medium grained gneiss in texture but contains large amounts of apatite, REE, Th minerals. No idea about Au/PGM but considering the origin it might be worthwhile to check.

It's a shame there's not more to prospect for in central PA.

Steve

 

[Richard36]

Rick,

Thanks for the quick response. I am quite knowledgeable on pegmatites in the area as I am a mineral/gemstone collector and did my BS in geology at Clemson.

Your welcome.

A BS in Geology?
Rock on! Someone that I can ask questions of, if they come up,
let alone "Talk Rocks" with.

From SC I have collected tourmalines,

Any light teal-green Pariebas? Lol! (I hope I spelled that correctly.)
You and I both wish, $4000 a CT back in "91" by my gem values catalog.

Also found columbite/tantalite, beryl, garnets, & Li-minerals. U/Th/REE minerals, zircon, some beryl, and rutile from various pegmatites.

Sweet.
Quite the mineral collection.
What were the colors of the Beryl that you found?

Lithium Minerals? Spodumene by chance?
I hope that they are, and that they are a rich transparent pink. (Nice stones.)

Zircons can be "Heat Treated" to produce a variety of colors.
Most cut Zircon has been heat treated to give the stone a deeper color.

Rutile is seldom found in large enough pieces to be cut,
but when they are, they are a deep reddish-brown color similar to Garnet and Starolite.

Apatite, REE, and Th minerals are Good Prospects as well.
Apatite has many uses, the most common is that of creating "Super Phosphate" fertilizer by leaching the Apatite from the rock with Sulfuric Acid, and evaporating the solution.
It is also used to create Phosphoric Acid.

Rare Earth Metals will continue to rise in value as the Electronics industry progresses, and finds new uses for them. They are valuable enough to be worth going after at this time.

Thorium is a "Strategic Metal" and is quite valuable.
There are international regulations on which countries it can be sold to.
It has the same restrictions as that of Uranium, which of itself is worth mining if it is present in decent quantity.

The background Radiation would be a bit spooky though, for Uranium, and Thorium.


Columbite/Tantalite are "High Grade Ores of Niobium and Tantalum.
They are worth going after as well.

As for Gold and PGM's, the Grano-Monzonitic Facies would be where to look for Epithermal, and Hypothermal vein systems of Minerals that will yield those metals.
Those are the areas that I would want to look in.

Monazite, if it is in concentration, it is an excellent ore.
It contains Cerium, Lanthanum, and often Yttrium, Thorium, and Uranium.
Monazite can be up to %12 Thorium Oxide.
Monazitic Sands are prime exploitable concentrations of the mineral.

Have a "Full Spectrum Test" done on some of that "Monazite Sand".
That's my suggestion based on what you've posted.

Thanks for the reply.
I hope that what I've posted has been of use to you.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".

 

[turtlesteve]

Rick,

Thanks for the quick response. I am quite knowledgeable on pegmatites in the area as I am a mineral/gemstone collector and did my BS in geology at Clemson.

Your welcome.

A BS in Geology?
Rock on! Someone that I can ask questions of, if they come up,
let alone "Talk Rocks" with.

From SC I have collected tourmalines,

Any light teal-green Pariebas? Lol! (I hope I spelled that correctly.)
You and I both wish, $4000 a CT back in "91" by my gem values catalog.

Unfortunately not too likely in the Carolinas. I find mostly schorl crystals, some dark blue/green tourmaline in NC at the Ray (Wray) mica mine but it is completely opaque.

Also found columbite/tantalite, beryl, garnets, & Li-minerals. U/Th/REE minerals, zircon, some beryl, and rutile from various pegmatites.

Sweet.
Quite the mineral collection.
What were the colors of the Beryl that you found?

From SC, only opaque blue-green beryl. From NC, I have found aquamarine and heliodor & tiny emeralds. Some of the aquamarine is good enough that I could cut <1ct gems, but I prefer to keep them as specimens (cutting rough this size is really cheap anyways).

Lithium Minerals? Spodumene by chance?
I hope that they are, and that they are a rich transparent pink. (Nice stones.)

No spodumene yet from the Spruce Pine district, only nice purple lepidolite. I was hoping to find elbaite tourmalines at that locality, but no such luck. Did get a horrible case of poison ivy though.

Zircons can be "Heat Treated" to produce a variety of colors.
Most cut Zircon has been heat treated to give the stone a deeper color.

