Know nothing about Gemstones..... Found at Daylesford

Couple of pictures, one some speaks of gold, we all know what that looks like.
The other??? Started keeping these after watching another fossicker actively chasing stuff like this, don't know if the photo is good enough but are these in fact gemstones of some sort (yes I know they're tiny) and should I keep looking for them, or similar looking 'stones'?
They come from around Daylesford (not the gold apart from a couple of pieces).
Cheers Tom





Most sides go off on different angles, are they just clear quartz crystals?

From the pic it looks like you have a couple of clear topaz, some quartz crystal and citrines, which are a yellow variety of quartz. All are very collectable and if the clarity is ok they make some handsome faceted stones sought after in jewelery making

Wal.

Thanks Wal,
As I said have never looked beyond the gold but obviously these gems are there to be collected.
I'm sure a full vial will look nice, will keep a closer watch in future.
Cheers Tom

I always bring home a few buckets of dirt to run through, I still have the left over rocks in buckets, time to grab out the old torch and give them a look at I think

WalnLiz said:

From the pic it looks like you have a couple of clear topaz, some quartz crystal and citrines, which are a yellow variety of quartz. All are very collectable and if the clarity is ok they make some handsome faceted stones sought after in jewelery making

Wal.

Click to expand...

Hi Wal, I can see monoclinic crystal shapes on some of the orange stones. I'd be leaning pretty heavily towards zircons.

Whoa ... put that in the google machine and 'monoclinic crystals' and the information is enough to give me nightmares for weeks.
Think I'll just keep collecting them and get some nice vials of them.
Sorry if the the poor photo adds to the confusion.
Thanks Guys, Tom

Hey Tom,

Some of your crystals have only 4 faces lengthwise, like a cigarette box kind of shape. Quartz has 6.

Ok, just increased my knowledge of crystals by about 1000%
If I have it correct 4 faces (square, rectangle or whatever) = most likely, Zircons
6 faces (excluding top/bottom) most likely = quartz and,
6 faces with a yellow 'colour' = citrine (the clearer the better.
Hate to say it but having only 50% vision in one eye (hopefully fixable) AND being colour blind doesn't help.
Thanks heaps,
Tom

You're essentially correct. However citrine is a type of quartz, and topaz also often has 4 faces on the sides, but tends to be crystal clear and with a different sheen to zircons. It's also harder than both zircon and quartz and will scratch both of them.

Nothing wrong with your instruction, just forgot to add the quartz bit to the citrine (think Wal also mentioned it was quartz and that the yellow quartz was called citrine).
Will save em all up and look you up in Tas when we get down there.
Maybe you have the real stuff there rather than the mini versions we find here (sorry that I find here, I'm sure others are getting better stuff).
I'll trawl through some old post to see if I can find some pics that I can use as a cheap reference.
Many thanks Tom

I've been around the Daylesford area, and with certainty I can say they are Zircons.

They Range from yellow to orange and pink through to red. On rare occasions you can pick up bluish Zircons as well.

I'm guessing you were finding them in every pan?

Here are some of the Zircons the kids have collected from Daylesford area:

Do gemstones act like gold in a pan ?

Are they heavier then other stones and dirt or do you have to sieve them and then use tweezers to pick them out

Hi 1989 ,
Mate I'm no expert in regard to Gemstones but I do know that they along with gold and ironstone/black sand are the last thing left in the pan (assuming you're in a gem type area).
Know that gold is 19 (or is that 9?) times heavier than water, hence it stays put not sure what gemstones are, perhaps one of the gem/mineral experts can enlighten us.
Cheers Tom

Sieve and tweezers is the go, Teemore is correct though in that a lot of the time small gems such as Zircon, Spinel, Sapphires/Rubies and Garnets will be in your concentrates with black sand. Bigger ones will usually come out during panning or sluicing and be lost.

yep zircons and a small bit of black spenel it looks like