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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Gemstones and Minerals
Help Identify Rocks Full of gold stuff
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<blockquote data-quote="user 4386" data-source="post: 343010" data-attributes="member: 4386"><p>Looks like mostly pyrite in first shots, fine white mica in next lot, could be other sulphide minerals in some later but not much looking like gold. Remember to carry a pocket knofe with a tiny blade (I have one 2 cm long that I hang on a leather thong around my neck with a hand lens and a short bar magnet). Scratch gold - soft like lead, yellow powder. Scratch pyrite - darkish to near black, not yellow powder, much harder to scratch. With a tiny knife point (or needle) and scratching under a hand lens, you can do this with quite tiny specks. Arsenopyrite is hard and not yellow powder, stibnite or molybdenite are very soft like gold (but also not yellow powder - dark), Chalcopyrite is in-between in hardness but not yellow powder, more a dark greenish shade usually. Not many things scratch to give yellow powder unless they look "earthy" (eg the oxides of some elements like some ochres of molybdenum, antimony etc). Another clue is to look (with your hand lens) to see if the outside of a mineral seems to be altering to another mineral - gold does not do that, all other sulphide minerals or native elements do (although not in reqally fresh, unweathered rock). Chalcopyrite weathers to blue and green azurite and malachite, arsenopurite to blackish ?asbolite (from memory), pyrite to brownish to orange-brown iron oxides, molybdenite and stibnite to yellow, white and grey ochres.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="user 4386, post: 343010, member: 4386"] Looks like mostly pyrite in first shots, fine white mica in next lot, could be other sulphide minerals in some later but not much looking like gold. Remember to carry a pocket knofe with a tiny blade (I have one 2 cm long that I hang on a leather thong around my neck with a hand lens and a short bar magnet). Scratch gold - soft like lead, yellow powder. Scratch pyrite - darkish to near black, not yellow powder, much harder to scratch. With a tiny knife point (or needle) and scratching under a hand lens, you can do this with quite tiny specks. Arsenopyrite is hard and not yellow powder, stibnite or molybdenite are very soft like gold (but also not yellow powder - dark), Chalcopyrite is in-between in hardness but not yellow powder, more a dark greenish shade usually. Not many things scratch to give yellow powder unless they look "earthy" (eg the oxides of some elements like some ochres of molybdenum, antimony etc). Another clue is to look (with your hand lens) to see if the outside of a mineral seems to be altering to another mineral - gold does not do that, all other sulphide minerals or native elements do (although not in reqally fresh, unweathered rock). Chalcopyrite weathers to blue and green azurite and malachite, arsenopurite to blackish ?asbolite (from memory), pyrite to brownish to orange-brown iron oxides, molybdenite and stibnite to yellow, white and grey ochres. [/QUOTE]
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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Gemstones and Minerals
Help Identify Rocks Full of gold stuff
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