Types of rocks to look for?

Hi just a general question on which are the better types of rocks to collect for crushing.

In books that I've read they are giving two types
a) Types with a honey comb look to them
Or
b) Types that have colours like the yellows reds browns and black throughout them

Just wanting to get the opinions of people from this forum.

Thanks Darryn

Hopefully the ones that contain the ore your chasing Darryn!

Are you referring to cap rock (sitting above ground) or rock dug from pits, shafts etc?

Besides oxygen, the most abundant element in the earths crust is Silicon and an oxide of Silicon is Quartz (Silicon Dioxide SiO2, or Silica).

If you know how gold is formed beneath the earths crust, you will understand that the 'Structure' the rock is involved with is the key, more than the type of rock itself.
Gold is not fussed about its host, but rather the conditions its host formulates for it. Metamorphosed rock usually contains structure (gneiss, slate, marble, schist, and quartzite etc)

By structure I mean, Foliation, sheer zones, bedding etc. so target rock that is involved with these types of structure. (Hence you speak of 'Honeycombing')

Its a common misconception that gold nuggets found have cooled after travelling in a molten state.....this is not so!
Gold is actually dissolved in hot salty water along with many other elements (mainly Silicon) to form a complex ionic solution deep beneath the earths crust.

These solutions will take the least path to resistience (foliation, sheers in host rock etc) under heat and pressure, this is usually upwards towards the surface giving less pressurized, cooler zones. When these solutions cool, they crystalize to form solids (This is why gold is commonly found in quartz or Silica).

Study these basic theories some more and it will soon become very clear to you what to look for, when zoning in on specimens to crush and how to obtain them.

Hope this makes sense to you?

Regards

Foliation in Ironstone where the Silicon Dioxide (Quartz) has crystalized along the seams......prime gold bearing structure!

As you say Darryn, the darker and more greenish looking, usually the better.





Foliation in slate bedding in a pic I took through a dry river bed, right near some old timers heavy alluvial diggings.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBHfgB5ta9U

Regards

Hi Metamorphic

Thanks for the great feed back. Just what I was after.

Yes l was talking about rocks on the surface.

Thanks again regards Darryn

hi morph, a dumb question i have to ask...

can gold be found from crushing slate that DOESN'T contain quartz?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBHfgB5ta9U

Hi Morph..... absolutely fantastic link. Now I am really interested.

Cheers TT

20xwater said:

hi morph, a dumb question i have to ask...

can gold be found from crushing slate that DOESN'T contain quartz?

Click to expand...

No such thing as a dumb question........ however in answer, very rarely 20xwater. Gold usually travels in solution with Silicon and other elements and they commonly crystalize together (all those milions of years ago) and Quartz veins amongst these sorts of structure are your best bet.

If you see slate or other rock that is foliated and has sheer zones like in the pics above, your on the right track as the structure is right

Keep following the direction of any foliated rock (usually N to NE and S to SW) and look for small veins of Quartz that have formed amongst the foliation. These quartz veins are sometimes very small and only a few mm to a few cm wide.

Bogi explains it better than I can;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm_WGaPH24Q

Meta - excellent posts and info - many thanks. You should think about a few posts on the 'new to prospecting' sticky - excellent advice.

PS - Metamorphic - very witty. I may change my user name to 'sedimentary'.

Metamorphic said:

20xwater said:

hi morph, a dumb question i have to ask...

can gold be found from crushing slate that DOESN'T contain quartz?

Click to expand...

No such thing as a dumb question........ however in answer, very rarely 20xwater. Gold usually travels in solution with Silicon and other elements and they commonly crystalize together (all those milions of years ago) and Quartz veins amongst these sorts of structure are your best bet.

If you see slate or other rock that is foliated and has sheer zones like in the pics above, your on the right track as the structure is right

Keep following the direction of any foliated rock (usually N to NE and S to SW) and look for small veins of Quartz that have formed amongst the foliation. These quartz veins are sometimes very small and only a few mm to a few cm wide.

Bogi explains it better than I can;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm_WGaPH24Q

Click to expand...

:lol:...classic, art of gold 9 was my favourite youtube video i ever watched before i started prospecting ey...i remember nearly every word...is there actually a follow up video of how much gold he got out of that hole in part 9?

20xwater said:

:lol:...classic, art of gold 9 was my favourite youtube video i ever watched before i started prospecting ey...i remember nearly every word...is there actually a follow up video of how much gold he got out of that hole in part 9?

Click to expand...

If there is I never could find it?

He is either still digging, or found a truckload of the stuff and is sitting on a beach in the Maldives somewhere

I know he had issues with others tracking him down and coming onto his claim without permission, to get what they could whilst he was away. (they even tried tainting his water tanks with diesel), a consequence of his generosity to share via youtube no doubt.

