Hey guys I found this Quartz in chapel hill nc. It was on my property where what seems to be a natural spring runs out of the hill and goes down into the creek. this rock was right where the water starts coming out. Thanks so much!!!
Quartz gets gold in it from heat and pressure. When heat and pressure are applied to the quartz, it liquefies. When in liquid form, quartz acts like water depositing gold in low pressure zones just like a river deposit. With quartz, visible gold is always the greatest sign obviously! in quartz you want to see dark banding. This means there are metals in it! Weathered gold gets carbon on it, too. Sometimes the gold would be visible but that stuff is on it. I think the only way to clean it is mercury. I'm no expert and don't recommend or mean you to go start playing with that terrible stuff. If you do decide to, be very careful. Mercury doesn't naturally exit the body and builds up. The only way to treat it is to get special medicine that bonds with the mercury and lets it pass out of the system. I'd crush the top left and middle, and the second row middle myself! I made a DIY metal mortar and pestle out of capped 1.5 inch one side capped piping for the mortar and a 3/4 inch capped pipe for the pestle. pulverizes to 100mesh and does leave chunks that take a bit of time. but a great sampler!
Crush and pan it. I don't recommend mercury ever. If you got problems use something to break the surface tension.
Last resort is screening it and running it through a blue bowl.