Found a cool fire agate with awesome colors

[Steve1236]

I went out to my spot yesterday cause I couldn't bunker down any longer and I had to get out before I went crazy lol, I didn't do any digging but I found what I could that recent rain uncovered, I found this fella right on the surface glimmering colors in the sunlight, everything else is still in my backpack, I'll post them later on this week or so after cleaning but I thought I'd share pictures of this cool specimen I found which should have nice fire with all those Schiller effects showing on the bottom of the agate, I used clear hand sanitizer gel to show the fire better.

 

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[Kray Gelder]

That's a nice find! Layer of fire throughout.

 

[Steve1236]

Thanks Kray, hope your holding up good. I grabbed a full pan worth of dirt in the tributary below where I dig for fire agates and this is what I got, not bad for a pan in my opinion, also here's another cool specimen I found walking around out there.

 

[Coinboy]

Awesome agate!

 

[Kray Gelder]

That's a cool place for kicking around. Enjoy!

 

[DDancer]

Always a great time to find things after rains out there. Good stuff. As to that pan~ I'd be out there when its good and dry. Thats a good single pan.

 

[Steve1236]

Need some help from someone more knowledgeable than I, that druzy specimen above that looks like its sticking it tongue out, I'm stumped on what kind of crystal it is, I first thought calcite but I did a specific gravity test on a floater of the same mineral and I kept getting 2.53333 specific gravity which is the specific gravity of howlite but it looks nothing like howlite, apophyllite maybe? Any help would be awesome, thanks in advance.
This is the floater, I picked it up just a few inches from that druzy specimen.

 

[fuss]

looks like quartz, did you measure hardness?

 

[Steve1236]

I tried scratching it with a piece of quartz and it scratches pretty easily, I'm stumped, it honestly reminds me of calcite to the touch but the specific gravity say no, I don't have any acid or vinegar, I was going to try that, streak is white. Heres a couple more shots of different angles and the luster also I shook the heck out of that little SW uv light to work a little bit, maybe this will help with identification.

 

[Steve1236]

So I screened everything through a 1/8 inch screen before I panned the other day and I tossed the bigger cobble out in the yard thinking there wouldn't be anything in it, I picked a good spot but I didn't go to bedrock and I only grabbed about a pans worth that day out so I was thinking I would only find small flour gold so no need to waste time looking through the bigger cobble, well stir crazy and boredom got the best of me this morning and I shoveled up the stuff I dumped and panned it out and to my surprise there was a nice picker in it.

 

[Steve1236]

If I didn't have bad luck I wouldn't have luck at all, so I was about to file a claim and it turns out its already claimed up, not where I dig for fire agates, where I dig for fire agates is just 30yards over the border of his claim, I had double check so I cool, I just cant and wont prospect that tributary, there's absolutely no claim markers out there either, weird.

 

[DDancer]

I'd have only screened it to a 1/4 but you got a nice picker there To bad on the claim, ya might have a chat with them for permission and there's nothing saying where your digging might not have something to do with whats in the tributary.

 

[Blak bart]

Man that's some great stomping grounds....congrats on some beautiful finds....and some gold !!

 

[Steve1236]

I've seen some small gold on and in some of the agates but its tiny, I don't think it's the source to anything chunky, I'll say this, the claim owner must be a Scottsdale yuppie amateur or something, all the wrong spots are dug up and all the good spots are left screaming dig me up lol, what's even weirder is I've been walking through that tributary to get to my spot for a couple years now and its always the same spots dug out to. Hopefully I'll run into him one day, I'd love to do one of the nice inside bends, I'd let him keep everything, I'm just really curious!

 

[Moesia]

I've seen some small gold on and in some of the agates but its tiny

Any visible gold that might be seen in agates, chalcedony etc. is in most cases indicative of very high grade ore. In the vast majority of cases gold is not visible in these types of deposits. This is more true if the ore is banded.

 

[Steve1236]

There is a small area where the fire agate seems to have a metallic layer, for instance the fire agate above has a silver or platinum color layer you can see if you zoom in, here's a close up, its baffling to me, I posted before about the metallic looking layers, some gold, some silver looking but I think it's kind of hard to tell from a picture, I was thinking it has really thin epithermal deposits maybe? Could gold and silver fill microcrystalline layers like iron oxide does?

 

[Moesia]

Sorry I can's see from the picture that which you are referring to. Gold is generally not visible in ore, you have to assay a specimen to know how high the grade is. You might have high grade ore without seeing any gold in the rock. When it is visible gold, even small specs, that is indicative of very high grade ore, at least locally. It might be an ounce per ton or even higher. In any case, you have to assay it.
As for the layers it does not form symmetrical layers as a common occurrence. Gold is usually present in a rock in very tiny specs so as to be invisible to the naked eye. Even under optical microscope gold is hard to spot due to its very small grains. In some deposits gold cannot be seen even under a microscope in which cases its presence is only determined when assayed.
Be aware that deposits of this type are not large in most cases.

 

[DDancer]

Pretty much anything that forms in layers can film the surface of a material as the properties of the solution change during the minerals formation. Chalcedony is not all that different than agate Steve. Geothite and Limonite, the primary source of coloration, produce a variety of colorations depending on how its deposited, optical variance in the chalcedony and inclusions of other minerals. Kinda like mixing paints. As to metalics, kinda what Moesia has to say~ you'd have to assay the material.
I've seen your posts with the metallic whiskers in the agate. Again you'd have to collect a sample of them and assay them or Xrf them to determine whats up.

As to the claim owner you can try leaving a letter at his digs or figure out contact info thru his claim papers and have a yarn with him. Who knows it might be a forum member

 

[Steve1236]

This is a really cool specimen that I had to share and I dont know how I missed this specimen when I first had a look see, it's hard to get a good look at it because the botryoidal Chalcedony is distorting it a bit but I took pictures in poor lighting to show that familiar yellow stays yellow in any light, I can see it better when I hold the agate under water.

 

[Steve1236]

Does anybody know where to get an essay done, I've googled places to get essay on gold ore and I can't find anywhere online to send it, maybe I'm asking the wrong question, any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.
Steve.