The truth about Micron Gold

[coyotegal]

I have been a rockhound for most of my life after spending my early years in Florence Junction. (where rockhounding was the ONLY thing to do..) I've always been interested in the various stories related to the LDM and his lost gold. Recently I became interested in prospecting and have begun to 'test' various areas. During the first few months, I found nothing at all that even came close to looking like gold. I just kept learning to pan with my 'test' dirt and still had alot of fun. I had ordered a little X 65 magnifying scope to look at jewelry and realized one day, it would be way cool to check out the black sands with my scope. Was I ever suprised to see a couple of tiny 'nuggets' through the scope. I checked some black sands I had saved from the earliest days and was suprised to find a few tiny nuggets there. Then I checked all the different sands I had saved and found some of them had this tiny gold. I've read many times that you will know when you see real gold for the first time and I'll be darned but if that isn't the truth! The tiny little nugs look like nothing I have ever seen before....But there wasn't much. Not enough to make me consider trying to collect it...
Now, when I say tiny nuggets, I mean these little nugs are virtually invisible to the naked eye, but they do sparkle a color from time to time and they are so pretty in the microscope..lol
Anyway, that set me to thinking. So I started taking 'samples' in all kinds of places and was truly suprised to find that every sample I tested had a tiny bit of this tiny gold.
So the research began. I have spent countless hours learning about this tiny gold. It's proper name is Micron Gold. Not sure if it is the same thing as flour gold, but I'm thinking, not.

One of the samples I checked out had loads of this tiny gold in it. I was mesmerized and decided right then I was going to gather some of this stuff together and play with it for a while.

So that's what I've been doing for several months. Information related to Micron Gold and recovery of, is limited on the internet, and I imagine that's because not that many people deal with it. There are many reasons not to.... probably gads more than reasons to... but I have had a lot of fun with it so far and it's cool to look at when it's cleaned up... err.. as cleaned up as I can get it that is..
Thing is, there are so many different beliefs about everything micron gold, that it's mind boggling!

Since I started trying to figure out how to deal with the stuff, I have learned about classifying and screen mesh sizes, and read about smelting and mercury usage... I tried every which way to sunday to pan the last of the little stuff away from the gold, but no matter what I do, nothing works. I have yet to try the blue bowl (which I can probably, maybe afford..lol) I did buy a mini sluice but found my panning to work better in this instance and since I have no clue how to set the water so it doesn't push all the gold into the water.

The gold is so tiny... I classified it down to 100 and it went right through that. I couldn't find any smaller screens so I got on ebay and bought some 200, 300 and 400 mesh 4 X 6 squares and then made stackable mini screens out of used cat food cans... (go ahead... laugh... but I had to see if that would help). Needless to say, not sure that it helped.. heck, I don't even know what I'm doing, but I have some cool little screens if I ever figure it out...

Ultimately, I have found that I can pan it down to where there is mostly gold, some quartz, some other purple sulfide type rock and these tiny, tiny little purple or red and sometimes blue metallic spheres. They are even smaller than the smallest gold but they seem to cling to each other and though the earth magnet takes most of them away with the black sand, some just are not magnetic. I don't know what they are but they sure stick around the gold.

Several days ago, I was introduced to an old timer who smelts gold and has experience in prospecting. He looked at my little vial of concentrate and said, "bring me about this much in a little coffee jar and I'll put some heat to it." I asked him if he thought it was gold and he said it 'sure was'. Which leads me to the reason for my post...

Is there anyone out there who is collecting micron gold. What methods do you use to clean it? Do you have any pics of it Does anyone know the truth, The whole truth and nothing but the truth about Micron Gold

Thanks for reading my ramblings...

Heres my slideshow from pics I took using a tablet camera and my mini scope...

