What do gold-bearing Quartz Veins look like?

[StoryWriter85]

I’m writing a novel about gold prospecting in the 1800s, and want to understand the process. My question here is about quartz veins.

Every photo I see of quartz veins looks very different. Sometimes it’s a white vein, sometimes ashy-colored, and sometimes it’s rusty-red. Does this depend on the minerals or geological process?

Also, what does gold-bearing quartz usually look like? Is it tiny gold speckles, or is it one continuous stripe of gold within the vein? If anyone has photos showing what to look for, that would help me a lot. Thank you!

 

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[russau]

You are right on all accounts of your description's of the gold and of the Quartz coloration's for load as well as for Placer gold !

 

[Terry Soloman]

I’m writing a novel about gold prospecting in the 1800s, and want to understand the process. My question here is about quartz veins.

Every photo I see of quartz veins looks very different. Sometimes it’s a white vein, sometimes ashy-colored, and sometimes it’s rusty-red. Does this depend on the minerals or geological process?

Also, what does gold-bearing quartz usually look like? Is it tiny gold speckles, or is it one continuous stripe of gold within the vein? If anyone has photos showing what to look for, that would help me a lot. Thank you!

I have more photos of Iron dykes and quartz outcroppings somewhere.. story of my life. This was a vein I worked to the east of Weaver Hill, in Central Arizona (Weaver Mining District, about six-miles from Rich Hill. I got about 32-ounces total, before I had to say no more. Without heavy machinery or some serious drilling and explosive packing I couldn't go any further. There are many types and forms of veins - long and thin like this one, short and stubby, lightning-bolt patterned a foot wide.. Gold bearing quartz can be chalky white, clear, rusty, depends on the surrounding host rock many times and the pressures that it formed in.

 

[tamrock]

I was taken in a mine in Central City, Colorado and we stopped to have a look at a pretty narrow quartz vein that some visible gold can be seen I was told. I pulled a piece off and looked it over, but I didn't see any glitter, but was told again it's there. Being so narrow you would need to sort out the non gold being rock once excavated. It would also need to be mined in a pretty tight nerrow heading, but that's what many of the old timers did, just so they could afford some beans and whiskey and keep digging and believing that vein will widen and produce a strike and they'll be rich. If only they had better means to do some exploratory core drilling back then to be sure of their hunch, there'd be a whole lot less exploration holes in the Rockies that are there today.

 

[StoryWriter85]

I have more photos of Iron dykes and quartz outcroppings somewhere.. story of my life. This was a vein I worked to the east of Weaver Hill, in Central Arizona (Weaver Mining District, about six-miles from Rich Hill. I got about 32-ounces total, before I had to say no more. Without heavy machinery or some serious drilling and explosive packing I couldn't go any further. There are many types and forms of veins - long and thin like this one, short and stubby, lightning-bolt patterned a foot wide.. Gold bearing quartz can be chalky white, clear, rusty, depends on the surrounding host rock many times and the pressures that it formed in.

Helpful, thank you!

 

[Assembler]

I was taken in a mine in Central City, Colorado and we stopped to have a look at a pretty narrow quartz vein that some visible gold can be seen I was told. I pulled a piece off and looked it over, but I didn't see any glitter, but was told again it's there. Being so narrow you would need to sort out the non gold being rock once excavated. It would also need to be mined in a pretty tight nerrow heading, but that's what many of the old timers did, just so they could afford some beans and whiskey and keep digging and believing that vein will widen and produce a strike and they'll be rich. If only they had better means to do some exploratory core drilling back then to be sure of their hunch, there'd be a whole lot less exploration holes in the Rockies that are there today.

The intensified areas with certain or big enough events are likely the most important factors to look for along the line / vein zone in order for nature to place visible values / minerals such as gold.

Core drilling may miss the zones that where effected with the right events by nature. Following the line will check all events that nature applied along the time line / zone of interest.

 

[tamrock]

The intensified areas with certain or big enough events are likely the most important factors to look for along the line / vein zone in order for nature to place visible values / minerals such as gold.

Core drilling may miss the zones that where effected with the right events by nature. Following the line will check all events that nature applied along the time line / zone of interest.

Yeah I guess that could happen.

 

[Assembler]

Drill hole are great to test spots of interest for values. The drill holes can save a lot of time and effort.

 

[tamrock]

Drill hole are great to test spots of interest for values. The drill holes can save a lot of time and effort.

That they can be, because billions of dollars are spent all the time in effort to map out the potential ore body layout and values long before any consideration of employing any kind of a miner to get in after it.

 

[N-Lionberger]

Depends a lot on the location. Where are you setting your book? The two places I work have drastically different looking ores. My northern workinga the ore is rusty iron stained quarts with pockets of black, the gold is fine and often not visible by the naked eye and requires crushing and panning to see the colors, at my southern workings it’s a mix of the rusty stuff and also white quartz with visible gold and silvery arsenopyrite.

 

[StoryWriter85]

Depends a lot on the location. Where are you setting your book? The two places I work have drastically different looking ores. My northern workinga the ore is rusty iron stained quarts with pockets of black, the gold is fine and often not visible by the naked eye and requires crushing and panning to see the colors, at my southern workings it’s a mix of the rusty stuff and also white quartz with visible gold and silvery arsenopyrite.

My book is set in South Dakota. I realize there's not much gold (other than the Black Hills), but that’s a creative liberty I'm going to have to take.

 

[OwenT]

Check out mbmmllc on youtube. He's had several videos recently where he shows some gold in the quartz. Usually he can see it with the naked eye but you can't see it on camera until he uses the microscope but in his recent video "Alaska Gold Mining, Most Extreme Mining Adventure Yet!" You can see it in the rock right at 12:59. There have been other mines that have thicker ribbons or fatter blobs of gold but most free milling gold (gold that is not chemically bonded to other elements but can be removed from the rock simply by crushing it and separating it) is a spec here and a spec there in the veins. In many deposits it's too small to see in the rock.