Nervous New Member

[Fuzar]

Hello, my mind has been reeling for about 3 or 4 weeks now. I am a total greenhorn that found what I think is gold in the rocks on my property. I was transplanting a tree from the woods and noticed gold in a nearby rock. So I decided to finally get to the end of this gold question. You see, I've been busting up rocks to maintain my driveway for years, I kept seeing gold and kept telling myself it's just fools gold. But this one was driving me to find some answers. So I went back to where I found it and started raking back the leaves. A very large percentage had gold in them so I brought them inside and cleaned them up. Then I went to researching online thinking I will figure out that it is fool's gold and move on with my life. So found out about the scratch test and the crush test. The majority of samples passed as gold. Stick with me here it get better. So I spend days reading about gold, geology, mining, assaying, refining, so on and so forth, trying to keep my sanity. Well the neighbor calls on Christmas Eve saying he was in my backyard with an excavator and he had time to dig my koi pond hole. Then he asked didn't I want to dig out part of a hillside so I could drive down to the creek. It was getting dark and he did a good bit with a little headlight on the excavator and I was so thankful. Christmas day I couldn't wait to check out my new cut so I could drive down to the creek. I get there and every rock he dug up is golden. I Start washing rocks off and gold everywhere, I hauled wheelbarrows loads up the steep grade until I was afraid my heart would give out. Now my problem is I have to get back and gather up what is on the ground because anyone trekking around will surely see it all and get gold fever. I am really in need of advice but not quite sure where to start. I know this is a rare find if it's truly gold and I am confident it is. It's in the graphite schist with quartz, in just quartz, it's even in between the layers of mica. Most of it is in very fine sheets and flakes like gold leaf. I always discounted the thought of it being gold because I never found a good 'nugget'. Any advice on what my next steps should be?

 

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[mike(swWash)]

Test #1. Put the separated gold material in indirect light(shade) gold will always have the gold color. Schist, mica and fools gold will turn black or almost disappear.
Test #2. Put a pin or knife point to it, if it flakes, breaks or chips it isn't the real thing. Gold is very soft.
Test #3. If you don't have a gold test kit, take it to a jeweler or gold buyer and get their test results.

Once you see the real for sure thing, you'll never mistake it for anything else.

 

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[enamel7]

All I see is mica also.

 

[Esotericvalue]

In the picture of crushed cons I saw what might have been two tiny microdots of gold, not willing to call it either way as it is just a picture and it's so small, otherwise it was all just refuse. Keep looking but so far I don't think I would plan on paying the mortgage with gold profits good luck

 

[Bonaro]

Occam's Razor - the simplest answer tends to be the correct one...

Your discovery deposit is huge which makes it astronomically unlikely that it is gold
By your pics and description, it does not meet the criteria for being gold
The odds of a "complete newbie" finding a historically significant deposit in his backyard is off the charts

I am saying this is not gold. Probably mica or pyrite or both

That Gold Fever is a hell of a rush, isn't it?

 

[smokeythecat]

The host rock is clearly mica schist. That doesn't mean there isn't some gold in it. Get a torch, a hot one if you can. Get a high temp crucible and put the crushed material in it with a little borax. Get it good and hot and gold will melt. Mica will not. If you get a blob of molten metal, take it to a jeweler or one of those shops that buy gold and ask how much they'll give you for it. An automotive shop with an acetylene torch may be of some help.

 

[SportsmanAll]

The host rock is clearly mica schist. That doesn't mean there isn't some gold in it. Get a torch, a hot one if you can. Get a high temp crucible and put the crushed material in it with a little borax. Get it good and hot and gold will melt. Mica will not. If you get a blob of molten metal, take it to a jeweler or one of those shops that buy gold and ask how much they'll give you for it. An automotive shop with an acetylene torch may be of some help.

Hell of a lot harder than just panning it down to know if there is gold or not....

 

[OwenT]

Fuzar, hope it’s going well and you’ve learned a thing or two. If it turns out that you came here for help looking for gold that it turns out was never there, do what I did and take it as an opportunity to now find out that THERE IS REAL GOLD to find in your area and go find it! Access to land where gold will be found is harder in the east than the west, but there certainly is gold in Georgia at least. So if your looking for a hobby, or you just have the fever now, welcome!

 

[Mine Shaft]

Clay Diggins said it best lol.

 

[N-Lionberger]

There's a fellow on a Fakebook group that has similar looking material from a similar neighborhood.