❓Your Mineral Identification Questions answered here

Your opinions would be appreciated regarding a target I dug up recently. Could this be silver? It's very heavy, almost as heavy as gold and my little Monster 1000 reacted very positively to it on the "non-ferrous" indicator.

Hello goldierocks and fellow prospectors.
I've looked at trillion bits of quartz in my amateur prospecting efforts trying to find pure forms of crystal quartz and amongst being successful in finding some nice bits I've found this one bit that has a blue type of gemstone that has unfortunately broken off but a small part has remained in which how I found it.. any ideas what it could be?

That could possibly be a sapphire in the quartz, errr umm which would make it very very rare, would be good if Goldirocks would give his opinion on it as I'm baffled. Could be some other gemstone though, weird but very nice.

Heatho said:

That could possibly be a sapphire in the quartz, errr umm which would make it very very rare, would be good if Goldirocks would give his opinion on it as I'm baffled. Could be some other gemstone though, weird but very nice.

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Thanks Heatho that's pretty exciting to think it could be sapphire which I highly hoped. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts my friend. Hopefully when or if goldierocks comments he'll agree with you

Hey all,

These are some stones (and a ton of pyrite) the girlfriend and I found in a pre-prepared pan at an old gold mining town while on holiday in Arizona last month. Just wondering if anyone can help identify some of the stones?

This site might help you with a few of them.

https://geology.com/gemstones/states/arizona.shtml

Pretty sure there's turquoise in there, being from Arizona!
It's hard without seeing them clearly for positive identification here though.

Google "gemstones found in Arizona" and that will narrow down all the ones found in the area to compare them with what you have there.

Cheers,
Megsy

Cheers for that, Ill give it a look.

Hey all
Any idea on what this rock could be, I found it in a river bed, its kinda heavy and non magnetic
Thanks shaz

Pat Hogen said:

Prehnite or Chrysoprase.

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Well done to you Sir
I found a more greener bit which google would tell me is most likely chrysoprase
Thanks for the help!

Now, whats this??

shaza, got a piece here as well,, VERY heavy, cut it in half, no diamonds inside :lol: 8.( :N:

Shaza1 said:

Hey all
Any idea on what this rock could be, I found it in a river bed, its kinda heavy and non magnetic
Thanks shaz

https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...0169_841702f4-1f2e-4e8c-afb3-2853545337b0.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...0170_e3da10ad-eacd-4f29-bf0f-b9133d17950e.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...0172_08560dcd-b3e2-4937-84df-1ea4ee236f20.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...0172_8f0c1ed5-2b8a-4d7b-b609-976d49068286.jpg

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Pudding stone (black) / conglomerate

kingswood said:

Now, whats this??
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/11203/1543636094_quartzy_stuff.jpg

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Druze/druse/druzy Quartz

Heatho said:

Hi Shaz, looks like carnelian to me.

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Carnelian as good a name as any - chalcedony or microquartz is the mineral name - some might call it very poor agate (a trace of banding)

hannahchikka said:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...2245_screen_shot_2018-11-11_at_6.43.46_pm.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...9766_screen_shot_2018-11-11_at_6.01.22_pm.jpg

Hi I'm new here.

This rock is black, very smooth, has a part thats grey on it (put it under a bright light and that part you can see through - no colour).
Its streak is white. Its texture is the same as a raw sapphire

Could it be black spinel or black sapphire?

Thanks

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depends on its hardness for identification

hannahchikka said:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...3624_screen_shot_2018-11-12_at_8.06.20_pm.jpg
This is how it looks compared to the sapphire (I know the one on the right is definitely a sapphire cuz in the bright light it shines blue, green and yellow).
I don't have quartz on me. So I tested it on the sapphire and the sapphire scratched, I tested the sapphire on it and it scratched. It was faint and didn't always work for both of them.

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So try quartz....

22shells said:

Have found a few of these, wondering if you could call it aquamarine at all or is it just beryl?https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/3817/1542221448_pb151058.jpg

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Aquamarine is beryl - but it needs to be a good colour, transparent and relatively unflawed

22shells said:

Yes, I often get blue/purple mixed up. And dark green/brown. Here is an example of the other type, which doesn't look like aquamarine to me but maybe getting close to some sort of precious beryl? There was meant to be aquamarine and emerald found years ago, so far all I can find is this type of stuff. Maybe it's there somewhere.
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/3817/1542342926_pb161058.jpg

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same comment as before

Lefty said:

I don't need the mineral identified, I know it's a quartz crystal. I dug it up at Lowmead. I was just wondering if Goldirocks or anyone else could identify the proper geological name for this.......erm, unique-looking formation? :lol:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...229_159974271628509_3087393951754223616_o.jpg

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Called quartz sceptre:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=quartz+scepters&qpvt=quartz+scepters&FORM=IGRE

Ward69 said:

Has anyone seen this before Washing the pan, this little rock wouldn't move. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/12603/1542787507_image.jpg so looking at it more closely hmm full of flour gold. It's in bedded in Quartz like stone

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Don't see the flour gold - white mica?