1st time....Gold or Pyrite???

[Kodak_F15]

Ok, took a new job in SoCal & only get to see my family every other weekend (for now) so I decided I'd take up prospecting to kill some time. Always wanted too, but never actually went to the hills just to look for loot, was always to go fishin or hiking or the like. Well after a lot of research this week I finally made it out to Holcomb creek (close to Deep creek) in the San Bernardino NF. I'm relatively computer/GPS savvy, so I made sure I was on open land & not claimed (LR2000 kinda is terrible....) & panned some gravel. I'm definitely a noobie & don't have any real idea of what I'm doing, but have the gist of it.

Well wouldn't ya know it in my very first pan I had a "picker" I was definitely excited...enough to stay there the rest of the day

So in the attached picks you can see the "picker" & something else....it had a gold shimmer to it, but as you can see has a black "coating" on it...not sure what it was I scratched it with my thumbnail & it flaked off the little flakes next to it.....so my question is: What is the other thing & the flakes?

Thanks!

-Kodak

 

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[kuger]

sounds like mica

 

[Kodak_F15]

Awesome! Thanks Kuger, after looking mica up, that is exactly what it is, the flakes were really light, & didn't behave like I expected gold to in the pan.

I love forums! Best place to share (& get, as a noob) knowledge!

Thanks!