Micro gold?

Jimmyrig

Greenie
Mar 21, 2020
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I went and got some sample buckets from an area I am looking to prospect. The area is known to have gold. It also has TONS of red clay. After a few pans with no gold I almost threw it out but then I noticed something. Underneath the black sand at the end of my pans is a fine golden powder. I can't get it to separate from the black sand without using a magnet. Could this be flour / Micro gold or is it just sand / clay? How do I tell? Smelt it? Not sure the pictures do it justice but the first one is after I've swirled the black sand and tried to tap any gold up. Then the second picture is after I used a magnet to pull up the black sand. I also have a video but it's too large it seems.
IMG_0316.jpg IMG_0317.jpg IMG_0319.jpg
 

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XtreasureX

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Mar 1, 2015
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My rule of thumb is this; if you have to ask, it is not gold.
 

IMAUDIGGER

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Mar 16, 2016
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Do you have a good magnifying glass? Under magnification it should be apparent.

Is this mystery powder there in sufficient quantities to make it worth your time chasing it if it were gold?
My guess is probably not when it hits the scale. Not trying to be negative, it’s just that depending on your location, you may see much better results if you take note of what you found and continue prospecting. I’ve never found micro gold...flood plain flour gold is the finest I’ve encountered and it sits in the rim of the pan just like larger size gold.

Recently someone posted up a picture of some rock that they crushed up and panned. They were questioning a light tan colored powder denser than the black sand that wasn’t behaving like gold...maybe the hard rock forum?
 

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Jimmyrig

Greenie
Mar 21, 2020
14
8
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Do you have a good magnifying glass? Under magnification it should be apparent.

Is this mystery powder there in sufficient quantities to make it worth your time chasing it if it were gold?
My guess is probably not when it hits the scale. Not trying to be negative, it’s just that depending on your location, you may see much better results if you take note of what you found and continue prospecting. I’ve never found micro gold...flood plain flour gold is the finest I’ve encountered and it sits in the rim of the pan just like larger size gold.

Recently someone posted up a picture of some rock that they crushed up and panned. They were questioning a light tan colored powder denser than the black sand that wasn’t behaving like gold...maybe the hard rock forum?

Yes if it were gold it would be sufficient quantity to be profitable. What you see there wasn't from concentrate. It was 2 shovels full of 1/4" classified material. One thing, I've never seen so much black sand from a shovel full of material.
 

Reed Lukens

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Jan 1, 2013
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If that's 2 shovels full, I would run at least a couple buckets. If it looks like gold dust it probably is being everything else fell away from it. Use the magnet to remove the magnetite, then get a closer pic. Micro gold uncleaned looks brown depending on how small. The bottle in the top right pic is full of micro gold that ended up being 30% copper.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/members/51084-albums2895-picture1093143.html
 

IMAUDIGGER

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Mar 16, 2016
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Reed, that gold in the skinny vial on the lower right sure looks like “micro gold”!
 

Bodfish Mike

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Jimmyrig welcome to the forum.
I would get one of thesehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loupe
I use them all the time and keep one in the truck -- on my desk - in my pocket on hikes.
I like looking at small things up close like bugs and it makes my gold look like nuggets.
Cheers Mike
 

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Jimmyrig

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Mar 21, 2020
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Primary Interest:
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I did order a 40x and 60x loupe. I have a 10x but not helpful. I panned the whole bucket and same in every pan. I picked up the black sand and dried it. Waiting on my loupes then I may chem test or smelt it. Good learning experience if nothing else.
 

IMAUDIGGER

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Mar 16, 2016
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I did order a 40x and 60x loupe. I have a 10x but not helpful. I panned the whole bucket and same in every pan. I picked up the black sand and dried it. Waiting on my loupes then I may chem test or smelt it. Good learning experience if nothing else.

Definitely a good learning experience. I’ve spent a lot of time crushing and panning different things. Gotten excited about nothing more than once. It’s really the only way to figure it out. Finally I kind of figured out my best bet was to follow the miners before me. They left all kinds of evidence of their investigations.

Interesting thing is sometimes they left decent gold laying in the spoils of their test holes.
 

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