sunstone?

[shaman15771]

Found a quartz like rock very brillant, colored kind of brown-topaz with flashes of red and copper will try and upload picture but not sure if i can off phone. Sunstone?

 

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[JLeonhardy]

Where 'bouts did you find it, Shaman? Sunstones in the US, outside of Oregon, are pretty rare!

 

[shaman15771]

I'm in sw Virginia, about 25 mi north nc border. Right kind of rock formation.

 

[shaman15771]

After much grief, I have a picture, however, it's pretty bad. Will try and get a better on this evening.

View attachment 1010309

 

[JLeonhardy]

That didn't work!

 

[shaman15771]

lets see if this works. better pictures taken with my kindle hdx

 

[shaman15771]

the other rock doesn't show it, but it's a baby blue color.

 

[DDancer]

The top three pics are what appear to be massive quartz with two varieties of quartz, smoky and rose, that are heavily fractured. The red color may also be caused by iron mineralization.
The two that your saying are blue in color may be blue quartz and that is something you will find in western Virginia.
The last two pics in the second row appear to be massive quartz~ again highly fractured~ and maybe rose quartz or clear quartz with mineralization stains. The last pic in the third row is the same in my opinion.

The colors and flashes are most likely caused by the fracture's in the materials and can appear copper like. Sunstone is a feldspar material with copper bits inside the matrix.
I have pieces in my collection, all my stuff is in storage so sorry no pic's, of similar material. Some have rainbow effects inside them caused by mineralization stains along the cracks and others are just neat to look at Gemmy stuff is always fun to pick up.

 

[shaman15771]

Any chance of gold or silver in these?

 

[DDancer]

Unlikely. There are no indicators to me that they may contain free gold or silver ore's. For such things I would look for pyrites and other mineral colors. The quartz itself is to compact and dense to indicate a high enough mineralization for a sample. If the quartz displayed a rotting appearance and there were indications of other minerals I'd think differently.
You can try crushing a sample and panning it if you like but I'd just put them in the collection or rock garden as neat stones.

 

[shaman15771]

Thanks DD. I didn't really think so, but thought I would ask. However, will post few that might, looks a lot like the things I've seen on here, but from a different area, got sidetracked by the quartz. LOL!

 

[huntsman53]

I really can't tell if the specimens are primarily Quartz or other rocks. However, they do appear much like some of the heavily fractured Beryl specimens that I have collected from the Ray Mica Mine outside of Burnsville, North Carolina. While the O.P.'s are laced with a lot of clears and reds, the one's that I collected were clear, gray, greenish and bluish.


Frank

 

[shaman15771]

I just read the USGs report for my area and it includes potassium feldspar, corundum, garnet, tourmaline, muscovite, blue quartz, and staurolite. I have a lot of quartz in the area, but this doesn't look like it, The reddish pieces have a very waxy, pearly look and the blue ones are rounded, moonstone like and smooth. And I definitely have a pink feldspar. And a gold mine about 3 miles down the road (about 1895).

PS, We also have ginseng in this area.

 

[waxy luster]

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[MrLee]

DD is spot on. Glad to have another knowledgeable person on the forums.

I find the iron stained red/rose quartz out here in Cali often while digging for tourmaline. It can cause hours of frustration for the novice thinking you found something spectacular. I spent many an hour looking at a red quartz with my loop wondering if it was red beryl before I knew better.

You did the best thing you can do by reading that USGS report. That instantly narrowed down your possibilities. Keep your eyes out for tourmaline and beryl as aquamarine.

Good luck!

 

[shaman15771]

Thanks to everyone for your help. As you can tell, I'm a complete newbie. Looks to me like we got more smoky quartz or citrine than anything else, but I'm not sure what the difference is between them. And the blue quartz is all over.