My family has used this as a doorstop for as long as I can remember:

[gentleart]

I see spots of green in some places, dark gray in large areas, and rainbow effects.

I can't tell if the gold color is gold, pyrite or something else.

Any suggestions?

 

[HutSiteDigger]

I am no gold mining expert! I have only found 1 good small gold nugget little bigger than the size of a thumbnail and it was by luck in Canada!. Anyway, i'm pretty sure it is just pyrite.. I see rocks just like this one all over near lakes,rivers etc when I up too Canada to go hiking.. We have quite a few experts here who know more about this then I do but you should be able too buy a gold test kit and break the rock up and test it. Done it plenty of times probably 500 times with rocks like these and never ever have hit a trace of gold.

 

[gentleart]

Hello and thanks for responding. : )

I know it's just a rock, but I can't bring myself to destroy this rock unless I am sure it has smokey quartz in it at minimal.

I just moved back to North Carolina where my family owns over 80 acers of land. I'm not keen on playing in the creek with the snakes, but I can't wait until the weather cools off and the brush dies down so I can treasure hunt!

 

[vpnavy]

Put that door stop back gentleart!

 

[gentleart]

I did! Lol

 

[huntsman53]

The rock appears to be a composition of Amethyst (purple quartz) and Quartz. However, if it came from a location known for Mica and Beryl, it could be of another similar composition. The green is nothing but algae that grew in the rock in it's found environment. The orange is from Iron seeping into the rock when it was formed.


Frank

 

[pippinwhitepaws]

never heard hydrothermal activity described as "water seeping into" before...

 

[gentleart]

I would be excited to find amethyst on my property! I thought it might be smokey quartz...

 

[huntsman53]

never heard hydrothermal activity described as "water seeping into" before...

Not 'water seeping into", Iron seeping into the rock when it was formed as they were both in a liquid state! The Appalachians of North Carolina, Tennessee and a few other states were formed from Volcanoes that were once 5 to 6 miles tall. Besides the heat from volcanic activity, the extreme compression from the shear weight of the material sitting on top of where these rocks were formed, also created extreme heat that liquefied a lot of the compounds that went into the forming of Quartz.


Frank

 

[digging wv]

Pretty tall mountains. Everest is only 5.5!

 

[bigfoot1]

huntsman is quite correct

 

[goldnrelics]

LOL wicked

 

[huntsman53]

huntsman is quite correct

Yep and thanks for confirming it to others! The Appalachians are the oldest mountain range in the world and I believe the Urals are the second oldest but some websites give conflicting information. The volcanoes that formed the Appalachians were scattered mainly up and down the Blue Ridge Mountains which are part of the Appalachians but there were also a few isolated volcanoes West along the Tennessee and North Carolina border and I believe one of them was in Cocke County in Tennessee very near the border with North Carolina (if it isn't one, it sure looks like one as the mountains there have sheer slopes that range from about 50% to as much as 70% grade and almost form a circle). Some of the collapsed calderas can still be seen on topographical maps and some satellite images. Grandfather Mountain is what is left of a volcano and I heard that Grandfather Lake was the caldera which is now full of water and very deep.


Frank