What do you think of this? Is this gold,tellurium, or pyrite?

[Astrobouncer]

So today I hit up a new spot I been eyeing for awhile. I test panned several spots but I wasn't really having any luck as usual. I decided to move downstream some and I found an area with some huge boulders and a gravel bar behind one that looked promising. I shoveled about half a 5lb bucket and then took it to the river to pan. As I was about to sit down I noticed the boulder I picked for a seat had a nice glimmer to it...



That's my rock hammer and chisel next to a bigger deposit of the stuff. The rock was absolutely covered in this stuff and when I broke the rock open it had some green spots I have never seen before. You can kinda see the green spots in the pictures but they are more obvious in the broken piece. I did break off a chunk of the rock to take back to get assayed.





I think its pyrite or tellurium but I am not 100% sure. It could even be gold because it will not flake off and its fairly heavy and chunky. Hopefully you guys can give me some more opinions. I have a video where you can see more detail I will upload it and post a link soon.

Here is the youtube link to the video:

At about the 25 second mark you can see another big spot of the shiny stuff that is on the side of the rock. I didn't focus in on it directly with the camera though.

 

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[homefires]

Looks like Pyrites in Granite to me.

Gold can be had in some Granites!

 

[hmmm]

IT LOOKS LIKE CHAOLCHOL PYRITE.
they call it fools gold, because only a fool will ignore it.

 

[Astrobouncer]

Thanks guys, great identification there! I was wondering what the darker reddish-copper colored spots were in the piece I chipped off and now that I look at those spots, they look just like copper. Not to mention the green spots in the rock which is also a characteristic of copper. Chalcopyrite seems to be spot on, The streak matches, and this stuff is not as brittle as pyrite and a darker yellow color just like the description of chalcopyrite from Wikipedia. Thanks! Next I guess I gotta figure out where this rock came from so I can find that 'Volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposit' where the rest of it is!

 

[hmmm]

Is this peice of ore sitting near a placer gold deposit bolder.

 

[Astrobouncer]

No, as far back as I can tell there's no history of gold from this river nor any mines near it.

 

[Astrobouncer]

Thanks T. PS I went back and got another ore section that looks pretty neat. I will post up some pics when I have free time.

 

[ivan salis]

the green is most likely copper in raw form

 

[hmmm]

HAVE A LOOK AT THE GOLD COLORED MOSS ON THIS PEICE. AT LEAST THATS WHAT IT WAS WHEN I WENT BACK FOR A SECOND GLANCE.

 

[Eu_citzen]

Looks just like Pyrite to me.

 

[steve burgess]

This could be a Telluride matrix ore.

Be careful and do NOT throw this rock away. Telluride ores can be hard to identify and many inexperienced prospectors have thrown valuable ore away not realizing what they had. There is a simple test you can perform to determine if it is a Telluride ore.
1. Crush and pulverize a sample of the ore.
2. Build a real hot wood/charcoal fire in your bbq grill.
3. Place the sample on a piece of sheet steel 1/8" thick or so should do and heat until the steel and sample are red hot about 1100 degrees. Let roast until the fire is out. Do not breath the fumes.
4. Re-grind the sample and pan the material out in a gold pan.
5. Telluride ores usually contain gold, silver and even some platinum so something will be in your pan if it was a good ore sample.

Good luck! It may be worth spending a few bucks for a professional assay too.

 

[jmoller99]

Colorado has a long history of gold tied up in pyrites (the clue is look at the pyrite - the less cubical/straight edge/sharp corners it has, the higher the odds are that the pyrite is bound to something like Silver or Gold - A lot of the gold from Cripple Creek Colorado was thrown away by miners, as they did not recognise Calaverite - A pyrite: Calaverite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Blobby Pyrite is commonly found in many of Colorados Gold districts, it can have some percentage of gold; in fact you may find a lot of it in old mine tailings dumps - it might have been too expensive to process when the gold miners were only getting $17 an ounce for raw gold, so they tossed it. I look for it in tailings dumps (A metal detector won't pick it up).

A lot of people made fortunes by processing gold in pyrite. The Cripple Creek & Victor Gold mine in Cripple Creek still processes it.

 

[Dustedyou]

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/h...ified-post-here-gimme-good-picture-3-4-a.html

 

[Astrobouncer]

I appreciate the responses guys, but this is an old thread from 3 + years ago. The sulfide was just chalcopyrite. I was able to crush and roast a couple pounds of the vein and there was nothing in there but copper.