Gold plated ?

Crushed a small sample of limonite /quartz (i think) from Lal Lal vic.
Puddler bill mentioned I have bornite on the rock ,question is is it possible to have gold bonded onto another mineral or would it be more likely to be a copper .Looking closely to these specs there is clearly two metals one dull silver the other a clean golden colour .
They were heavy enough to be on the bottom of the pan in a 70 % iron mix.

Hi Dug,
mate use a little Nitric acid to tell you if it is Au or Cu.
Matt

Yes for sure. Nitric will dissolve your copper. it does sound look and sound like Bornite, or Chalcopyrite. hard to tell exactly from a pic.

Thanks Matt , I'll get some . Q .Is a falcon m20 any good for this kind of stuff . There's alot of what seems to be fine grained pyrite through these rocks , is there much to be gained in looking for gold via cooking it (Jeff williams style).or don't try this at home kids .

I don't know what an m20 falcon is Dug (I will look it up). I am pretty sure you cant roast this type of sulphide to release any gold. Maybe take some samples for analysis, get them to run the full suite which isn't that expensive. I don't want to tell you how to suck eggs but when you do the nitric acid use gloves and rinse any residue with a bi-carb soda solution.
Matt

Ok now I see that it is a gravity separator. If you have enough ore you will need to crush and separate it, I have never seen a falcon work so I cant comment on it.
Good luck with this, I hope you kick a big goal.
Matt

You can use hydrochloric as well. Easier to get at the hardware, but still use gloves goggles etc. I am unsure if gold was found at Lal Lal but it's possible. Falcon Md20. Its a probe type detector which runs at 300khz (happy to be corrected on this). It can be used to detect fine gold in quartz reefs. Not sure how it will go with so much iron though. Hmmm, we need someone to make a pinpointer using Minelabs MPS technology. Are you hearing me Bruce Candy.lol Thinkingof buying one or having a go at making one. They are basic but effective technology. The trick is to make the coil small and properly.

Great little pieces of equipment,I have one,you can test them on pyrites,will tell you if there is gold inside it.
Also when testing when you move it to the target and the volume increases,it is indication it is gold,but if the volume increases as the probe comes away from the target,you can forget it.
Hope this helps

Regards Frank

Pan it off guys, specific gravity will give the game away every time.

If it aint at bedrock (bottom of pan), it aint gold.

Your panning technique comes into play here.

Spot on meta...

Ok basics first ,plenty learn on that front ,from a novices perspective there is much to be gained from reading the threads of this forum. The structure and formation of rocks is of particular interest. I drive around trying to picture cuttings in 3d .Picture extinct volcanoes in full throttle across the landscape ,in many ways it seems there is a "grain to earth formation similar to the grain in a tree. Anyway keep up the good work .

Your on the right path Dug......Structure is of up-most importance.

Gold is not particular about its host, it forms only under the right conditions and these conditions are dependent upon the 'grain to formation' as you put it.

Yes its true, the right conditions (structure) usually only occur in certain types of rock and that is why most only look for these types of strata, but the grain of formation is whats really paramount.

When everything looks right and all the balls seem to have aligned, then start to test to see if your hunch is correct before expending much labor for little else but blood, sweat and tears!

Testing is just as critical to success as finding the right structure I believe!

Practice economy in prospecting and work smarter, know what i mean?.......If it costs you 4 grams to extract 2 grams, your going to be going hungry soon!

Good luck mate.