 

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[aarthrj3811]

Here is something else that may be helpful

---

​

1 Pennyweight (DWT) = 1.5550 Grams

1 Troy oz. = 20 Pennyweight = 31.10348 Grams

1 Kilogram = 32.15 Troy ozs. = 2.204 Avoridupois lbs.

1 Avoridupois lb. = 453.6 Grams = 14.5836 Troy ozs.

CONVERSION CHART Pennyweight to Ounces to Grams
DWT	Troy oz.	Grams		DWT	Troy oz.	Grams
10	0.5	15.550	330	16.5	513.208
20	1.0	31.104	340	17.0	528.760
30	1.5	46.655	350	17.5	544.311
40	2.0	52.207	360	18.0	559.863
50	2.5	77.759	370	18.5	575.415
60	3.0	93.311	380	19.0	590.967
70	3.5	108.862	390	19.5	606.518
80	4.0	124.414	400	20.0	622.070
90	4.5	139.966	410	20.5	637.623
100	5.0	155.518	420	21.0	653.174
110	5.5	171.069	430	21.5	668.725
120	6.0	186.621	440	22.0	684.277
130	6.5	202.173	450	22.5	699.829
140	7.0	217.725	460	23.0	715.381
150	7.5	233.276	470	23.5	730.932
160	8.0	248.828	480	24.0	746.484
170	8.5	264.380	490	24.5	762.036
180	9.0	279.932	500	25.0	777.588
190	9.5	295.483	510	25.5	793.139
200	10.0	311.035	520	26.0	808.691
210	10.5	326.587	530	26.5	824.243
220	11.0	342.139	540	27.0	839.795
230	11.5	357.690	550	27.5	855.346
240	12.0	373.242	560	28.0	870.898
250	12.5	388.794	570	28.5	886.450
260	13.0	404.346	580	29.0	902.002
270	13.5	419.897	590	29.5	917.553
280	14.0	435.449	600	30.0	933.105
290	14.5	451.001	610	30.5	948.657
300	15.0	466.553	620	31.0	964.209
310	15.5	482.104	630	31.5	979.760
320	16.0	497.656	640	32.0	995.312

---

​

CONVERSION CHART Converting To Other Measure Abbreviations: AV=AVOIRDUPOIS DWT=PENNYWEIGHT LB=POUND OZ=OUNCE
To convert from	To	Multiply by		To convert from	To	Multiply by
Grains	Grams	0.0647988910	LB Troy	Grains	5760
Grains	DWT Troy	0.041666667	LB Troy	Grams	373.2417050
Grains	OZ Troy	0.002083333	LB Troy	DWT Troy	240
Grains	LB Troy	0.000173611	LB Troy	OZ Troy	12
Grains	OZ. AV.	.002285714	LB Troy	OZ. AV.	13.16571430
Grains	LB AV	0.000142857	LB Troy	LB AV.	0.822857100
Grains	Carats	0.323994550	LB Troy	Carats	1866.208525
Grams	Grains	15.43235835	OZ. AV.	Grains	437.4999973
Grams	DWT Troy	0.643014930	OZ AV	Grams	28.34952300
Grams	OZ Troy	0.032150737	OZ AV	DWT Troy	18.22916662
Grams	LB Troy	.002679229	OZ AV	OZ Troy	0.911458298
Grams	OZ AV	0.035273962	OZ AV	LB Troy	0.075954861
Grams	LB AV	0.002204623	OZ AV	LB AV	0.0625
Grams	Carats	5.0	OZ AV	Carats	141.7476150
DWT Troy	Grains	24.0	LB AV	Grains	7000.0
DWT Troy	Grams	1.555173843	LB AV	Grams	453.5923745
DWT Troy	OZ Troy	0.05	LB AV	DWT Troy	2916667031
DWT Troy	LB Troy	0.004166667	LB AV	OZ Troy	14.58333324
DWT Troy	OZ AV	0.054857143	LB AV	LB Troy	1.215277841
DWT Troy	LB AV	0.003428571	LB AV	OZ AV	16
DWT Troy	Carats	7.775869215	LB AV	Carats	2267.96187
OZ Troy	Grains	480	Carats	Grains	3.086471671
OZ Troy	Grams	31.10348606	Carats	Grams	0.2
OZ Troy	DWT Troy	20	Carats	DWT Troy	0.128602986
OZ Troy	LB Troy	0.083333333	Carats	OZ Troy	0.006430147
OZ Troy	OZ AV	1.097142900	Carats	LB Troy	0.000535846
OZ Troy	LB AV	0.068571429	Carats	OZ AV	0.007054792
OZ Troy	Carats	155.5173840	Carats	LB AV	0.000440925

Tom Ashworth's Prospectors Cache / Tom Ashworth / October 21, 2000

Ounce= oz
Pennyweight= dwt
Gram= g
Grain= gr

One pound troy is 12 ounces troy (and that is a lot of gold).
One ounce is 20 pennyweight
There are 31.1 grams in one ounce troy.
So, there are 1.555 grams in a pennyweight.
One pennyweight is 24 grains. So, there are 15.43 grains per gram.
Or, one grain is 0.00017 pounds troy. That doesn't sound like very much. But, one grain is better than none.
By the way, if one ounce of gold (pure gold) is $270, then:
One Gram would be worth about $8.68.
One Pennyweight would be $13.50.
And one grain would be $0.56.

