Garnets? Or...

[Nuggetbrain]

Hey all!

As I attempt to educate myself on the noble pursuit of gold, I read about miners finding other items in their dirt, such as garnets.

Not being a rockhound, is there any advice or links you folks could give me about how to identify a garnet? Or any other semi precious stone
one may come across.

Many thanks!

Tim

 

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[dvdtharaldson]

Hi Tim,

Garnets come in all different colors. I think the most common is dark red to dark reddish purple. I have found orange garnet as well as yellow. To me they look like little glass beads- they definitely have a vitreous surface, when crushed they also fracture somewhat like glass. Garnet is quite heavy and is usually the last thing to wash out of your pan before the black sands. Also when you find garnet you usually find lots of it. It often will clog up sluices to the point where you have to do frequent clean outs. It comes in all sizes but is rarely gem quality.

Garnet is readily visible when you are walking down a stream. You can see flows of it on the stream bottom where the current slackens. A lot of prospectors use it as an indicator for where colors may lie buried underneath the garnet.

Personally I don't have much luck finding colors where garnet exists, at least not the common reddish variety.

Best Colors,
David

 

[vaquero44]

not sure where your located but up here in maine there is one creek that I do that my sluice runs red and will find stones with nail head sized junks of garnet imbedded in it also dig around big boulders just off the banks or inside bends look for hard pack less sand area's because the heft of gold that's where it will drop out first

 

[KevinInColorado]

Garnet and gold do travel together in the South Platte river through metro Denver. Garnet (like most gem stones) is more dense than typical sands and gravels so you'll see it in the heavy material you work your pan of paydirt down to. In the S. Platte the garnets are dark pink to red wine to almost black in color. Sadly never big enough to be worth anything but pretty all together in a pan

 

[Mitch Dickson]

A field guide to gems and minerals will help. Also get yourself one of those little $5 UV flashlights off Ebay. It will florese most all gem stones and light them up in a dark place. I usually just cup my hand around them. Around here diamonds, rubys, emeralds, saphire, smokey, citrine, and others may show up in your pan. Don't happen very often, but it does happen.

 

[vaquero44]

I know in my part of the world green tourmaline is found quite often and if your really lucky to find is the watermelon tourmaline the right specimen there will make it worth your while!

 

[Capt Nemo]

I hit a lot of garnet in the Lake Michigan beach sands, but most is the salt n pepper type used in sandpaper (tan, brown, black). It's a real PITA to get good clean black sand, as it's so close to the hemitite and magnetite in weight. A local trout stream has pinks, reds, and black in full crystals up to around 2mm in size.

 

[Jim in Idaho]

A field guide to gems and minerals will help. Also get yourself one of those little $5 UV flashlights off Ebay. It will florese most all gem stones and light them up in a dark place. I usually just cup my hand around them. Around here diamonds, rubys, emeralds, saphire, smokey, citrine, and others may show up in your pan. Don't happen very often, but it does happen.

Garnets don't respond to UV, except for a few rare grossulars in Canada, and overseas. UV won't help here in the US.
Jim

 

[yodi]

I have a creek I prospect were u get dozens of them in every pan sadly not much gold though

 

[goldog]

Here is a gumball sized piece found here in SoCal. Looks like a ribeye.

 

[Treasure_Goblin]

When looking for gem Quality Garnets you want to first look for Schist that looks like a chocolate chip cookie.
If you carefully break the rock down, you can get nice gemy Garnets.
This was my very first discovery when I started prospecting.
Good luck! Happy Hunting!

 

[Capt Nemo]

Here's what my tailings from Lake Superior cons are like. Lots of pinks through browns. You'll see pinkish material over the black sands on the beach.

 

[nh.nugget]

The place I worked this summer had sooo many garnets my sluice and my tailings for about 10' were solid red! To bad they were the size of BB's.

 

[Bronze]

Most of the areas I work in WA are so garnet dense that my old traditional Jobe sluice would turn purple behind the riffles. I used to pick out the bigger ones while I pan but there were so many it got old. I do have a few 3-4ct ones.

There is a creek a couple hours north of me that has produced some monsters. A girl I work with pulled a 30ct one out of there.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Hey Bronze, I would love to get some larger garnets for a jewelry project I have in mind...can you tell me which creek that was?

 

[dinx]

Garnets are pragmatic