No freaking way!!!

[Steve1236]

So the tributary below where I dig for fire agates has a lot of very fine flour gold and I see areas where people vacuumed the bedrock just a little down the way and I've always wondered what the source is, I'm starting to think the Chalcedony/Fire Agate is the source.

 

[Steve1236]

I actually have been out there with a metal detector, not the best or expensive of metal detectors but a decent one, I borrowed a friends metal detector, I used it a lot actually about two years ago but there's to many hot rocks and bullets in Arizona for me to enjoy metal detecting, my spot I must have dug up dozens of bullets and almost every foot it goes off with all the iron in the rocks so I never really figured out how to properly use one I guess, it got really frustrating lol. Again I seriously doubt it's good gold, there's tailings out there everywhere in the immediate area and I highly doubt someone would have missed it.
How goes your hunt billdean06?

 

[Steve1236]

I haven't had the time to get back out to my spot to check things out more closely but I just noticed another cool specimen I thought I'd share, pic isn't the best, I used a magnifier in front of my phones camera lens.

 

[hvacker]

There is a gold magnet. It's called mercury. It can be safe if your safe. And it's re-recyclable.
Never bothered meeee.....e

 

[Steve1236]

There is a gold magnet. It's called mercury. It can be safe if your safe. And it's re-recyclable.
Never bothered meeee.....e

Dont get it in any cuts or your eyes basically? How do you use it, can you run it in dirt or does it have to be on panned down black sand? I seen someone swirling it around in a pan with black sand once but I didn't ask the guy how you then get the gold out of the mercury?

 

[hvacker]

Dont get it in any cuts or your eyes basically? How do you use it, can you run it in dirt or does it have to be on panned down black sand? I seen someone swirling it around in a pan with black sand once but I didn't ask the guy how you then get the gold out of the mercury?

I've only studied the process but it's not complicated. Gold and mercury create an amalgam like old silver tooth fillings.
My understanding of the old 49ers would spread crushed rock on a surface and move the merc around in a kind of slurry. It was said they could wring mercury out of their hands. Bad idea.
But they would cook the merc/gold concentrates and re-condense the merc back to reuse. At some old mines there can be the big condensers still there. Tall chimneys. Mercury amalgam is probably the least technical wa. While it has it's dangers, so does aqua Regina.

I've been to old mines where the smell of sulfur is still evident from crushing and cooking pyrite to extract other metals. Still strong after many years.
Alchemists by nature.

 

[dawnhvr]

How did you crush it??

 

[Steve1236]

I first broke the rock up with a hammer inside of an old towel, I didn't have a mortar or pestle but I used a small old iron cooking pot and grinded it with a large smooth heavy river rock, yup half a** or macgyvering it is usually the route I take lol...

 

[DDancer]

Gold collection with mercury is typically used for very fine free gold and not gold in ores. Essentially the gold sticks to the mercury and mercury sticks to itself. Put a bit in a pan with your materials, mercury like gold sinks to the bottom, and pan it normally. Afterward remove the mercury and now you need a device called a retort to separate the mercury from the gold safely. There are other ways, like the potato method, but I suggest a retort as you'll get your mercury back and you'll not be polluting the enviroment with waste mercury. Mercury has a low boiling point so when its boiled off it leaves the gold that was attached to it behind, the retort cools and recollects the mercury. But the method has its hazards so I dont suggest it unless you take precautions and study this method of extraction carefully.

 

[Steve1236]

I'm not gonna mess with that stuff so no worries, to be honest even if the agates had good gold in them I still dont think I'd crush them, maybe non handsome specimens but to me it would be like destroying a beautiful piece of art work.