So, if someone offered you gold for, say, $16.00 a gram, it works out to $497.60 an ounce.
Ed

16 ounces =

1 lb = 256 drams = 7,000 grains

 

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[KevinInColorado]

Thanks for the safety notes. Nitric and others, I welcome your additions to my comments and share your respect for hazards and concern.

 

[boardbiker_18]

i live in northern nv where they focus alot on micron gold. They magnify it 500,000x just to see it and move 20 tons of dirt to get less than a gram of gold. Ive worked at over ten mine sites and realized most of them use cyanide leaching, and use big ball mills to crush everything down to powder. When all the silt is floating in the cyanide tanks its cool to see the material floating around in it. Don't know if u can use cyanide but that's what some of the biggest gold mines on the planet do.

 

[3xflyfisher]

Both leaching and and amalgamation have their place in the gold recovery processes. I spent many years working in a metallurgical laboratory testing our clients ores for recovery using these methods as well as many others, or combining amalgamation or leaching with other treatment methods. The safest bet for recreational prospectors is to keep it simple and safe. While much of the micron gold is very tough to recover by recreational prospectors it can be done using mechanical methods. I am able to recover -400 mesh material by gravity separation. Is it 98%+ recovery, no, but I am not exposing me, my family or neighbors to the hazards associated with leaching or amalgamation. Amalgamation and leaching require a higher level of knowledge and skill to use safely and effectively and probably should not be used by the "back yard prospector unless you are familiar with the process. The last thing we recreational prospectors need is for someone to inadvertently dump a bucket of cyanide containing slurry or a bucket of concentrates containing mercury into the gutter or down the drain and not knowing the results.
Amalgamation uses mercury and nitric acid and is used primarily on placer deposits or free milling gold ores. Cyanidation is used primarily for lower grade massive ore deposits as found in NV. Many of the lower grade ore deposits in NV also require a pretreatment of the gold bearing ores. This can include but is not limited to roasting, chlorination or other processes that are able to oxidize the low grade sulfide ores.
In summary, unless you have some training and the proper equipment it is best to keep it safe and simple. This is mho and I am not trying to stir the proverbial hornets nest!

 

[aarthrj3811]

Black sand gold recovery

"WORKING BLACK SAND and SULFIDES in GOLD RECOVERY"

Heres How You Do It

Getting up to 90% of your Sulfide Gold out of the Black Sand Concentrates

1, [FOR STARTERS] What you'll need to process Black Sand Concentrates. one #12 classifier... one #20 classifier... two gold pans... water... wash tub.... few 5 gallon buckets... micro sluice or gold wheel... tumbler and a Blue Bowl (Gravity Bowl) concentrator...

2, Your first few steps. Classify your material into several sizes... Larger than # 12 mesh [nugget size, you can pick'em out]... Larger than # 20 mesh [micro sluice/gold wheel or you can pan this out, it's really easy]... Smaller than # 20 [this is for your tumbler]...

3, Put the smaller than #20 mesh concentrates into your tumbler...

Add acidic acid "cider vinegar" or Citric acid "stronger" and tumble over night...

Take concentrates "the tumbled stuff" when done flush brown mud "dissolved iron" with water and add cons using a small scoop into a running Blue Bowl... Once finished running the KGB, snuffer out the fine Gold... Take the remaining Black sand "left in the Blue Bowl" and mix it with equal amounts of Table salt... Put the mixed product into an iron skillet... heat up until completely dry "do this outside!"... Once really hot and dry, pour the mix into a tub/bucket of cool water... "DON'T PUT THE IRON SKILLET INTO THE WATER" Just dump the sand/salt "this fractures the attached Gold"... Collect up the stuff you just dumped into the cool water... Now run this material thru your Blue gravity bowl... Snuffer up the visible gold when done...

4, What did I just do, you ask... You classified your material by size "largest to smallest"...

If you have the necessary equipment "you just eliminated 99% of the panning of your concentrates"... By tumbling the smallest size with vinegar "you just cleaned it up and removed the organics" and much of the iron too... By roasting it, "you fractured the sulfide Gold and attached gold from the black sand"...

