minerals, gems, and gold in Maryland

[11007]

I pan for gold. Most of the time in the streams close to home in Harford Co., MD. The big yellow picture is of gold taken from Harford Co. streams. I also search the black sand for micro-minerals. The streams around here are loaded with minerals. The other picture is of Anatase (these are blue, dark blue, and tan; I've also have them in translucent yellow) one of the three crystal forms of Titanium Oxide (paint pigment, sunscreen, food coloring) the other two being Brookite and Rutile. Each was formed by different degrees of heat and pressure. For some reason I find gold in the streams with Anatase. The 3rd pic is from Jack Nelson, an old friend, now gone. He was the first to find and identify cubic garnets in Great Falls Gold District of Montgomery Co., MD specifically in Rock Run.

I'm always on the lookout for others in this area that want to collect or detect.

 

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[Chug And Red]

My avatar says everything especially the Garnet

 

[mamabear]

didn't know garnet formed in cubes. & I agree with Chug. what do you use to take the pix? I have some rocks that have small inclusions of peacock ore, but can't get a good pic.

 

[11007]

Jack Nelson was a dear friend. Before I met him I didn't believe it either. Now I have a vile full of Rock Run cubic garnets myself.

See http://www.gamineral.org/micro-cubic-garnets.htm

For my pics I use a tribrach stereo zoom microscope and a Nikon digital. I'm in the process of building a heavy duty focus rail and use a software package called Helicon Focus to get very deep, very clear, depth of field for macro photography of extremely small objects. Like my tiny little micro-mineral collection.

 

[11007]

The gold is Maryland flour gold - about 16,000 pieces to an ounce so you see they are quite small.

The longest Anatase is slightly over a millimeter.

The garnet pic was taken by Jack but it is less than a mm.

E.

 

[Fla-Gal]

Great photos-how many practice snaps before you got the perfect one ?

 

[11007]

Two fuzzy shots and then the winner. The new setup should take all the guess work out of it.

How about these little gems?