Finding gold ore ?

[Owlxm]

Or am I being fooled . Someone help please treasure or trash? 

[Bedrock Bob]

Is it a soft, heavy, yellow metal that is resistant to strong acid?

[Owlxm]

Yes it is .

[Bedrock Bob]

Then you have found gold. 

How will you spend your newfound wealth? Will you keep working or quit your job and buy a small island to live on?

[Owlxm]

I'm going back for the rest of the mountain of coarse Work over vacation.now I gotta learn how to separate it or cash it in whole?

[Owlxm]

[Bedrock Bob]

I would just cash it in whole. 

[Owlxm]

Where to ? The jewelry store does not buy rocks nor do they test them with there machines I've ask then to before.

[Morlock]

2 hours ago, Owlxm said:

Or am I being fooled . Someone help please treasure or trash? 

How did you find these? With a metal detector? Specking? Brought?

It looks like a mica schist yet I see a couple promising spots that could be gold.. Better photos would help.

 

[chrisski]

Two things come to mind.  Mortar and Pestle and Assay,

You can search for places on line that you can send a sample to and they will do an assay.  I remember $50 per sample.  I collected what I thought was a silver ore, but never sent the sample.

For samples like that with “visible gold,” I use a metal mortar and pestle.  I crush it and put it on a 50 mesh sieve.  I take the bigger stuff and crush it again.  Finally, I pan it and see how much gold is in the sample.

I have crushed a lot of rocks and have only found a speck or two of gold.  It’s great exercise.

If you know where a vein of that stuff is and you find a bit of gold, that’s where you can look at a rock crusher or other methods.

There’s a place in Phoenix that can take your ore, but you really need a lot of this material, probably buckets and buckets of ore, and it would not be cheap.  I have found that place online, but have not found enough ore to bring it to them.

[Bedrock Bob]

I think it is pyrite. But I can't tell from the photos. 

Do the basic mineral ID tests. Streak, hardness, specific gravity etc.

Knock a piece off with a hammer and smash it up. You don't have to get it too fine. If you have gold the minute the water swirls over it you will know. Those yellow pieces won't move and everything else will. 

You can just poke it with a sewing needle. If you can put a line in it without scratching dust it is gold. Get a strong magnifier and look at the mark. Gold will be a little trench with smooth sides. A mineral will be a scratch with broken edges.

Most jewelry and pawn shops have an XRF gun or access to one. There are materials testing outfits all over the country that use XRF to analyze construction materials. They will probably shoot that rock for free if you take it to them. An XRF will tell you if that's gold in five seconds. 

 

 

[BMc]

 

"Iron pyrite will stick to a magnet because of its high iron content; gold will not. You can also use a drop of nitric acid to test your specimen ... Nitric acid will turn iron pyrite black, but gold will remain the same color. 

Fool's gold is made up of crystals and has sharp edges, while real gold is a metal with a smoother texture and edges that are more rounded.

If you look closely at a piece of Pyrite and see that its structure consists of what looks like small and sharp cubes, then it is fool's gold"

 

 

 

 

[Bedrock Bob]

To clarify, when I say "pyrite" im not necessarily speaking about "iron pyrite".

There are dozens of pyrite minerals that look a lot like gold in a photo. Many may not stick to a magnet because they do not contain enough iron to be magnetic. Or they are plated so thin there is not enough mass to notice the pull.

So if it is magnetic it is (probably) not gold. But if it is not magnetic you are right back to square one. Many "pyrites" are non magnetic.

Gold is not magnetic. But it is often found in rocks that are. So a magnet is not a very reliable test to determine if what you are seeing is gold in a rock. It can only tell you the presence of iron. And only then if the iron is concentrated enough.

 

[BMc]

5 hours ago, BMc said:

 

A) "Iron pyrite will stick to a magnet because of its high iron content; gold will not. You can also use a drop of nitric acid to test your specimen ... Nitric acid will turn iron pyrite black, but gold will remain the same color. 

B) Fool's gold is made up of crystals and has sharp edges, while real gold is a metal with a smoother texture and edges that are more rounded,

if you look closely at a piece of Pyrite and see that its structure consists of what looks like small and sharp cubes, then it is fool's gold"

 The magnet is only one test, not necessarily the only option, but simple to do. As indicated, a streak test is another good option.    Examination under magnification is also pretty quick and easy.

 

 

 

 

[Owlxm]

Thanks for the feed back I learned a lot .going to take it a xrf scan .

[Owlxm]

[middleforkminer2]

There’s gold in a whole bunch of different types of rock, but the content is measured in PPB (parts per billion)….  https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1969/0610/report.pdf