gold flakes in my well water?

stylin99

Newbie
Dec 7, 2005
4
0
Charlotte, NC
I need some help identifying real gold flakes vs fools gold or mica. I did a crash course on gold today and here's why.

I had to clean my water filter on my new house due to tons of sediment stopping it up. It's a new well on a newly cleared plot of land. This is the second time I've changed the filter under the house. It was full of sediment and within that, I found small gold flakes. Actually I first noticed it cleaning out my toilet tank as the sediment had collected there over months time. I've dried it out and keep staring at it. It doesn't float in water, it sinks.

Any help identifying what in the world I have? Am I a fool? Can gold flakes be pushed up from an aquifer underground? We do have a lot of rock and quartz out this way... ???
 

Upvote 0

Goodyguy

Gold Member
Mar 10, 2007
6,489
6,895
Arizona
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Whites TM 808, Whites GMT, Tesoro Lobo Super Traq, Fisher Gold Bug 2, Suction Dredges, Trommels, Gold Vacs, High Bankers, Fluid bed Gold Traps, Rock Crushers, Sluices, Dry Washers, Miller Tables, Rp4
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deserat said:
Hey GoodGuy, thanks for the comp and the link.
The water is not safe to drink. It took years to design an affordable filtration system for my home.
I use Diatomaceous Earth as my filtration. It is found on the surface in my back yard. After crushing it, (with a sledge hammer on a D-8 belly pan), I have built a canister for inline filtration. It works great and I've sent my design to a filtration manufacture that has already implemented it to filter the water at NAS Fallon, (Top Gun Training School). After the Diatomaceous Earth, it is run through carbon and sediment filters to help with the calcium. It works great and my water is the envy of the neighborhood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth

Awesome!
I can see you are quite an inventer and judging by the recirculating tank setup you also possess a touch of MacGyver :notworthy:

Welcome to TreasureNet!
Looking forward to your input.
GG~
 

deserat

Tenderfoot
Sep 21, 2011
5
2
Lyon County Nevada
Detector(s) used
Garrett Gold Stinger
Thank you gentlemen,
I do weld a little but the young man in the photo welded most of the project. He is my protégé and I have been trying to teach him as much as possible in the short time that he's available. He starts college in California Monday ;D.

This event (and a few others), have been a very good experience for him.
 

Gramps43

Full Member
Feb 27, 2011
207
27
Tillamook, OR
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White's 4900/D Pro Plus
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Black Hills Gold stats out yellow then they alloy a couple of other metals to achieve the color they want. For 18 karat rose gold, typically about 4% silver is added to 75% gold and 21% copper to give a rose color. The alloy of 75% gold, 23% copper, and 2% cadmium yields light green 18ct gold.

Gramps
 

gold doc

Tenderfoot
Oct 29, 2011
5
0
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Is it gold in picture or not? I'm lost by conversation, rose gold? they look like rocks. I'm not being rude, I just don't want to miss gold if it looks like this occasionally. And where is the well? Did I see Black Hills, SD?
 

helpmeplz

Newbie
Mar 15, 2013
1
0
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
ok so I am new... I mean way new... we have had our well for several years and for several years there have been flakes in the water filter... My husband swears that we have gold... I just don't know how to find out. The flakes are to small for me to tell. (Not like i would know what I was looking at any way.) What is the chances I would find gold in my well here in the heart of Virginia?
 

KevinInColorado

Gold Member
Jan 9, 2012
7,037
11,370
Summit County, Colorado
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Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer & Motherlode, Gold Cube with trommel or Banker on top, Angus Mackirk Expedition, Gold-n-Sand Xtream Hand pump
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It could be as there is a mineral belt thru parts of VA. Take some to your local jeweler to be tested or google a local prospecting club or to a local university (they often like having unknown samples for the students to test) to get help confirming what you have. Good luck!
 

