Iron galore

[firesteel]

My grandson took a magnet outside and surprised us by picking up rocks from the ground with it. Turns out there is a lot of magnetically reactive rock, including quartz which contains iron and rust. I took some of the small magnetically reactive stones to a gem shop and was told it is hematite. It's all over the place. I did a bit of digging and panning, found a lot of hematite, and the fines in the pan are magnetically reactive. Lots of it. Touch it with a magnet and a big clump of fines sticks. I'm a complete novice and wondering if anyone has encountered something like this.

 

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[B H Prospector]

Hi Firesteel and welcome. You were misinformed. It was not hematite. Hematite is an iron ore which is mined in great quantities in the Arrowhead section of Minnesota, but it is not magnetic. What your grandson found is magnetite which is magnetic and will be found with hemetite and other iron oxides and is also associated with gold.

Good Luck!

BH Prospector

 

[johnnysau]

Give us a clue on locality, maybe more info might be had for you.
johnnysau

 

[Lanny in AB]

I agree. More information about your area, if it's gold-bearing etc. would be very helpful if you're wondering if the specimens found are an indication of gold.

As to the question itself, I've found lots of magnetite where there's gold, all kinds of it, in lots of different sizes.

Gold and magnetite are very good friends when it comes to deposition. In other words, as they are both very heavy, they like to hang out in the same places when the river drops heavy materials in a low pressure zone in a stream.

On the other hand, I've also found lots of magnetite where there was no gold, or at least I couldn't find any gold with it.

All the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html

 

[firesteel]

This is in the Upstate of SC between Greenville and Spartanburg. I've tried a couple other areas around here with a magnet and do not get a similar reaction. Here the hematite/magnatite is abundant on top of the ground and also under the ground. If I simply put the magnet against the ground it picks stuff up. This is over a few acres of undeveloped pasture land. I also found a piece of dark crystal the gem folks mentioned above said was limonite. Another gemologist said it was garnet. There's a lot of quartz rock here, too. Ideas welcome.

 

[Lanny in AB]

This is in the Upstate of SC between Greenville and Spartanburg. I've tried a couple other areas around here with a magnet and do not get a similar reaction. Here the hematite/magnatite is abundant on top of the ground and also under the ground. If I simply put the magnet against the ground it picks stuff up. This is over a few acres of undeveloped pasture land. I also found a piece of dark crystal the gem folks mentioned above said was limonite. Another gemologist said it was garnet. There's a lot of quartz rock here, too. Ideas welcome.

Sorry, but I don't know your area. Is it a gold bearing area/an area known for placer gold (flakes and nuggets) or for lode gold (hard-rock gold ore)? The answer to this question would help a lot

I know that limonite can be associated with gold, but so can a lot of other minerals and materials as well, including garnet.

I've had the super-magnet on the end of my pick so loaded with blueberry sized chunks of magnetite it looked like a hedgehog on steroids, but the areas i work are gold-bearing placer and lode deposits. So, yes, I've seen lots of magnetite of various sizes on magnets before, sizes all the way from hen's egg sized to almost a powder.

I hope this answers some of your questions.

All the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html

 

[Lanny in AB]

Did you ever do any research to see if there's gold in your area?

If there is, and if anyone ran placer gold through a wash-plant, there's often a lot of magnetite and hematite discarded around where the wash-plant would have been set up.

Is is possible the place your grandson found the magnetite was such a site?

All the best, and I hope you find a way to solve your little mystery.

If you don't know how to pan, there's lots of videos on youtube where you can learn how to pan.

All the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html

 

[G1sammons]

I know from researching our general area that gold has been found in the general area hes in ,don't know about exactly where he is but the general area yes there are some good placer despots, believe it's in the dahlonega gold belt which crosses in to nc..
All alone the outside of the Appalachian mountains there are numerous gold fields.

 

[firesteel]

I'm not native to the South, but heard gold has been found in this area. Not sure what form it is in. I don't think it's an old mine as the soil is uniformly topsoil over clay/sand subsoil, and the magnetic stones are readily found over a few acre area distributed throughout both the topsoil and subsoil. fwiw, yesterday I found a very small gold-colored flake in some quartz, used my knife edge to rub it against my jewelry testing ceramic stone and it remain intact with both 14k and 18k testing acid.

 

[Lanny in AB]

I'd get digging some test holes then.

Make sure you know how to pan properly, or get a friend that knows how to pan to run your samples for you.

All the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html

 

[firesteel]

Is there some kind of sluice I can get that can run on tap water?

 

[mxer47]

It sounds as though something simple and cheep would work out to get started. A pan and maybe a bucket sluice. Search casluicbox. Their inexpensive, run on tap water and easy to set up.

 

[firesteel]

It sounds as though something simple and cheep would work out to get started. A pan and maybe a bucket sluice. Search casluicbox. Their inexpensive, run on tap water and easy to set up.

Thanks. I think I'll get a simple sluice and make test diggings. I wish I knew of a mine with geology similar to this so I could get more specific direction. Panning is a pain because I end up with so much metallic fines in the pan. The fellow at the gem shop said there is a gold mine many miles south of here that has "invisible" gold. They must use a chemical method for isolating it. The mine produces a lot of gold. I think the chart showed 40 to 90 thousand troy ounces per year. I could be wrong on the time frame, but I'm sure the amounts are correct.