what to do with the mercury i found?

[beekbuster]

i was at a very popular creek here in redding prospecting, i came across a small pool of merury. i sucked it up with my sniper tool and continued on my way. all the gold i collected is now in and on the ball of mercury. its about the size of a .38 ball. is there any way to get the gold out without burning it? how should i store it?

 

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[galenrog]

After you have transferred the mercury and the contaminated gold to an airtight container, contact your local prospecting shop or prospecting club. They should be able to refer you to someone who can separate the two, probably with a small retort.

Since you are near Redding, I would have assumed that you have run into this before, considering the number of cinnabar deposits in the general area.

 

[beekbuster]

this is my first encounter with liquid mercury, ive acumulated some gold that has been amalgamated with mercury, but never a ball of liquid mercury

 

[Aufisher]

Retort

 

[winners58]

squeeze it through a wet chamois to get most of the mercury out make sure and store it in a sealed container like a gold vial
you can then take your amalgam ball and burn off the remaining mercury in a retort.

Amalgamation: Using Mercury to capture fine gold, retort, charged mercury

 

[EnoMoney]

What size retort? and are retorts very sought after??

 

[KevinInColorado]

squeeze it through a wet chamois to get most of the mercury out make sure and store it in a sealed container like a gold vial
you can then take your amalgam ball and burn off the remaining mercury in a retort.

Amalgamation: Using Mercury to capture fine gold, retort, charged mercury

No, don't do this, you will just contaminate more stuff. Instead use an eye dropper or suction pipette to suck off the excess liquid Merc from your ball.

Always store it in water.

 

[HMiller]

My mother-in-laws brother died of mercury poisoning back in the day. Not a way I want to go. Handle with caution.

 

[Bonaro]

I squeeze off the excess HG through a piece of ripstop nylon then I dissolve the hg off the gold with nitric acid. Later, after the nitric is saturated with HG after repeated use, I precipitate the HG out of the nitric with aluminium foil, neutralize the acid and dispose.
The "contamination" of more stuff is minimal because I only use this piece of ripstop of this one purpose and liquid HG is relatively harmless.

Learn what you are doing before you do it.

 

[2cmorau]

just throw the whole ball of wax in a retort, best environmentally and simplest solution to this matter

thanks for cleaning the environment

 

[NeoTokyo]

+1 to using a small pipette to remove as much liquid from the ball and store the two separately in a plastic vial with water.

 

[Oakview2]

 

[Oakview2]

 

[KevinInColorado]

Yup, that's the way! I have a good friend who makes and sells these but I just go hang out with him when I want to retort my gold...you could say I trade beer for propane

 

[Clay Diggins]

The advantage of squeezing the mercury ball through cheesecloth is that the cheesecloth absorbs most of the natural and man made oils and non amalgamating minerals. Oil in your working mercury is bad juju.

Heavy Pans

 

[beekbuster]

thanks for the input everyone. i will hold on to it for now safely stored out of the reach of little hands and out of the house. im sure this wont be the last time i come across it. eventually ill find someone who can deal with it. id rather lose 15 bucks in gold and give the merc to someone who has a use for it. dont want it in my house... same reason id rather pay extra electricity on incandescent.

 

[beekbuster]

found some more today, about the same amount as last time, but they mostly were tiny droplets except for one that had a lot of other metals in it. think this may be a cinnabar deposit. it looks as if there is a mercury ore in the bedrock, very fractured and decomposing pockets.

 

[Mad Machinist]

found some more today, about the same amount as last time, but they mostly were tiny droplets except for one that had a lot of other metals in it. think this may be a cinnabar deposit. it looks as if there is a mercury ore in the bedrock, very fractured and decomposing pockets.

Pics or it didn't happen

Though pics of a naturally occurring deposit of decomposing cinnabar in decomposing bedrock could be useful in more than one way.

 

[jcazgoldchaser]

 

[2cmorau]

maybe these guys can help or point you in the right direction
Shasta County Gold