Magnetite, Ilmenite

[goldog]

I have a lot of heavy dark rocks in my spot. Mostly they’ve been a pain. Between the rocks, pebbles and huge amounts of black sand it’s difficult to get the gold. Ive always believed it to be Magnetite. They are almost purple or gunmetal bluish.

In doing research I discovered about half are indeed highly magnetic with many exhibiting lodestone properties.



Others have little to no magnetic attributes. The four small ones seem identical to the lodestone with zero magnetic attraction.




I now believe these are Ilmenite. Titanium ore. There are numerous local occurrences nearby. DuPont even has an active pigment operation a few miles away. I’ve recently become somewhat obsessed because, you know , TITANIUM!

So now I am finding loads of similar examples with a lot of colors. Many rusty reds, metallic looking greens and other unknown minerals.



I know some additional minerals would be hematite, limonite, rutile and pyrites as well as quartz and similar light colored rock. This example also has maroon under some of the rust.






Any further information would be helpful.