kimberlite/impact diamond/ platinum group nugget

[Connor McCloud]

I posted this a Mindat and they deleted me within about 10 minutes for no specified reason. I have an idea why but its not appropriate to elaborate here.

So this little collection represents 2 months of work for me this last june-july. Its all alluvial drops and there is actually a fair bit of competition where I go but lets just say I am not about to slack off when the getting is good.

I have a link to youtube where I posted a few videos and I can drop a few pics here.

Now the platinum nuggets do bubble in peroxide, the large grey one was originally a solid 3 pound piece. I broke it which is why you can see the interior of it which is ok in my book since I am aware there are larger specimens out there that would be a little more risky to break into pieces from a collectors standpoint.

The shinier more metallic luster piece is about 1 pound or so. Then I got a few smaller ones, they exhibit the black skid mark of carbon on all pieces and are non-magnetic except for a tiny little pin head surface inclusion of iron where it was forced out as an impurity on one of the broke large grey chunks but it is like 99.9999 no iron basically cause I used neodymium small magnet as well as a 1800 pound double sided magnet.

When we were kids we found some chunks but we didnt know what they were and lost them moving so many times over the years.

As far as the diamonds go sure most of them won't being going for millions but I like them good enough.


















Thats it for now.

 

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[Treasure_Hunter]

Youtube links edited and now working, links can't have both http:// and https:// removed http:// and links working now.

 

[Garscale]

I'm not really educated on that stuff but it looks like quartz to me.

 

[Red-Coat]

I just posted this on your other thread (before I saw this one) at the link below:

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/w...iamond-platinum-group-nugget.html#post6803292

"Was there supposed to be a commentary on those videos to explain what you believe we're looking at? I only get 'white noise' with some crackles and chinking sounds!

What causes you to believe these rocks are kimberlites or impact diamonds? Where are they from? You also posted in the "What's it Worth?" section, so it's pretty difficult to respond to that without more information... but Kimberlites and Impact Diamonds (which are two completely different things with wildly different origins) are not what I'm seeing."

I'm not seeing a platinum nugget either.

 

[xaos]

kimberlite is black

 

[smokeythecat]

All the specimens are quartz - silicon dioxide. The most common mineral on earth.

 

[Connor McCloud]

Thanks for the link fix I'm a little technologically not savy. So I am new to the prospecting thing in general as in this little collection of stuff is my first forray into the field. I was actually looking for placer gold and never really found it.

There is placer platinum and placer gold as well as a history of diamonds being found in my area at this particular river. There is a volcano nearby or at least near enough so that the old deposits have washed out.

Its not quartz though I do know that for sure. I need to get the better camera going and get some better picks going one day.

You can look at videos on youtube where others share information about kimberlite, refractory diamond ores, carbonados brutos diamond etc. I had to educate on all this myself in order to recover it since I would have missed most of this had I not read up at night in between working for it.

One thing I will say though is there are teams of illegal aliens competing for this stuff as well so get what you can get before they do.

 

[Connor McCloud]

Well I never made youtube videos before and I was just being a nerd and sharing my lil collection. The platinum group nuggets are in one of the videos on the upper portion of the table. I still need to get some photos onto my puter for those close ups I will try to get that inside of a day or two. The darker grey large chunks are extremely dense. While the shinier 1 pound chunk is a lighter alloy.

Those sparkles inside of the large grey chunks I think mean its crystallized but It's difficult to find other specimens to compare it to.

We do have a specialized shop nearby that can x-ray these for me but its by appointment only. I can't wear a mask either so I might have to wait till this covid joke is over.

Here is one fella's youtube channel that I was able to learn a bit more about the colors of stone to look for. He also has some platinum nugs and such. So that was pretty helpful just being able to see examples of things to look out for.

From what I gather there are a few theories on how this sort of diamond came to be but some say its from the ancient meteoritic impacts that hit the crust and then got spit out of a kimberlite pipe with diamonds caught up in it. Something like that but who really knows if its all just theory.

 

[crashbandicoot]

I,m not busting you out because I really don,t know rocks but those look like what the railroads used for ballast when I was a kid.Exactly the same shape and size,I threw many a one back then.

 

[Red-Coat]

Those are ordinary rocks. You don't have diamonds of any sort, nor platinum nuggets.

The guy posting the videos of "Bruto Impact Diamonds" is off his trolley.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

They look like a type of quartz to me.

 

[Connor McCloud]

Sure thing everyone gets an opinion till covid takes all your rights away lol. Perhaps its only sapphire or perhaps its natural diamond. At some point I will send a small .99 carat piece off to GIA for a unidentified rock test since that keeps the price down to around 1 hundred plus shipping cost.

I'm learning here to.

At first I thought raptor was fully crazy too but I think he is not as crazy as he seems.







So I will make a hydrogen peroxide video with all my platinum group or what ever it is so you can see it does bubble which obviously is not conclusive but as I mentioned I am working toward having it proffesionally x rayed at some point in the very near future.

 

[smokeythecat]

John Attard is a lot cheaper on mineral ID. He is in San Diego. You can google him and send a sample for half that cost, more or less. He will probably do an xray diffraction test or scanning digital microscope analysis.

And for general purposes here are a couple photos. The first is a natural gold nugget. This is a big honker I recently panned out. Note the golden color and irregular shape. Gold with a high silver content will be less golden color and gold covered in mercury left over from the old time panners can be white, but will retain the irregular shape.

This is a natural, uncut diamond from Arkansas. Note the crystal form which remains. This one is classified as white, but has more of the champagne color. Notice the sheen on the stone. None of your specimens has that sheen unique to diamonds. This one is just over 1/3 carat. Diamonds found in alluvial areas are almost ALWAYS still in octahedral crystal form, or a subset of the octahedral crystal system or in cubic form.

And lastly, while this is NOT platinum, natural platinum is a native element and has a natural, untarnished grey/silvery color. Native silver most of the time weathers black. Natural platinum looks a lot of like the photo.

You will need to be looking for minerals the size of green peas or smaller, not boulders. The largest gem quality diamond ever found was the Cullinan diamond found in 1905 in Africa. It weighed 21.9 OUNCES. Do the math.

 

[crashbandicoot]

What smokey said.Let us know what the tests show.

 

[crashbandicoot]

kimberlite is black

Crater of diamonds here is a kimberlite pipe deposit so i,ve read and the soil is definitely black.

 

[smokeythecat]

I have been to the crater of diamonds many times. The soil is an ugly medium gray color, it doesn't really go all the way to black. The kimberlite rock, not yet turned to dirt, is also medium gray. A little darker than what is commonly called "battleship gray" and does have a tinge of green to it sometimes.

BTW when the kimberlite at the crater is WET, it gets very close to black, but only when wet.

 

[unclemac]

you seem to have a nice group of chalcedony agates, i always pick those up too.

 

[JVA5th]

A few are definitely agates as I recognize them because here on a few California beaches you can find that kind.

 

[smokeythecat]

Some of them would make nice cabochons.

 

[xaos]

Its a bunch of worthless quartz...

I am done with this attempt to get youtube hitz...