Oddball nuggets pics and a couple of questions

[Ragnor]

So I been locating some sizable nuggets of yet to be assayed material, Now clearly there is some copper involved and that is to be expected. However I had one of these acid tested in the 1990's at a pawn shop and all nitric acid did was polish it a little. Some of them do streak brown so they are mostly copper, but others streak yellow and that is always a good thing. Now my first question is, what to make of the silver stuff?
It is silver when it comes out of the ground even when the rest of the nugget is coated in oxides. Does that make it platinum? Chrome doesn't do that in nature does it? And silver would be black wouldn't it?

These have been cleaned in phosphoric and acetic acid, because that's what I have on hand and i dont want to use hyrdochloric because of the chlorine stripping off materials I don't want to lose. I do not yet have the labware to make the other acids.



Now the second part of the question. I have found of these with my detector on rough and unworn bedrock that was uncovered in recent slides. I would think it's safe to assume they have come down slope rather than being creek deposited material since there is only top soil covering them. There is little or no gravel in the holes. Problem is everything above them has 2-4 feet of soil and pumice and ash and trees and brush covering it. Any tips on what surface features to look for to get me more of these in areas that havn't slid recently?

This one streaks very yellow, but no silver lining


also there is no signs of mercury in any of the creek bed material.

 

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[AU_Solitude]

Looks like copper float or bullet shrapnel? Heat it with a lighter/torch momentarily.

 

[Alex Burke]

Float copper for sure imo. As for the slide theory I think these were deposited in the river and washed down stream based on there river worn shape even being as soft as copper. If they were right from a lode source above the river eroded by a recent landslide they would look different and be more blocky. Just my opinion nice pieces though, copper is expensive we should probably be hunting copper nuggets

 

[et1955]

Where are getting these ? there is so much knowledge out here but you will not share your location. Very important !!! . You want answers but you do not supply what is needed to help you. Help is here. The history and research of what minerals that are found in all area's in Wa. is well known and recorded, my advise is to you is to read the historical records of mining in Wa. state. Remember where ever you go an old timer miner has been there way before you.

 

[kcm]

Were these found in a neighborhood? If so, it's very possible that rock was hauled in as fill, then covered with soil. ...Too many possibles without more info.

 

[winners58]

cooper, silver and gold oh my... nice
http://file.dnr.wa.gov/publications/ger_ic60_sthelens_washougal_mining_dist.pdf

 

[Ragnor]

Were these found in a neighborhood? If so, it's very possible that rock was hauled in as fill, then covered with soil. ...Too many possibles without more info.

3500' ft up on a 70° slope in a almost unreachable ravine, lol. Unless somthing exploded spraying molten metal all over the mountain then they are naturaly occuring.

 

[winners58]

They could have weathered out a vein or just been in the soil as mineralized float and then
look like they have been acted upon by volcanic and possibly glacial action.
the exact mineral content is yet to be determined. if you can find more (3 to 6lb) have an assay done.
if they are just random keep them as nice specimens, keep looking for the source. maybe GPS each find.

 

[Ragnor]

cooper, silver and gold oh my... nice
http://file.dnr.wa.gov/publications/ger_ic60_sthelens_washougal_mining_dist.pdf

10:1 ratio of platinum to gold that report says? That's just absurd, lol

 

[winners58]

the east fork of the Lewis river is one of the very few spots that have platinum.
I think they mean 10th of a gram platinum to a gram of gold from black sands
and only in the main river somewhere below copper creek,
they changed the name from south fork to what is now the east fork Lewis river;
http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0805a/report.pdf

 

[Ragnor]

Platinum is listed as one of the commodities of a couple of mines in the McCoy district also. "Not that we are finding any, it's just because of the nature of the deposit". The old man said....

 

[NeoTokyo]

wow those look beautiful.
I don't have any more info to share than what Winner has already shared.
It would be awesome to check back in a couple weeks and see you with a couple pounds.
I think you are on to something nice for sure.

 

[njcommercialdiver]

nice finds, keep hunting and share some more pics with us

 

[Ragnor]

Here are a couple of pics of where the nuggets are coming from. I'll put up a pic of what I've found so far when my camera battery gets charged.
This is one of the 'flat' spots where Ive been sluicing. The tree line in the down stream pic shows where the grade goes from there. Just out of sight up stream is a large waterfall. Top left of the up stream pic is where I believe the buried mine is. Under that land slide. It moved again this year.

 

[Ragnor]

Well here is my collection of 'copper' nuggets. Some more copper than others it would seam. No #'s yet, but the collection is growing. Total weight 67.1 grams. Everything below this size goes in the heavies bucket for smelting. Shame I havn't found any solid gold nuggets this size, but I think I'll keep looking.