Rutile is seldom found in large enough pieces to be cut,
but when they are, they are a deep reddish-brown color similar to Garnet and Starolite.

Neither were of cutting quality, but nice mineral specimens. The zircon is "low" zircon, referring to the near destruction of its crystal structure via >300 million years of radiation damage. Hence the crystals are also opaque and fractured.

Apatite, REE, and Th minerals are Good Prospects as well.
Apatite has many uses, the most common is that of creating "Super Phosphate" fertilizer by leaching the Apatite from the rock with Sulfuric Acid, and evaporating the solution.
It is also used to create Phosphoric Acid.

Rare Earth Metals will continue to rise in value as the Electronics industry progresses, and finds new uses for them. They are valuable enough to be worth going after at this time.

Thorium is a "Strategic Metal" and is quite valuable.
There are international regulations on which countries it can be sold to.
It has the same restrictions as that of Uranium, which of itself is worth mining if it is present in decent quantity.

The background Radiation would be a bit spooky though, for Uranium, and Thorium.


Columbite/Tantalite are "High Grade Ores of Niobium and Tantalum.
They are worth going after as well.

As for Gold and PGM's, the Grano-Monzonitic Facies would be where to look for Epithermal, and Hypothermal vein systems of Minerals that will yield those metals.
Those are the areas that I would want to look in.

Monazite, if it is in concentration, it is an excellent ore.
It contains Cerium, Lanthanum, and often Yttrium, Thorium, and Uranium.
Monazite can be up to %12 Thorium Oxide.
Monazitic Sands are prime exploitable concentrations of the mineral.

Have a "Full Spectrum Test" done on some of that "Monazite Sand".
That's my suggestion based on what you've posted.

Thanks for the reply.
I hope that what I've posted has been of use to you.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".

As far as the REE ores and radioactives - large pieces are certainly worth more as mineral specimens. I often don't even keep sands if I find them. Most of these deposits were evaluated during various geological surveys and were deemed too small to be mined profitably. A few were mined around 1900 for thorium for light bulb filaments, but were abandoned afterwards. I'm skeptical that any extraction venture in these small deposits could be profitable. For example - lets say you could extract REE ores -there is no practical way to separate the various elements on a small scale. The only commercial processors of such ores are in China, and they would require huge tonnages to even be interested. Also there are far larger Th/REE deposits in California, Idaho, etc that have long sat idle due to low REE prices (current prices are artificially low due to mining subsidies in China). I think there is some talk of increasing mining in the US now though.

Let's say these deposits could produce small quantities (100's of lbs) of high grade REE ores - is there anyone you know that would buy them?

Steve

 

[Richard36]

The only commercial processors of such ores are in China, and they would require huge tonnages to even be interested. Also there are far larger Th/REE deposits in California, Idaho, etc that have long sat idle due to low REE prices (current prices are artificially low due to mining subsidies in China). I think there is some talk of increasing mining in the US now though.

Let's say these deposits could produce small quantities (100's of lbs) of high grade REE ores - is there anyone you know that would buy them?

Steve

Well noted.
The probability of finding a buyer for a batch that small is low.
If you had a ton or more, It would be a different story.

I do have a contact in Canada that is a Mineral Broker with buyers for various Ores,
and I'm sure that he could find someone that would be interested.

That was my thought as far as the Monazitic Sands.

If you could get 5 or more tons of that sand from those deposits,
I'm pretty sure that he would be interested, and could find a market for it.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".

 

[Chumbawamba]

Rick, excellent comments and photos. This is a really helpful series of postings.

One request: can you shoot photos of your ore samples on a more neutral background? In some of the shots with the samples against your aggregate concrete slab, you can just barely make out the contours of the sample :|

 

[Richard36]

Rick, excellent comments and photos. This is a really helpful series of postings.

One request: can you shoot photos of your ore samples on a more neutral background? In some of the shots with the samples against your aggregate concrete slab, you can just barely make out the contours of the sample :|

Hello Chumbawamba,

Thanks for the compliment.

I realize that some of the photos have issues, they were taken late in the day, and the light was wrong, sorry about that. Given time, I may take new photos of them on a different background in good sunlight, which may be a tall order for this late in the year, as it is often cloudy here, if not rainy.

My digital camera does not show the details well in incandescent light either, I have tried.
I will keep all the above in mind for any further photos that I take and post.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".