Sup guys. I dont know if this is the correct board for this.
I'm totally new at prospecting for gold.
I've found some silver and just a teenie weenie bit of gold.
But i keep finding these black rocks in the quartz rocks i take home.. They always form as cubes. Looks metallic. They are not magnetic. And the oxidation is red/brownish.
Does someone know what it is?
Pic related btw
Bump for knowledge.
>>2091168
probably either pyrite or pseudomorphs of hydrous iron oxides after pyrite.
check it for gold as well. I think you dissolve in sulphuric acid and then filter? or you can run a straight wet assay using aqua regia or a fire assay with a furnace hot enough to melt iron and silica.
where is your ore from? looks decent.
Thanks. I didnt know that pyrite could be black. But when i type that in google, the pictures do kinda look like these rocks i have.
The ore is from Aruba. Small island off the coast of venezuela where the whole east coast usa goes on vacation lol. But they've mined for gold here in the 1800's so i figured i'd give it a try.
I still have nothing to pan it with though. they dont sell that here, so i'm getting that in may.
>>2091176
what are you using to crush it?
are you familiar with tube mills?
>>2091177
No i'm not familiar with that. I've just started out. I watched like 50+ hours of amateur prospecting vids and read up on it. Checking out the hills here a little. Found a nice quartz vein though. There are no rivers here, never have been rivers. So i figured all the gold must still be in the rocks.
Someone is actually welding a steel tube to a steel plate as we speak. And i bought a big heavy steel pole with some heavy plumbing steel stuff at the end. They dont sell anything here like this, so i have to make it myself..
>>2091176
>I didnt know that pyrite could be black
yeah, almost every time you find gold in a primary deposit you'll find iron too. Secondary deposits as well, since gold and iron tend to move together.
the ancient Spanish miners used to say "gold rides an iron horse." Where you find gold you'll also find iron. And where you find iron you *might* find gold.
the other likely culprits for a black, cubic mineral with gold would be silver or galena, but neither is particularly likely and neither produces rust colored stain.
>>2091181
>Someone is actually welding a steel tube to a steel plate as we speak. And i bought a big heavy steel pole with some heavy plumbing steel stuff at the end.
that's a tube mill.
watch your fingers, it helps to wear leather gloves when you're crushing. Also wear a dust mask, you don't want to breathe that shit.
>>2091182
Well to be honest, almost all my quartz has thick red oxidation lines running through them. You can scratch it off with your finger. I'm thinking now it might be just oxidation from iron that sticks on the black rocks
>>2091184
yeah, I saw the red stain.
if you get a better pic of the black rocks I might be able to tell you more, but my first guess is still pyrite.
>>2091183
>that's a tube mill.
Oh haha. Good to know. Still learning my abc lol.
Thanks for the tips! Really appreciate it
>>2091186
>Thanks for the tips!
you're welcome, good luck. if it pays off come back and show us what you get.
>>2091168
I'd suggest /out/, they might have more knowledge on this.
>>2091185
I put my other specimens in there. I saved up on them a little.
>>2091190
I sure will!
>>2091193
Its like i have a decent piece of quartz, all white and stuff and then you have these black cube-ish things lodged into the quartz. They appear on the edges, in the middle, anywhere in the rock really. But only quartz. I havent seen them on any other rock type here.
>>2091193
yeah, I don't know.
it doesn't look much like pyrite, does it?
maybe mica schist, or perhaps silver or lead. Could be non-magnetic magnetite or hematite. Or even some rare earth or platinum group stuff.
I don't think we're going to ID it just by looks alone.
>>2091198
I find ALOT of mica here. But they are gold in color and tiny flakes. I find them in the sand. But not in rocks.
But hematite might be very close. If i compare the pictures with my rocks.
I think your right. I'm gonna have to find someone here who can tell me what they are.
