What do you make of this Rock Sample

[Daryl Friesen]

From looking at the rock sample below. Can anyone tell me more about what type of minerals make up this rock. I have several ideas but would like some input from some of you other prospectors out there. It comes from one of the lost mine of Pitt Lake search areas.


www.spindlequest.com/lostmine.html

[strickman]

looks like silver,maybe jim will see it .he is the silver man

[jimmygoat]

Hello Daryl, That rock looks like it has sulphides. Probably some sort of pyrite. Jimmygoat

[chadrack]

Quartz for the white, probably epidote for green, and the pyrite looking material could be a number of things, including calaverite or sylvanite. Iron stained in along shrinkage cracks after vein formation and oxidized. C

[Daryl Friesen]

So there is more than likley gold mixed in with the Pyrites?

Daryl

www.spindlequest.com

[jimmygoat]

Daryl, There may or may not be gold in your rock. You can send it in for assay or scroll down in this forum to (dealing with sulphides). Good luck. Jimmygoat

[djui5]

Quartz for the white, probably epidote for green, and the pyrite looking material could be a number of things, including calaverite or sylvanite. Iron stained in along shrinkage cracks after vein formation and oxidized. C

Epidote looks right to me also. I think the silverish stuff could be Silver/Lead Telluride or Calaverite, but it doesn't really look like Calaverite as Calaverite usually has more colors involved.

[Daryl Friesen]

Thanks for all your input you have all been very helpful. I guess assay is the only way to be sure. From what you see in this pic do you think its worthwhile going back into a nasty area for more of this? Once again assay would answer these questions I suppose.

Daryl
www.spindlequest.com/minehunt.html

[djui5]

I would

[Daryl Friesen]

I will be its just going to have to wait tell more snow melts shouldnt be to long since we have the lightest snow pack ever this summer.

Daryl

www.spindlequest.com/luemap.html

[centennial]

Mate thats Arsenopyrites. Do some research, its usually asociated with gold. Mining companies look for traces of arsenic in creeks thats a indication of gold veins in the area.
Save your money on assays, simply dolly samples from your mine exploration trips and pan it off.
http://www.irocks.com/render.html?species=Arsenopyrite
Cheers Laurie
http://www.centennialgoldmine.com/

[jimmygoat]

I think I once heard that if you hit a piece of arsenopyrite with a hammer it gives off a garlic smell. Has anyone else heard this? Jimmygoat

[strickman]

10-4

[Daryl Friesen]

Laurie,

Thank you so much for the info. In regards to doing research thats what I was doing posting that pic on this forum

Thanks again
Daryl

www.spindlequest.com/lostmine.html

[Jim Hemmingway]

Hi Daryl,

Daryl from the photo it looks like arsenopyrite (FeAsS). Color silver white to steel grey, streak greyish-black, orthorhombic crystals (matchbox shapes insofar as each of the three axis are different lengths). Often contains silver, cobalt, and sometimes gold...perhaps down to microscopic form. Hardness 5.5-6.0, its a typical sulfide as it is brittle. Nitric acid will dissolve it leaving a spongy sulfur mass. A sharp whack with a hammer and have a quick sniff...it'll give an unmistakable garlic odour.

The only common mineral that could be confused with it by looking at a photo would be galena. There is no mistaking these in real life, as they are distinctly different. The galena is heavier, brittle, but much softer at a hardness of roughly 2.5, has a more blued-grey look about it, has a frequently granular, but commonly cubic crystal form. A hammer blow to galena will not produce the garlic odour.

I don't have a arsenic photo but here is one of good cubic crystalline galena...Jim.

[Eu_citzen]

Quartzite, possibly with some Amphibole and a click of Pyrite.
I got some very similar specimens.

[Daryl Friesen]

Thank you all so much for your advice and replies to this post. I am have figured out what the rock is and will be going back into the mountains for more sometime in the future.

www.spindlequest.com/treasuremaps.htm

Daryl

[firebird21]

If you think you have found a large enough deposit of this send a sample to Reed Laboratories in Carlsbad, California and get Test S-3 performed. This will give you a fire assay for gold and silver plus a complete analysis of everything else in the sample.
It might be worth $8 per ton or $800 per ton. Don't "eye say" this material, get a real analysis.
Jim

[beaks]

galena, i find it all the time and its usually loaded with silver and sometimes a little gold.

[Daryl Friesen]

I will let you all know when I finally get back to the area where it was found. In the meantime watch the following video. If you look at the pics at 1.47 in the video. This is the type of terrain where this sample was found. Anyway watch the vid and please tell me what you think.



Daryl