DarkspARCS Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Greetings... l'm new here so I'll introduce myself... Richard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkspARCS Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 (edited) Recent endeavors: Edited January 23, 2014 by DarkspARCS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkspARCS Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 Mining: polymetallic replacement deposit with adjacent copper bearing lens and intermitant 2ndary iron rich intrusions. metals include: iron, lead, zinc, tin, copper, silver, platinum, palladium, gold, mercury, vanadium, molybdenum, titanium, chromium, bismuth, nickel, tungsten, niobium, uranium, arsenic, and thorium...minerals: galena, plumbojarosite, azurite-malachite, chrysacolla, cuprite, sperrylite, chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite, iron pyrite, native silver, cinnabar, kaolinite, hematite, sphalarite, nevadite, turquoise, wulfenite, dolomite, quartz, and a plethera of variants of these. native gold, as to be expected, a rarity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkspARCS Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 testing: results all show buttons containing gold/ pgm alloys. funnel is silver chloride pulled from galena. solution test closeup is chalcopyrite taken to 500 mesh then shocked with hot hcl...notice gold floatation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkspARCS Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 Well... that's my intro. I hope it serves to provide some insight as well as allows folks here to feel inspired to approach me as a colleague of merit. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Au Seeker Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Darksparcs, Welcome to the forum, thanks for posting your collection, lot of very nice specimens, I enjoyed checking them out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnno Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Yes welcome. Nice looking collection and very interesting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob(AK) Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Wow Richard, I thought my house was full of rocks. Great displays you have Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkspARCS Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 (edited) thanx... My collection has actually changed since those pictures were taken... lol, I need a second display cabinet as I have beautiful specimens packaged because no space to display is left...My mining venture has had several set backs as the metallurgist I was working with pretty much robbed me (for a silly half a ton of ore when I gladly would have shared the profits from the estimated 20,000 tons at the mine) so my material needs are keeping me from millions in revenue because of stupid asinine greed...He did a production assay on the plumbojarosite deposite that - according to his 40 years of expertise in hydro- electrochemical metallurgy and pyromechanical metallurgic management... and my understanding of his scientific method and witness to his entire assay proceedure... produced a result of 5000 ozt of a gold/ pgm mix. His initial reaction was staggered disbelief, like a dazed confusion, with him saying about 3 minutes after staring at the results," that can't be right, I must have done something wrong..."EVERY assay attempt after that suddenly became botched, with cupels stained dark maroon (because the pm content had been absorbed by the cupel - which I know he later crushed and reprocessed with AR to reclaim the lost values from) revealing marginal results (still), to thick white films being left on the furnace (which were heavy in pm values that he later went and scraped clean and values reclaimed) from over firing samples, to coming back to the lab the next day to discover melts that had been performed outside of my presence...I finally confronted him when cleaning assay results to sell when a 2 oz button I'd marked for sale disappeared and mysteriously ended up in his AR solution, which by the time I'd discovered it had already dissolved 8 grams...eh.... what am I gonna do, beat up an 80 yr. old man?... Edited January 23, 2014 by DarkspARCS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkspARCS Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 Anyway, as can be seen I've extracted a good quality azurite-malachite deposite and have begun the work of shaping up pieces for selling it... I have around 60 lbs of this material that I hope my lapidary skill will be able to market it with. On mindat I compared it to Bisbee AZ quality material (which can sell for $45.00 a gram), they in turn discredited it to 'surface oxides'...WOW... really? let's compare, shall we?Bisbee azurite-malachite, already machined and set vs. my half worked and raw materials... you decide... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nugget Shooter Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 WOW what a great collection and a hearty welcome to the forums! Keep those great pics coming... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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