New to gems, possible Topaz?

[Duckwalk]

Getting into the gem hunting when I go prospecting. Big into gold prospecting. Hope you guys can help me out. I have no clue what these gems look like in the rough. Would love some pointers too!

I think the ones around the dime are topaz. Not sure what the other is with a stripe on the side, it is VERY smooth.

 

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[rrhobdy]

Hey Duckwalk! It could be a number of things, from yellow topaz, yellow garnet, citrine, beryl, and yellow diamond. Only testing Specific Gravity and Hardness will eliminate most possibilities. Hydrofluoric acid will eliminate just about all but diamond, as it will etch just about anything with silica in it. So if hardness is 10, SG is 3.5, and acid doesn't etch it, then you got yourself some pretty little diamonds. But my guess is, you got yellow topaz, since it heavier than quartz, and yellow garnets (also heavier than quartz) are very rare.

Bob

 

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[Duckwalk]

Thanks for all the help and suggestions. I tried to post a new thread but it won't let me. Here is my homemade rock tumbler. A scrapped printer is what I got all this from. Total investment is $4 for the toggle switch. Had everything else laying around at work!

 

[BurntBear]

"This video is private..." - end quote

 

[Duckwalk]

Doh! Try now.

 

[BurntBear]

All good! That is cool!

 

[Duckwalk]

PHEW, i FINALLY got the paint can empty of the paint. Took me long enough. Anywho, i put a few of my daughters gems and some random "rocks" i found at the creek along with some creek sand and a little water in it tonight and started 'er up! can i just use creek sand and how do i know if i have enough ><

 

[Duckwalk]

Sorry for the double post...

 

[rodoconnor]

Ducky, did you ever find out what your little gemstones are?

 

[Duckwalk]

Most are topaz for sure. One could be a diamond. Haven't had it tested yet

 

[DDancer]

For the tumbling to work you might want to read this article. The process is important and for what you've started your likely to end up with nothing for the effort and damage anything that was of interest.
Rock Tumbler Instructions - Rock Polishing - Geology.com

So you've topaz great. Hope that is a diamond.

 

[DDancer]

Sorry pictures are not the best, resizing fuzzed them a bit.

Some stones to look out for when your prospecting These things show up in or just above the black sands.



Topaz and quartz look similar when wet but when dry most topaz has a frosted look like the stones on the front row of the first picture. The stone on the far right in my hand is quartz the others are topaz.
Wet:

Larger topaz tend to by blocky in shape. Smaller ones often look like round water worn pebbles. I don't have any of those examples on hand~ I was digging thru my storage and pulled the small part of my collection out. Thought maybe you'd like a look

 

[BurntBear]

Great post DDancer! Very nice specimens. Looks like you have a nice little mix there; Corundum, Beryl, Topaz, Citrine, Garnet, Peridot? Those gold NUGGETS!! Nice!

Not to derail the thread but are those tapered corundum crystals? -Luke

 

[DDancer]

Yes I have a very few tapered speci's of corundum. The one pictured is the largest found to date off a pan and screen in western NC some years ago. I'm not sure if the light greens are peridot or diopase. They came up in conjunction with the garnet and are so fractured I cant get a good feel for them. But they were nice to find.

Thing is that they all either showed up in the classifier or at the bottom of the pan. Just gotta keep a good eye out The large nuggets are all detected and a couple of species are from eyeball finds panning here in AZ. In the view case's, the ones on the left are my first two nuggets ever detected~ Quartzite AZ~ and the right are panned nuggets *pickers really* from Ballarat in Victoria Australia. The vials in the back are black sand with gold from various places that I used to use for practice.... more like mineral specimens now.

Whats pictured are just a small amount of what I have hidden in storage. I'll have other pictures out as time goes on.