Galena Rocks & Deposits

[Medina Joe]

I just started using Topo maps,Geo maps to help find bedrock rivers and deposits, and quaternary map for material deposits. So I was out prospecting, and the area I was testing had a nice red layer only a few inches deep in the gravel bar inches from the water. While I found no gold in my test pans. I did find some very heavy material that acted like gold or lead. Being that I'm in ohio. I mainly hunt glacial deposits close to rivers. I think I found a river with a rich galena deposit. Does anyone have a picture of small Galena fragments in their pan so I can cross referance?

 

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[goldenIrishman]

Hey Joe,

Most of the Galena I've come across out here in the desert has had a cubic shape to it and looks a lot like processed hematite. (dark silvery gray) Sorry but I don't have any pics. Here's a link to a page with more info on it. Galena: Galena mineral information and data.

 

[Medina Joe]

Thanks Irishman, I looked at that today. Their not cubed shaped, they have a sharp point and jagged edges. They are however dark slivery gray. They stick to the pan very well.

 

[goldenIrishman]

I get a lot of those as well Joe. I have a feeling what you're looking at is stuff that got smashed during its travels. You've got to remember that just because it's SUPPOSED to have a cubic shape doesn't mean it is always in that form. One good smack between rocks and you'll have all kinds of different angular shapes.

Most of the Galena "Crystals" I've found here have been 1/16" or less. LOTS of larger pieces too but those are in anything but crystal form.

Edit: Color will also vary depending on how much lead is in the ore.

 

[Lanny in AB]

I just started using Topo maps,Geo maps to help find bedrock rivers and deposits, and quaternary map for material deposits. So I was out prospecting, and the area I was testing had a nice red layer only a few inches deep in the gravel bar inches from the water. While I found no gold in my test pans. I did find some very heavy material that acted like gold or lead. Being that I'm in ohio. I mainly hunt glacial deposits close to rivers. I think I found a river with a rich galena deposit. Does anyone have a picture of small Galena fragments in their pan so I can cross referance?

The chunks of galena I find while panning or dredging are never sharp. Any edges have been rounded off as they've travelled a distance from the source. But, when I smash them, they are a bright silver gray inside.

When I used to chase the gold up north, we used to get lots of little cubes of galena in the pan and the sluices. It was an awful nuisance.

If you're working in a red layer, that says more iron to me than anything else, but that doesn't mean galena can't be traveling with the iron as gold, galena and iron all like to travel together as they're all members of the heavy family of minerals.

You say they're sharp on the end? Like poke yourself they'll easily stick in sharp?

Have you tried a crush test on any of them yet? If you smash them with a rock or hammer, and if they're Galena, they'll shatter very easily and reveal that bright silvery gray I've talked about earlier. If they don't shatter, and if they flatten out instead, they you might have pieces of lead from a battery or something else. It's amazing what I've found while dredging; almost anything goes!

If you try the shatter test and they break off in chunks or pieces but don't crush or flatten out like lead, you've got something else again.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Medina Joe]

Lanny, not poke yourself sharp. I did a shatter test last night. They just shatter into many many pieces. I kind of ruled out Galena. Back at it again. I have to wait for a few days for the water to get back to normal pool.

 

[tamrock]

You could have a number of elements that would act in a way like gold in a washing process. I'm sure you tested this stuff with a magnet? Placer materials must be both dense and resistant to weathering processes. To accumulate in placers, mineral particles must be significantly denser than quartz (whose specific gravity is 2.65), as quartz is usually the largest component of sand or gravel. Placer environments typically contain black sand, a conspicuous shiny black mixture of iron oxides, mostly magnetite with variable amounts of ilmenite and hematite...That I'm sure we all know, but other valuable mineral components often occurring with black sands are monazite, rutile, zircon, chromite, wolframite, and cassiterite.

Could what your finding be anyway described as Cassiterite, the element of Tin? The early bronze culture mined the tin needed to produce bronze from pacer deposits. Historians believe at one time after the bronze age began a shortage of tin came about as it looked like the ancients returned for a time back to copper tools, but as time went on new discoveries came and they were back in the business of bronze. I think it was a book titled "Out of the Fiery Furnace" Where I read that.?

No. 34850: Cassiterite var. Stream Tin from Alaska in Online Mineral Museum

Cassiterite: The tin mineral cassiterite information and pictures

 

[bakergeol]

Being from Ohio myself. There are no galena or cassiterite deposits in Ohio. With the exception of glacial deposits the geology is all sedimentary. I have found galena in Ohio but always associated with Native Americas-, I found several in ancient mounds which had been destroyed by farming. Ohio does have some sedimentary iron ores which sounds like what you have.

George