Nugget input -- Wisconsin Find

[emwonk]

A while back in suburban Milwaukee Wisconsin I found a strange "nugget" of what looked like some kind of slag from soomething. It came out of the ground mostly green, with bits of rifle-shell-casing-colored metal here and there.

I thought it was some kind of welding slag or something, but when I cleaned it up it looks natural, like a mix of gold and copper. It meters out on the detector square in the nickel range, just like a gold ring. The material when gently scraped shows the gold colored inner metal, and it will not react with lab-grade sulphuric acid. Ruling out the presence of much copper. It is also very mallable. A university geology professor at first thought it was calcopyrite, but the mallebility factor ruled that out. He surmised it may be low-carat gold, but he had never heard of another gold find in Wisconsin. After years in my "treasure chest," the gold has not tarnished, and the green-patina copper colored part has stayed stable too.

It is about 3 inches long, 1/2 inch wide, and looks very much the shape of a natural copper nugget, only more rugged, with less-rounded/eroded edges...It weighs about an ounce or so..

Is this possibly some low-grade gold nugget that was brought along with the same glaciers that deposited all the copper nuggets in Wisconsin? I will post a photo as soon as possible.

 

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[emwonk]

Maybe this will help with an ID. I scraped the bare spot about 10 years ago, and you can see how mallable it is where it's been hammered by the geologist on one end. His verdict was it doesn't quite fit gold but it doesn't match up with anything but gold. He said copper would have definitely reacted with the acid he tested it with. Anyway, given that it pegs right at nickel on the detector, and it doesn;t appear to be man made, I'm keeping my hope up it's an unusual find.

What do you think? Is it natural? Is it native to Southeastern Wisconsin? Was it carried to Brookfield by man or glacier? Or is it just some kind of industrial junk.

Thanks for any help...

 

[Pete_]

I'm no expert (hardly even a novice) but that looks like gold to me. Some body should be able to test it. I'm rooting for ya!
Pete

 

[warsawdaddy]

What does it weigh?

 

[Goldfinger1]

Looks like a piece of bronze to me. Take it to a jewelry shop. They should be able to test it electronically with a gold kt checker.

 

[emwonk]

Good idea on the jewlery shop. it weighs about 2 ounces on a postal scale. I hope it is not bronze. However, bronze would have a copper content of 40 percent to 90 percent, depending on the grade, and should have reacted to strong sulphuric acid, I think. Any chemists out ther? I'm suspecting that bronze would peg much higher than nickel on the detector. Also, the gold-colored bits were gold-colored when I pulled it out of the ground. I'll haul it to a jewerly shop and try that approach...Hope doesn't make it a nugget...

 

[goldinmypan]

check for specific gravity.

 

[emwonk]

how?

 

[goldinmypan]

I was afraid you would ask that. Basicly you do it by weighing the specman in water. Try these web sites for info.

http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/gravity.htm

http://www.gold-nuggets.org/specific-gravity-test.htm

 

[Jeffro]

This looks more like something that has been in a fire, gold nuggets do not stay all stretched out like that without being rolled up into ball. The edges suggest wear, and if were worn by water action, it would be rolled up of split apart long before the edges rounded. Most likely a fire. As to the metal, the specific gravity test would be a good place to start.

 

[emwonk]

This object was found in dirt, nowhere near water. It was in a lawn of a former house site.

It clearly doesn't match up with any sort of standard-issue nugget. I'm getting very distracted by the fact that it measures dead-on nickel on my CZ6.

I'll get it to a jeweler.

 

[Paul in WA]

Looks like a piece of melted brazing rod to me. Me, and a friend of mine use to melt brazing rod & let it drip into a bucket of water, looked like gold nuggets. Then we would dump the bucket off the bridge at a popular tourist gold panning spot at night, and then sit up on the bridge in the morning , drinking our morning coffee, and watching people go nuts. I know, cruel joke.......one of those things you do as a teenager, and look back as an adult & wonder what the heck you were thinking.

Paul

 

[packerbacker]

Looks very similar to byproduct of the electroplating process used in the manufacture of circuit boards. It builds up in chunks like that on the plating bars. Common mixture used is ni/au (nickle/gold)

 

[dave wiseman]

Throw it in nitric acid in a well ventilated area with no wind blowing and see what's left after the smoke clears....Dave

 

[midwest_prospector]

Dave is right, Nitric Acid should tell you for sure. I have found a lot of native copper and some of it has had a similar shape to that, but I have never seen any with a burnt black coating. The copper that I have found is always caoted with a green or rarely purple patina. I have found copper nuggets while dredging that actially do look like gold on the outer surface, but it is only skin deep. It also doesn't seem heavy enough to be gold for its size, I would think it is probably brass or bronze, but the nitric will tell you for sure. I have some pictures of a few of my "native copper" finds on the photo pages of my website, they might give you a better idea of what copper should look like. http://www.midwestprospector.com/page2.html

Chuck Lassiter

 

[Kas]

'Um, there is gold everywhere that the glacier came down to in the last ice age.

Gold pushed from Canada into the states under the glacier.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Check with the us geological survey online to see the areas.

http://www.uwrf.edu/~wc01/gold.htm

HH
Ken

 

[thompy]

the gold came down from Canada and also Upper Michigan, starting from Marquette to the west like White Pine where they mined copper but payed the employee's wages with the gold found with the copper.

 

[Functional]

"A mere 15,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, most of northern America lay under the grip of colossal ice sheets. The effects of the advancing and retreating glaciers can be seen in the headlands of Cape Cod, the Finger Lakes of New York, and the hills of Michigan, but nowhere is the glacier's mark upon the land more impressive than in Wisconsin. Indeed, the state has lent its name to the most recent series of glacial advances and retreats -- the Wisconsin Glaciation lasting from about 100,000 to 10,000 years ago."
Reference:
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Glaciers/IceSheets/description_ice_sheets.html

To me, that looks like gold and silver, but its hard to tell from a picture. A simple porcelain streak test would give you an idea of what is in it. There may be more to be had where you found that, but then again, the glaciers may have deposited the rest hundreds of miles away.

Good luck!

F.

 

[packerbacker]

This is the stuff I'm talking about. It builds up on the racks during the electroplating process.