Desertpilot

No worries, I guess you can take it to a rock shop or maybe a gem/mineral club? When I get stumped I take my stuff to the University of Arizona in Tucson. They have a pretty good mineral collection.

Here is some of my cuprite from AZ. You can see it has a red, grey, or black matrix depending on the location it was found. Some have visible native copper and others don't. All these rocks make my detectors go loco. I live in a area that has large copper deposits so its pretty common to find. Ive also found nugget gold associated with some of these deposits. The gold deposits are epithermal in nature and are on the edges of the larger copper deposits.

Go outside and hit it with a gas torch. The grey part should turn to copper color under flame. At least the cuprite I find does that. The stuff I find is very similar to what you found. When I get back home I’ll post a pic of the cuprite I find.

Cuprite? That looks similar to the cuprite I find with a detector.

I’ve use gorilla glue with my rubber sluice mats.

Nice B-17 ball turret door. That’s a rare find!

Agree slag

Thanks for the info Barry! I will need to read up on the FS travel plan to see if there is a landowner exception? And if there is I should be good then. I’m still really surprised they are closing access of for a property owner as well.

I wrote a email back asking if I maintain the road could I gate it? Multiple LE agencies use the road for border enforcement plus a patented 20ac claim is on the road as well. Thinking of writing the patent owner to let them know they are losing access as well. I also asked to what level they want it reclaimed. Im guessing its to a level greater than they do (post signs, place boulders, and cut tress across the road)?

Just a quick update. Got a email back from the FS. They are saying for the road to be kept open I will need to maintain the road and then decommission the road when complete. Hmmm, that will get expensive really fast.

It’s cool to see that all I’ve read about placer stratification was a waste of time. The nuggets just sit on the surface! I’ll be sure to stop wasting my time digging to bedrock!

Thanks for sharing the story. It’s always cool to hear it straight form the source.

Its been interesting reading this thread. I also believe this country is in trouble but its not the end of the world. Ive spent a ton of time in third world war zones and what always amazed me is I could always get food and basic supplies even in conflict. I've bought chicken from roadside vendors in Iraq, got beef and vegetables from village markets in the mountains of Afghanistan, and had some awesome Bedouin mystery meat being sold from a tent in the Sahara desert. Heck on day three of OIF I was flying over the edge of Baghdad and dudes were out water skiing on the river and didnt give a r

Its in AZ and on USFS land. For example my claims are in the Coronado National Forest and on their homepage there is a link to the travel plan. BLM seems to still be lacking on getting everything back on the internet since the web page restructure. I really wish I could have claims to work on BLM land, but the nearest BLM land thats productive is a 2hr drive as apposed to a 15 minute drive I currently have.