Found FALSE gold!

[Zolotov]

Hi,
today I did my first prospecting, I went to the roots of a famous mexican volcano in Central Mexico. This is the river that I was checking:



There is black sand everywhere but there is no gold in it, I was panning like 2 times, but then my pan broke, it was a plastic dish. I know, I have to buy good equipment but I want to check if there is gold first. And then I found it, but it was "false gold". The sand was filled with a very strange particles of yellow "something". Not below the sand , but over it. They were shining like gold and I thought "this it it, I am millionaire" because there were a lot of it, really a lot! But it is not gold because when I took it, it broke in my fingers, also it was very lightweight, not like metal. These particles are so tiny that it is difficult to get them with hands, they are also very slim. What is this Is this some indicator for gold? Here is the picture

.

And this is me trying to pan one particle of this false gold



And here it is on my finger. It really looks like gold but it isn't. It doesn't look like metal because it breaks, but it shines like gold!!


So I have a few questions if I may:

1. Do you think there could be gold in this terrain?
2. What is this shiny stuff ?

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Looks like mica which is always a good indicator.
Gold can be anywhere and technically is everywhere.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

It's called Fool's Gold around here and you definitely are not the first to fall for it.

Actually it probably is mica and probably came from decomposed granite?
We still call it fools gold.

If there were old gold mines upstream...there WILL be gold in your stream.
Try and find an area where there is bedrock exposed along the stream bed and scrape the sand/gravel out of a crack and pan it out with whatever you can find to use.
I have panned dirt with a metal shovel before to look for gold. You can stick some in a 5 gallon bucket ---shake and swirl. Remember gold is very heavy it will be at the bottom as low as it can get.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Research about the gold already found in the area. How it is deposited or how it is carried in the host rock. Is it in the waterways in that area or underground? Just start with the basics first.
You can spend alot of time and energy hiking and panning creeks that don't have gold in them.
I've done it and others have too. I still remember the first time I panned mica fondly, I was really onto something!
You can do a surprising amount of field work from home these days.
You're on the right track if you find mineralization like that.

 

[Zolotov]

Actually it probably is mica and probably came from decomposed granite?

O yeah! Now I remember the school days. It is definitely mica!

If there were old gold mines upstream...there WILL be gold in your stream.

No, there isn't. The water comes from the volcano. It is a natural park, there are no mines allowed. There were no mines there in the past either. This is why I kind of doubt if my efforts worth this research.The only hope I have is that nobody diged gold out of water streams from the volcano and I am going to be the first.

Try and find an area where there is bedrock exposed along the stream bed and scrape the sand/gravel out of a crack and pan it out with whatever you can find to use.

That's a good tip! Thanks a lot.

 

[Zolotov]

You're on the right track if you find mineralization like that.

Thanks for your comments. I just didn't understand what kind of mineralization you refer to? The presence of mica?

 

[et1955]

Witch volcano ?

 

[Johnnybravo300]

Mica schist is usually found around gold and they are commonly together.

 

[Lanny in AB]

I remember back when I was first starting out as a gold chaser. I stopped at a pull-out hosting a roadside sign, one posted beside a creek, the site of a major gold rush. I hauled out my pan and shovel from the trunk and hit the creek! The first pan was loaded with specks of golden color. I couldn't believe it, but the belief started to fade when I saw how easily those specks lifted right along with the grains of sand, and like you, I tried crushing them, and they easily came apart. I've never forgotten that, how much color there was in the pan, and the initial jump-start all those golden specks gave my heart. It would be years before I ever saw so many colors in a pan again, and that was when I went beach-mining in Alaska, but those specks of gold were the real deal.

I hope your efforts are rewarded soon with the real stuff.

All the best,

Lanny

 

[Zolotov]

I remember back when I was first starting out as a gold chaser.
Lanny

Thank you Lanny. Well, yesterday I went to another city where there is a huge amount of gold mines. I met a lot of miners there and one geologist. He told me that there is very little probability that I will find big amount of gold at the volcano. Because there must be a rupture of a gold vein so gold can go out to the surface by water streams. And most of the volcanoes have gold deep inside, hundreds of meters inside and there is no water flowing around. But he also said that I should check the sample for the presence of gold, just for 15 bucks they will do a full analysis of minerals contained in sample. This is the only way to know if there is gold or not in that river. It seems that 'data is everything' in paradigm comes to mining from information technology. Also he said that black sand is not necessary a sign of gold, specially on the volcanoes there is a lot of black sand without any gold. So, again 'data is everything'.