Quartz

[Newby2016]

Hi. I have found a ton of Quartz of various colours (rose, cloudy, smokey) but this one is puzzling me. It is an extremely large vein of about a meter wide. It is yellow, brown. It doesn't look like any of the citrine pics that I have found. Is this colour caused by rust? I have found a great deal of pyrite, mica, granite, biotite and hemitite with the Quartz. What are my chances there is gold in the Quartz or the rock?

 

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[DBender]

Have you used a loupe to look closer? It is pretty. I'd crush t

 

[paleomaxx]

In all likely hood it's a vein of smokey quartz. Classical smokey quartz is the dark brown almost black crystals, but it can vary from light yellow to brown in color. What's really cool about it is that smokey quartz is colorless or white until natural (harmless) radiation originating from uranium/thorium in the surrounding rock activates color centers around aluminum impurities in the crystal structure. In a nutshell the degree of coloration depends on the quantity of impurities and the amount of radiation which is why you get a range of colors depending on the site and even within the same rock. Sadly probably no gold, but a neat find none the less.

 

[Newby2016]

No I don't have a loupe yet. I was thinking about crushing some but we will see. Lol

 

[Newby2016]

Thanks for the info that helps me a lot as I am just learning. Geology is a tough subject to teach yourself !

 

[hvacker]

It's said, gold rides an iron horse.

 

[Newby2016]

I'm hoping!