Any ideas? Silver colored fines

[SierraMadre]

I live in E. Tex which of course is barren of gold. But sometimes to test equip or whatever I go down to a small creek. At the bottom of the pan there is no black sand although this area has a lot of iron. I always find a silver or metallic colored fine material in the bottom of the pan. Must be heavy since it's the last thing in the pan. I suppose I could collect a bunch of it and have it assayed but I don't have enough confidence that it's anything valuable to spend money on it. Curiosity mostly but is silver or platinum sometimes found as fine grains. And would either be in East Texas in small amounts?

 

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[DDancer]

Silver does not show up as a metallic in fine sizes to my knowledge however platinum will. Its a good possibility that you have galena or lead showing in the fines. Collect about a table spoon and heat it with a MAP torch gently and see if it melts down~ this will tell you if its lead or not. Some silver pyrites can also be found as you describe as well. As to East Texas I'm not aware of any heavy metals in the region but others may know more.

 

[meMiner]

If you Google search "test for platinum" there are some interesting web sites. The heat test is good, but do it outdoors. The big risk is having mercury covered gold and breathing in the mercury fumes. Probably not an issue here, but better safe than sorry. It is a long shot, but you might also be getting meteorite dust (nickel).

 

[arizau]

It sounds like you are panning a mostly silty dirt deposit if you are not getting any black sand. The silvery material may be nothing more than pieces of mica that may be larger than the average size of the rest of the silt and are less subject to washing out of the pan. Mica is about half the specific gravity of black sand and if the two were mixed in a pan it could easily be separated leaving mostly black sand. Mica is highly reflective but out of direct light the particles will usually lose their shiny appearance and not be individually noticeable from other material in the pan.

Good luck.

 

[ratled]

How about some pictures?

ratled

 

[Underburden]

Is this small creek next to a major highway?
Could be platinum from catalytic converters.

 

[SierraMadre]

Thanks for info. I will try to collect a quantity of it and try to melt it. Though it will be lower down on the list of things i need to get done. Would be something if it turned out to be platinum!

 

[winners58]

find someone with an x-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzers https://www.google.com/search?q=x-r...x=&startPage=1&rlz=1I7GGNI_enUS476&gws_rd=ssl
do a google search for a gold refiner in your area or other precious metal buyers, others offer a XRF service.