5, Is it worth it YOU BET IT IS... Most of the time there is 4 - 10 times more ultra-fine "Micro Gold" in your Black sand than Visible Gold... Gold is Gold Regardless of it's size, oh sure the big stuff is great !!! But that Fine Gold really can start to add up and do it quickly...

You can go even further and get the really fine invisible micro gold out also. But that gets involved using some basic chemistry and several more steps and some additional time and expense.

"IF YOU TAKE THE EXTRA TIME AND STEPS TO RECOVER IT"...

 

[aarthrj3811]

Yes..Some of these methods that has been talked about here are dangerous...Some of these methods are not useful for the hobbyist..When it comes to getting all the gold out of your black sands it takes a lot time. I worked real hard to get the black sands so I want to get it all..You have now received a lot of information...It is your responsibly to review aLL the options and decide what you want to do
...Art

 

[EagleDown]

Aart, do you later recover the mercury from the nitric acid? (I hope!)

FYI to others, that is fairly easy from what I've read, you suspend a piece of aluminum in the nitric with part of the metal above the surface of the acid. The Merc will come out of solution and collect on the aluminum.

Good suggestion. For well over 50 years, I've used a trick taught to me by a Gov. Assayer; I cover my amalgum with nitric acid and disolve the mercury. (Use caution with the fumes, as they ARE caustic). After I remove my gold "sponge", I pour the nitric acid/mercury into a small beaker. Then I drop in small particals of zinc. The zinc replaces the mercury in suspension. Then I pour the nitric acid/zinc off and wash the mercury, then place it back into its vial.

As for the nitric/zinc, if you want to play with it as I have done, you can replace the zinc by dropping in very small fine pieces of copper wire. You'll end up with the zinc in the bottom of the beaker, as a gray 'sludge'. I had considered attempting to smelt the 'sludge' to recover the zinc, but zinc (at that time) was so cheap that I decided it wasn't worth the effort. (lol)

Incidentally, rather than using mercury to collect the micron gold, you might consider using your nitric acid to make some "Kings Water". Pretty easy operation. You can find the formula on the 'net. The Kings Water will disolve the micron gold and hold it in suspension. Then by using an old cell phone charger, you can 'electro win' the micron gold back out of the Kings Water as pretty much 100% pure gold. A lot safer and less involved than mercury separation.

 

[Fullpan]

That about covers the subject - the op will probably accumulate maybe 5 gals. of black sands/ season, if she busts her butt.

 

[coyotegal]

WOW! Thats alot of info and it's all very interesting. Now, I really don't know what to do..lol

But seriously, thank you, everyone for the advice and for those who worried about derailing my thread with safety talk, I absolutely want that to happen any time I make a thread and it becomes an issue. Safety first is important and it would be so easy for someone to get on here, read a thread, go out and try some of the options and end up dead or very ill, or even hurt someone else. It's important, say it by gosh! I'm all ears. I don't want to die before I find out if there is enough gold in my stuff to make a little money.

It's too bad there isn't like a gold smelting resort or something... ya know... go there for the weekend or a week .. however long it would take to learn it... kick back with like minded people during the free time, go to panning class... whatever...I'd want to go!

My grandpa who raised me, was the lead blacksmith at Magma Mine in Superior for 27 years. I'll bet he knew a little about it. I used to have some really cool knifes, hatchets, ashtrays, and smaller decorative iron pieces he made and have never seen anything like them anywhere else. Even a tiny anvil with a tiny wood handled ball ping hammer and a tiny pair of for lack of a better word, tongs... I don't have any of it left but I sure wish I did. Anyways, if only he were around now I bet he would know what to do with it!

Here I go rambling again! Thanks Everyone for taking the time to answer

 

[coyotegal]

First things first... HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO ALL YOU GUYS ON THE FORUM!!

Ok... NEXT... the saga continues... I finally caught up with the old timer who smelts gold that I spoke of in my op .. I took him out 'that much' (aprox. 4 ozs) of my concentrate. He seems like a nice enough guy, but he changed his tune from "bring me about this much in a little coffee jar and I'll put some heat to it" to "well, it may be worth $30 or it may be worth $1000, I'll give ya thirty for it." and I'm thinking 'I've gotten more than $30 bucks worth of fun just looking at it from time to time'..... while I'm politely declining his offer and smiling.
I walked away thinking I'd rather give him thirty bucks to assay it so I could finally find out what is in it, once and for all!

