Cool little morning hike find...

[Steve1236]

I'm not sure if this is worth pursuing? I was out for a hike this very early morning in a new area and I found this in a little tributary that only goes for about a mile till it hits the mountain side so the source shouldn't be to hard to locate. Just thought I'd share....

 

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[Kray Gelder]

Interesting piece of...!

 

[Steve1236]

Been looking around online, it seems to be tenorite, cuprite and chrysocolla/gem silica in quartz, my best guess..

 

[Kray Gelder]

A really colorful specimen. Keep searching.

 

[ToddsPoint]

You have some of the coolest rocks in AZ. Do you think you can grind and polish that piece without it falling apart? Gary

 

[Steve1236]

Thanks Gary, surprisingly this material seems pretty strong so I think it would but I wouldn't know where to start on that smaller piece with all those crystal formations of tenorite and cuprite, I'll probably go at the larger piece and cut out that area of cuprite and chrysocolla/gem silica to see if it holds up and how it looks finished. I'm hoping the source has more gem silica when or if I find it ya know...

 

[smokeythecat]

It apparently has a lot of copper in it. Cool rock.

 

[Steve1236]

24hours in bleach and dish soap, I didn't want to use super iron out since these are copper minerals.

 

[fuss]

I would pursue it further for sure.

 

[IAMZIM]

Sometimes, when you find copper and quartz like that, you can find gold. That is a VERY interesting rock.....

 

[Steve1236]

There's gold in the area I found this, there's small dynamite blast wholes everywhere out there, I'd bet when I get back out there to search more the source will be from one of those, I looked at that spot from Google earth and I see some small mine tailings up that same tributary.

 

[Buckshotnc]

Cool looking rock, keep looking there's probably more.

 

[Eu_citzen]

I'd be tempted to have such a piece essayed and check out the general area further.

 

[Steve1236]

There's actually some really small gold in this specimen I think to, Ill see if I can get a good shot of it and I'll post it. I'm just waiting for the weather to cool off so I can do some serious searching, I can see old blast holes about a half mile up the tributary on Google earth, it's literally just a few miles from Vulture mine near Wickenburg not far off the main road, a lot of people ignore or dont really inspect those small blast holes, but you have to put yourself in an old miners shoes, your on horse back or mule, you can carry limited tools and water and dynamite for that matter, I don't think they'd waste it blowing up non promising looking ores and at the time gold was 18$ to 35$ an ounce so what small gold source might of made them move on, now might be profitable at 1,300 an ounce. I'm really hoping I can find the source, if not just for some cool specimens.

 

[Steve1236]

Where I circled could be gold and I stress could? I'm also thinking where I drew the arrow might be small wulfenite crystals?

 

[Steve1236]

Oh I gave it the wet look also, after I let the stone dry off it seems to of lost some of those deep purple reddish orange colors even with the coat I put on, strange...

 

[Steve1236]

Sweet, turns out what I thought was a tenorite crytals is really nearly black gem cuprite, now I'm really itching for a day in the 70s low 80s to get back out there.