Ditchg

Greenie
Jun 2, 2014
11
0
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hello
I have a question about some very small gold flakes
Showing up in the reservoir tank of my toilet. We
Have well water. The pump and the house each have
A filter so you can imagine how small I am talking.
The flakes are not magnetic. And neither is the black
Sand that is with it. So I am convinced it is either mica
Or gold. How do I test such small flakes?i can hardly
Even grasp with tweezers. The flakes have a dull sheen to them shiny in direct light but not sparkly. The largest of the flakes I could grasp slightly with tweezers. They would bend and then bend back without breaking. They do sink rather quickly. Especially for a flake. But I have nothing to compare it to so quickly is a relative term. I also placed between two hammers and scraped. The result was a gold smear. I tried same with flakes I new were mica and didn't get same result. The mica just broke apart. Any advice would be great.
Sent from my iPhone
 

Ditchg

Greenie
Jun 2, 2014
11
0
Primary Interest:
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Also I found a large saucer I used as a gold pan. The small flakes seam stable and never come to the surface. No issue with them coming out as I swirl and then poor water and cloudy material ( black sand like stuff that's not magnetic) out. The flakes almost look like copper or brass. Very uniform tone and texture. Look like metal shavings. Just ALOT of them
 

Duckwalk

Hero Member
Mar 21, 2014
966
1,312
Lincolnton North Carolina
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Try to post a picture. Could be easier to give you an answer on it.
 

Ditchg

Greenie
Jun 2, 2014
11
0
Primary Interest:
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image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg image.jpg
The last pic is if a quarts stone I busted open when I hit it with the lawn mower. Looks more like mica to me. We have quarts coming out our ears. More quarts then dirt.
 

huntsman53

Gold Member
Jun 11, 2013
6,955
6,769
East Tennessee
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Other
It is really hard to tell much from those pics but that is usually the case when trying to identify Gold from pics. Considering that you are getting Black Sand in your' toliet tank, there is a pretty good chance that you have Gold in your' well as well as Mica and a lot of other compounds and minerals. You need to contact a TNnet member in your area that Gold prospects and ask if they will check the stuff out for you. If you can't make that happen, then collect some samples and take them to a Jeweler for testing. When the 14k acid hits the Mica, it should dissolve but the Gold should remain. You live in a area well known for Gold and you could be sitting on quite a bit of it but then again, maybe not. If an underground stream feeds your' well and is the source, then you may not have any Gold in the soil on your' property but from the looks of the Quartz specimen, I believe you do.


Frank
 

Last edited:

H&F909ORO

Sr. Member
Dec 26, 2013
410
243
California East Bay
Primary Interest:
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If you can get the black sand out of the water and into a pan the easiest way for me to tell is when you shake the pan. Mica will wash around like something floating in the water and will fall our of the pan when panning. Gold is 19x heavier than water which means if it is going down to the bottom of the pan, then it's gold. Mica will be shiny on one side and then dull on the other. Gold will be bright in shade or light.

Hope this helps.
 

Ditchg

Greenie
Jun 2, 2014
11
0
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Thanks for the input guys. I ordered a gold testing kit. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Question though just for the fun of it. I understand the statistical odds are not in favor of it being much. With that said. What do you do if it is gold? How do you find out how much there is? And after that how do you go about selling your property for what its worth? Only thing I can find online is selling claims on public land or old mines. You always here the dream of finding a large deposit of gold and striking it rich. But no where tells you what to do if it actually happens. If I did have gold I don't want to mine I would just sell. Be like the Beverly hill Billy's you know. Find it on your land sell the land and move on.
 

Ditchg

Greenie
Jun 2, 2014
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#37
Ditchg

Jun 2014
4
All Types Of Treasure Hunting
Thanks for the input guys. I ordered a gold testing kit. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Question though just for the fun of it. I understand the statistical odds are not in favor of it being much. With that said. What do you do if it is gold? How do you find out how much there is? And after that how do you go about selling your property for what its worth? Only thing I can find online is selling claims on public land or old mines. You always here the dream of finding a large deposit of gold and striking it rich. But no where tells you what to do if it actually happens. If I did have gold I don't want to mine I would just sell. Be like the Beverly hill Billy's you know. Find it on your land sell the land and move on.
 

Ditchg

Greenie
Jun 2, 2014
11
0
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Some pumps have oil impregnated bronze baring in them.

Just hope one is not going bad.

I considered something like that as well. Let's hope it's not that😖. Lord willing the test I ordered will say its gold.
 

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