After panning through no more than a five pound bucket of 'pay-dirt', I have aprox. 4 oz of wet concentrate that looks like through my scope, to be some super rich gold concentrate, but who am I to decide that?
With my scope, I can see gobs of tiny little gold nuggets in the mix. In sunlight, to the naked eye, it looks like it's all gold, but inside the house under dull lighting, it appears sparkly light brown with gold streaks.

Now, I have to be realistic.
At my age, its hard to find anything to be 'green' at, and even harder
to admit it when one is ... but... I'll shame the devil and tell the truth, I'm just about as green as it gets when it comes down to gold prospecting.

And I know it.

So I have to seriously ask myself how likely is it that I would just happen to stumble upon the mother-lode of micron gold so early in the process of learning? Especially when I didn't even know micron gold existed until I got my X 100 scope out, that is....

The answer of course is, highly improbable, BUT not impossible...

Still, I have done a lot of reading and thinking on this and I ask myself:

If its not gold....

how in the h--- does it stay in the pan as tiny as it is?
what else would it be?
is it pyrite?
but if it's pyrite, it surely would have washed away before I get to the black sands.

I am not ready to try to go any further with it myself until I find out for sure if it's even gold. I live in the boonies and it's a long way to the city and so far out here, I can't find anyone who knows or will admit they know anything about it. Heck, everyone I've tried to show has been unable to handle the scope appropriately and so they cant even see it if they wanted to....so no validation here!

Any idea's on what I might be able to do to figure out whether it's gold or not?? Maybe by finding specific gravity of the cons Thanks! And again, Happy Fathers Day!

 

[chlsbrns]

You can do a purple of cassius test...

https://www.google.com/search?q=pur...google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&espv=1&ie=UTF-8

Or mail me a small priority mail box of the stuff and I'll do it for you. I would test a sample and if there is gold I'll extract it from the remaining sands.

 

[John_Arizona]

Good post and an interesting question C.G. Here in Arid-zona there is a lot more gold than most people realize and a lot of it is of the micron type. One thing you may or may not know is that a LOT of the fine gold is covered with an oxide that will keep you from seeing it for what it is unless you can remove it. The easiest way I've found to get rid of this coating is the "Shake & Bake" method which is detailed out here.... http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-prospecting/414581-shake-bake-processing.html It's not hard to do and I think you will be surprised at how much more gold you find in the micron size range if you give it a try.

As far as getting the gold out of the last bit of sand goes, I use a mercury amalgamation process. It's not hard to do but it does require some special equipment to recover the mercury in a safe way. You can get everything you need to do it correctly from A&B Prospecting in Mesa. Read up on the process and then go back and read it again to be sure you understand the procedure and safety requirements. California is still suffering from the old timers sloppy use of mercury during the gold rush and we don't want to have that problem here in Arizona. Mercury can also have some serious effects on the human body so use your safety gear at all times and follow the procedure to the letter.

I'm going to implement this shake & bake method in the process of my ore

 

[John_Arizona]

You can do a purple of cassius test...

https://www.google.com/search?q=pur...google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&espv=1&ie=UTF-8

Or mail me a small priority mail box of the stuff and I'll do it for you. I would test a sample and if there is gold I'll extract it from the remaining sands.

keep the gold and send back the sand? LOL

 

[goldenIrishman]

I'm going to implement this shake & bake method in the process of my ore

If you have any questions feel free to PM me John. ...Or send me a Ph# and a time to call and we can discuss it on the phone. I'm pretty much free until monsoon season is over.

 

[bakergeol]

Well it would be a simple matter for me as I would simply run it over one of my small wave tables. If it is very very fine gold it would simply show up at the front of the concentrate line.

However, the real issue is not that you have micron gold but how do you catch it. If you are running a sluice box, dredge, gold cube ect and you seeing this micron gold in your concentrates- you are only seeing a tiny fraction of what is there. Most of it was never caught in your conventional water gravity device.

A good example of this is in Clear Creek Colorado. Past mining has left incredible amounts of amalgamated gold which is mostly 200 to 300 mesh. Most folks who have worked the creek have never seen this because they worked the area with sluice boxes and most of it goes right thru a sluice box. To see it you have to run classified bank run material on a wave table.

So you don't know what you don't know.

George