Gold Ore

[southfork]

A little sample that was found with a metal detector. Crushed by hand then panned to wash away some of the dirt and clay? The photo is macro so real small particles, but the quartz shows and what looks like iron and free gold. I think we need a small smelter to retrieve the values trying to speed up the recovery what's your thoughts ?

 

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[southfork]

I wish I could focus my camera on macro up close so you can see all the gold in this rusty stringer. The larger pieces show but not the color showing all the way across and specks all over the rock I hope there all gold.

 

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[southfork]

Clean up after the mill first screen 30 mesh lots of fines in the bucket. I will run the rest through the sluice and blue bowl. Gold rolls up into little balls pyrites turns to dust.

 

[Mountaineer2020]

Breaking rocks is hard work the dust seems to hang longer in the hot weather. But the hidden rewards start to add up after a while. This sure has been a learning curve on the smelting end of prospecting. Not anything I would want to do full time but gets me out of the house. I carry a bucket on the quad for float samples when checking the livestock.

That's a beautiful set of gold buttons! Could you give me a run down of the smelting learning curve in case I do actually find gold? All I have now is an electric assay furnace. Holds about 3 crucibles and takes a good 2 hours to get up to temperature. Got my hopes up found an old stope high up on a vein and am hoping the gold that was up in the vein went down as well. Going to sample the floor of the stope when I get a break.

 

[southfork]

That's a beautiful set of gold buttons! Could you give me a run down of the smelting learning curve in case I do actually find gold? All I have now is an electric assay furnace. Holds about 3 crucibles and takes a good 2 hours to get up to temperature. Got my hopes up found an old stope high up on a vein and am hoping the gold that was up in the vein went down as well. Going to sample the floor of the stope when I get a break.

I watched a lot of videos on processing gold ore you need a good flux recipe.

 

[Red_desert]

Trying to see if I can clear up the photos any for you.

 

[southfork]

Trying to see if I can clear up the photos any for you.

You turned the gold green.

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

You turned the gold green.

Leprechaun?

 

[southfork]

Not sure what the host rock is but super hard my son single jacked the 2 pound sample . Then ran it through the chain mill classified the material and panned recovered around 7 grams. I took all the material that passed through a number 30 screen and sluiced it over a ribbed mat and the concentrates are now in the blue bowl. Ran out of daylight last night so I'll finish cleanup this morning easy couple of grams. This is the other side of the rock with a loupe there's micro free gold all over it. The photo doesn't show the blue green color very well, but it reminds me of mariposite

 

[Red_desert]

Oh well use better macro (like you said before).

 

[southfork]

I just panned the blue bowl concentrates and wow the fines are loaded with gold. I had to resort to bad boy mercury to pick up the fine free gold and might use acid to clean the rest. There's still a lot of dirty gold in the concentrates nothing gets tossed around here until I run it several times.

 

[Red_desert]

Looking good!

 

[southfork]

Looking good!

And using recycled mercury it's piling up nice almost time to clean up. Wish I had a jaw crusher just to make it a little easier it's a long day when my son brings home a sack of rocks. We need to make them small enough, so the chain mill doesn't jam once in a while a flat piece will flip up and jam in the feed tube. My primary mill is a sledgehammer some brake parts a wheelbarrow tub to catch the pieces high tech mining.

 

[Goldwasher]

Not sure what the host rock is but super hard my son single jacked the 2 pound sample . Then ran it through the chain mill classified the material and panned recovered around 7 grams. I took all the material that passed through a number 30 screen and sluiced it over a ribbed mat and the concentrates are now in the blue bowl. Ran out of daylight last night so I'll finish cleanup this morning easy couple of grams. This is the other side of the rock with a loupe there's micro free gold all over it. The photo doesn't show the blue green color very well, but it reminds me of mariposite

locally we have a hard red quartzite will have lots of sulfides and quartz stringers. we have a hard Granodiorite too.
contacts with ther serpentine were hot.

 

[southfork]

locally we have a hard red quartzite will have lots of sulfides and quartz stringers. we have a hard Granodiorite too.
contacts with ther serpentine were hot.

No serpentine over here but big bands of mariposa slate Have you roasted any of the sulfides? I think we have big dikes? of Granodiorite

 

[Goldwasher]

No serpentine over here but big bands of mariposa slate Have you roasted any of the sulfides? I think we have big dikes? of Granodiorite

nope never bothered. But, mines around us had gold in the pounds per ton of sulphides. On my claims north of you guys the placer cons are full of them huge oxidized pyrite cubes and lumps of hematite.
Not sure where your property is exactly but, if you have a large amount of Digger pines and lack of Ponderosa chances are there is serpentine underlying the area. Or weathered into the lateritic soil ( red dirt with broken quartz) you are right in the area where it can be there either exposed or a little deeper.

 

[southfork]

nope never bothered. But, mines around us had gold in the pounds per ton of sulphides. On my claims north of you guys the placer cons are full of them huge oxidized pyrite cubes and lumps of hematite.
Not sure where your property is exactly but, if you have a large amount of Digger pines and lack of Ponderosa chances are there is serpentine underlying the area. Or weathered into the lateritic soil ( red dirt with broken quartz) you are right in the area where it can be there either exposed or a little deeper.

We have red dirt with plenty of quartz Oaks grey pine and ponderosa at one time big burn. There's a lot of serpentine a short drive away.

 

[southfork]

My son and a friend are out metal detecting sent me a text. Found small specimens a couple of grams so far. They both have a few finds. I'm working on a fence, but they have some rocks for me

 

[southfork]

One dirty specimen rock with gold along the edge and dirty placer gold in hand and tailgate. All from the drainage near the new old mines today. A little rock and mud in the mix along with the gold. The last person or persons that prospected that drainage left foil from there smokes everywhere enough to drive you insane lol.

 

[desertgolddigger]

One dirty specimen rock with gold along the edge and dirty placer gold in hand and tailgate. All from the drainage near the new old mines today. A little rock and mud in the mix along with the gold. The last person or persons that prospected that drainage left foil from there smokes everywhere enough to drive you insane lol.

Yeah, the manmade things drive me crazy too. Now,,,. if it's a coin or relic from the past, that's OK. But just dumping your trash into the environment is a no-no. I found a triangular piece of metal today on our claim. Probably from an old bucket.

 

[southfork]

Here's a couple photos of yesterday's small rock samples we crushed and panned. Well worth the effort to haul up to the house to crush lots of gold wrapped around quartz and other rock. Needs to be smelted to clean up and get a nice bright button. The blue pan is one small ore sample the black pan is dirty gold from a pound of random rocks from a dump. The ore sample in the blue pan was a strong signal with the detectors. The rock samples we crushed in the black pan were silent before the crush but make plenty of noise now.