Gold is a fickle business, and most keep any worthy finds close to their chests!

Sad world sometimes hey

loamer said:

Meta - excellent posts and info - many thanks. You should think about a few posts on the 'new to prospecting' sticky - excellent advice.

PS - Metamorphic - very witty. I may change my user name to 'sedimentary'.

Click to expand...

Perish the thought.....there is only one loamer

Cheers mate!

Metamorphic said:

20xwater said:

:lol:...classic, art of gold 9 was my favourite youtube video i ever watched before i started prospecting ey...i remember nearly every word...is there actually a follow up video of how much gold he got out of that hole in part 9?

Click to expand...

If there is I never could find it?

He is either still digging, or found a truckload of the stuff and is sitting on a beach in the Maldives somewhere

I know he had issues with others tracking him down and coming onto his claim without permission, to get what they could whilst he was away. (they even tried tainting his water tanks with diesel), a consequence of his generosity to share via youtube no doubt.

Gold is a fickle business, and most keep any worthy finds close to their chests!

Sad world sometimes hey

Click to expand...

yeah na i never found a follow up either.

'consequence of generosity to share'...those words change things once you experience it ey...its the people that are to lazy to do the hard yards and dont respect or aknowledge the experience of finding thier own good ground that stuff it all up for everyone!

20xwater said:

hi morph, a dumb question i have to ask...

can gold be found from crushing slate that DOESN'T contain quartz?

Click to expand...

Hey mate as said before no suck thing as a dumb question and in theory yes you can get gold from slate with no quartz. This is dependent on a few factors in case of the Bendigo black shale they contained gold that was trapped by bacteria and drawn down into the mud of a delta. this was then buried and compressed to become Shale. Its the biological matter that give the black shale there color. so once these layers of rock had been formed and faults and folding started to take place the hot salt water around 300 degrees C flowed through leaching the gold out and depositing it in the quartz veins that make up the famous Bendigo lode. This has recently been studied and found that there is almost no gold below 600m in the Bendigo zone because of this.

In fact it is the salt water that gives gold bearing quartz its color because tinny bubbles are formed when the vein solidifies and these trap water so when the light hits the quartz it is reflected and has the same effect that water in a cloud, so this is how get milky quartz gets its white color unlike the quartz in granite which is clear.

So in short yes but it would be rare and in very small quantities.

So if I was to come up against a river bed with exposed bed rock which is slate and it has quartz running through it. Would this be a good place to dig up the quartz? :/

Darryn, it would not hurt to get a sample and crush it to see if there is gold in it.

As Prospector B says, testing your samples is the only way too tell for sure if your onto something, but if you did come across something like that, its a very good sign to begin with.

Take a sample, crush and pan it off and then count any colors you may get.

The old timers used to say if you get 8 or more specs of color in your pan, its an area worth investigating further!

If you get nothing, move up the quartz vein 3 to 5 ft or so, along the foliation (both ways) and repeat the test each time until you get some color. Only then will you know your on the right track.

Learn more about the art of loaming, just simply crushing quartz is the hard way mate.

I uploaded a couple of PDF's for you to download and read:

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc7/6533/hints-on-loaming-pdf-439k?da=y

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc7/6534/gold-diggers-guide-pdf-3-4-meg?da=y


Good Luck.

Hey Metamorphic

Thanks for your help. This information is great and very helpful for a newby like myself. The video like was fantastic and I will be watching it again and again. He is one very knowledgeable fellow. I will now go and dig that quartz vein like you say and see how we go.

Thanks again Regards Darryn

Prospector B as much as im over crushing rock I will continue to do so or as required at least. There must be a eaiser way

I have had good success in the past crushing Quartz from the old timers mullock heaps.

Not every heap is a winner ofcourse, but if your lucky enough you can come across a few good pieces containing fine gold that the detectors wont pick up.

Remember the old timers relied solely on visual examination of the pieces they threw out. If they didnt see visible gold on the outside of Quartz, it was usually dumped however, sometimes they missed bits containing fine gold within, or were not so bothered with it.
Its the larger pockets of 'trapped' gold they were chasing in the reef.

As you say Darryn, keep working hard mate, be thorough, dont listen to the doomsdayers and never give in to despair!
Research and read all you can and continue to learn (I try to learn something new everyday)

Gold will one day come your way my friend

Fire that crusher up mate

Cheers

Hey Metamorphic

I've just tried to open up the keep and share files but its saying that you need to give my account name 'thebrez' rights to view these documents in your Share Control

Thanks regards Darryn

Hey Darryn,

Now I have my crusher going you can use that to crush your quartz any time....where is SA is Hewett though? best of luck with it mate

cheers