First Post/Silvery Dust

[RTD-Tech]

Hello All,

This is my first post on this site. I found it while looking online for the answer to a gold panning question.

I am located in Western Massachusetts, I have been gold panning for a year now and have twice come across a substance that I cannot identify.

When dry it is a super fine silvery powder. When it is wet it looks like a paste. It is dense, it settles under the black sand and garnets in my pan. I found the material in clay deposits located in bedrock cracks that I broke open.

The spot I found it is on the bank of the Connecticut river, which has significant industrial pollutants. (From the past, its getting cleaner.)

I also found six grains of gold and a small piece of lead with the material.

I have panned in some of the other rivers in the area, and found the same stuff in another, also polluted river, but in smaller concentration than what I found on the Connecticut.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

 

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[Clay Diggins]

Sounds like it's tin. Could also be zircon. The tin could be industrial waste or a natural deposit.

Look it over closely with a 10 power loupe. If the particles look like pyramids or triangles it's probably zircon.

Heavy Pans

 

[ghostminer]

Might be some type of chemical waste or fertilizer runoff?

 

[Bonaro]

I have found similar stuff before. Its heavy so it pans out with the gold and black sands. I looked at it with a lens and it seemed to be white/clear crystals

 

[ghostminer]

Very possibly not from this planet.

 

[loco oro]

Lead acts this same way,its heavy and sticky when wet, do not injest

 

[RTD-Tech]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I will be getting a microscope to try and get a closer look at my sample.

Hopefully it's not toxic otherworldly fertilizer runoff.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Better view..

 

[E.MassAuMan]

Welcome Fellow Massachusetts Prospector to TNET. I cannot guess what your material may be because I have not encountered it in any of the spots we go to in Mass. on the East slopes of the Berkshires. The is a thread in Panning for Gold Ma/NH/VT where you may want to repost to see if anyone else has found similar material. You also may want to indicate a general area (Millers, Deerfield, Westfield , other River) where you are finding it.

Examination under magnification May yield some answers .

Good luck

 

[RTD-Tech]

I've found this material in both the Green River and the Connecticut River in the Greenfield area.

I've got a microscope coming in the next couple of days, so hopefully I'll be able to post a close up pic that might help.

I cleaned the sample up a bit... But it still doesn't photograph very well with my phone camera.

 

[benny]

Sounds like it's tin. Could also be zircon.

That's my bet. Zircon is heavy and will pan out.

 

[RTD-Tech]

Here's a close up. Microscope isn't as good as I was hoping...

 

[arizau]

In the pictures the particles certainly appear to be rounded/smoothed metal particles and may be some native alloy of nickel and iron or of nickel and copper deposited by erosive glacial activity. Both are described in color appearance as they appear in the pictures. Google around for the native forms of the alloys as I did and you will find some interesting results including deposits just north of you in Canada as well as New England. Here are some links I found. https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1223/report.pdf
http://rruff.info/doclib/cm/vol6/CM6_307.pdf

 

[Tpmetal]

Look up galena, i know it was in pa but not sure about your area. lead silver based mineral, so usually pretty heavy.

 

[RTD-Tech]

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely read through that.
Mindat.org says Galena has been mined in the area in the past, but what I see on Google images doesn't look much like what I'm seeing. I've never seen real Galena before though.

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

I wonder if it could be gold covered in mercury.

 

[gravelsucker]

Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide. It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver.Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It crystallizes in the cubic crystal system often showing octahedral forms. It is often associated with the minerals sphalerite, calcite and fluorite.

MP is approximately 2037 F

 

[E.MassAuMan]

I believe from the new pics what you are finding may be Marcasite an Iron Sulfide which I have found in varying quantities in streams just north of you.

 

[KevinInColorado]

Dunno but COOL pics!

 

[mytimetoshine]

never seen that one before. those pieces circled in read def look like metal