Natural light


Camera Flash


I have hatched a hairbrained idea on the origin of this material. Feel free to open fire on it if you like.
What if The ore laying all over these mountain slopes and laced all through the bedrock for miles around was exposed to some extremely powerful exothermic event. The event I am postulating is the forest fire of 1910. It burned from Western Washington into Montana and up all the way into Canada. Now some people claim it started east of here. But the old timers say it started here and there are plenty of burned old growth to support that. A fire consuming dense stands of old growth on steep mountain slopes could produce heat just like a blast furnace. I don't think that can be argued. Now weather or not this could melt and pool concentrated ore float. Well that is the question? I think it could. But without that we are left with a meteor impact event (possible) or some kind of unheard of volcanics (not very likely).
Beyond that we get into how long ago did an ore refinery exist way up on them slopes before recorded history, and I would have to put my theory on that in paranormal. (But I have one )
The ore deposit actually is identical to island arc formations of the south pacific, but we don't need to go into that either.

 

[kcm]

Got a better idea for ya - how's about the thought that these are "natural" nuggets?? From AmericanProfile.com:

Large-scale copper mining ended in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula decades ago, but large copper nuggets are still being discovered. In June 1999, Mark Mattfolk unearthed an 8,640-pound copper mass with a bulldozer while logging on his property near Dollar Bay (pop. 950). The giant nugget is on display at the Keweenaw Gem and Gift shop in Houghton.

While Oregon isn't famous for copper production, there is natural copper in many states.

 

[Ragnor]

Got a better idea for ya - how's about the thought that these are "natural" nuggets?? From AmericanProfile.com:

Large-scale copper mining ended in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula decades ago, but large copper nuggets are still being discovered. In June 1999, Mark Mattfolk unearthed an 8,640-pound copper mass with a bulldozer while logging on his property near Dollar Bay (pop. 950). The giant nugget is on display at the Keweenaw Gem and Gift shop in Houghton.

While Oregon isn't famous for copper production, there is natural copper in many states.

Well I do believe this to be native copper. But the way it's formed is odd to me. The mine reports for the area suggest I should be finding masses of gold equal in size to these metal slugs. To date I have not found any gold this large. The mine reports never mention large masses of native copper, just gold. Also the gold I have been recovering is just small crystaline masses and wires. I have melted some of this material before. It seperates into nuggets of dissimilar material that will not rejoin. Some of the blobs after melting are very yellow on one side. Others tend to form a hard dimply surface with a red hue. Both of these are good signs according to what I have read over the years.

For comparison purposes here is a pic of the native gold being recovered along with the coppers.
The freshly deposited native gold and larger copper/silver/gold/pgm masses are very disimilar in both size and form.
This is strange to me.

 

[kcm]

First off, I need to apologize for using the phrase "better idea". I wasn't meaning to sound like "I" had the answer, but reading it now, that's how it sounds to me. Bad choice of words on my part.

The fire that you spoke of could bring temps capable of melting metal; especially copper and aluminum. It looks like the copper in your photos has been heated and left in contact with the ground while in a molted state. I didn't catch that last night as I didn't enlarge your images - trying to conserve data usage.

Your copper might be native, but also might not. If there were electric motors, phone/communications lines, anything of the sort, then a fire such as the 1910 fire could have melted pure copper.

Beautiful gold nuggets, by the way!!

 

[Ragnor]

Hmmmmm, the equipment was destroyed by fire and without trees could not be rebuilt I read once. I don't rememeber the year. I'm sure that must have been prior to the 1940's when the generator was set up. Only one or two mines remained operating by the end of WWII. Now they built a nice bunk shack up there, so they had lumber.
I don't know what year a road was built in there but I can almost guarentee it wasnt till the 1920's.

It looks like I may be able to afford some labwares sooner than expected. So hopefully within a few weeks I can start tearing this stuff down and see what it's made of. It pains me not knowing if I'm wasting my time or not digging this particular creek. On the up side I'm getting back in shape and I'll be in practice when the water drops and i can work on my own claim. Maybe one or two of them big nuggets made it down there.

In fact I think I recall the fellah telling me that the landslide covered the one mine in the 1930's and the survivor, a lookout had to walk back 28 miles to town and the that noone was willing to help recover the miners.

 

[Caribou369]

Here's a thought, if I were you I'd write to a school department or two specializing in metallurgy and/or mining geology. Write a handful of folks. See what kind of questions and opinions you get back. Lay out all the facts you have from where you found them and what other kinds of rocks you see there to all your tests and the melting temperatures you've observed. Bet you'll get some interesting answers, maybe even solve the puzzle!