rhondar
Tenderfoot
A while back I posted on here about these minerals and I had them looked at by several people. One person on here contacted me about testing them but I can't find his contact info!
A geologist at the local college said atleast some were garnet
A gemologist said he thought they may be cinnabar
A geologist in NC said he thought they were pyrite morphing to hematite
Here is what we know:
We had someone with years of experience in hard rock gold mining look at them and he said without a doubt with his test, they are not pyrite BUT they may have some hematite in them. He ran his White's metal detector over them as well as out where we find them and they have non ferrous metal's in them. Pyrite and hematite both are ferrous/iron.
They are found above and below a quartz vein in an area that was volcanic millions of years ago. Ranging from very small to
about the size of 2" x1.5" that we've found.
Some are faceted and all are very heavy for their size.
We have done streak test, hardness test but we are all still baffled. It's not like anything we've seen out here in southeastern Arizona before. I have run across a blog from Utah where some Garnets were found to be mixed with hematite. Interesting.
We need to have them professionally tested to put it all to rest. We want to know what non ferrous metal is contained within these very nice stones. Some have a silver and/or gold color in them, some are a deep red all the way through.
Thanks!
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