❓Your Mineral Identification Questions answered here

[liliane]

Hello all, I was supposed to take good photos and post here for identification
of some of my rocks, here we go , please if you can identify them for me , I will be truly grateful.

thanks and cheers

 

[Dave79]

Top 2 definately look like smelter slag. That's the stuff that floats on top of the furnace when ore is roasted to extract the metal.

 

[liliane]

Hello Dave, thanks, I remember you saying that to me last time, I should not have put them in I forgot, cheers

 

[hannahchikka]

I didn't get an answer ?

 

[Wally69]

I didn't get an answer ?

Looks like a shiny black rock, get some in my sieves at times, they have been tumbled by the river to a high gloss and shine out of the sieve like a sapphire.

Could be wrong though. Try a very strong torch on the stone, if you get a bit of glass showing, it could be corundum(sapphire).

Edit..... im having a bad morning...... i see you have been able to shine through. erfect:

 

[Dron]

Spinel has a 'greyish white' streak wheras corrundum (sapphire) has a white streak.

Corrundum's hardness is 9 and Spinel's hardness is 7.5 - 8. You could try scratching it with a piece of Quartz (hardness 7), if it doesn't scratch then the next step would be to obtain something with a hardness of 8.5 and repeat the text again.

Other possibilities are smoky quartz or cassiterite.

 

[hannahchikka]

Thanks guys I will try it out

 

[hannahchikka]

This is how it looks compared to the sapphire (I know the one on the right is definitely a sapphire cuz in the bright light it shines blue, green and yellow).
I don't have quartz on me. So I tested it on the sapphire and the sapphire scratched, I tested the sapphire on it and it scratched. It was faint and didn't always work for both of them.

 

[liliane]

Hello from Adelaide, hope you are all well, I would like please an answer too :lol: if you number them from top to bottom, say 1, 2 etc then I will know what stone it is or by colour and details, much appreciated, cheers

 

[22shells]

Have found a few of these, wondering if you could call it aquamarine at all or is it just beryl?

 

[Pat Hogen]

First I would do a density test on it to determine if it was beryl. If it comes out in the beryl range I would decide whether it was precious enough to do a refractive index test to see what form of beryl it might be, but looking at the crystallization in the stone I am not sure I would go that far unless only for location identification.

Density test is simple enough, do you have scales?

 

[22shells]

Thanks Pat. Yes I have scales. Not sure if I did it right though. I weighed it dry, then weighed it suspended in water by a thread of cotton. Then divided the dry weight by the wet weight. This gave me 2.59. Since it has a small bit of host rock attached which may have affected the result, I tried a different piece and got 2.63. I don't know how to do a refractive index test.

 

[Pat Hogen]

Precious Beryl comes in under those densities but that colour does not read well for precious beryl. To do a refractive index one needs to own or find an owner of a refractometer. I do not know of any short cuts for refractive index.

 

[22shells]

Thanks, the guy who cuts my stones might be able to do a refractive index test, I'll ask him next time. That colour, whatever it is, is some of the better stuff- I have other that is worse/ more faded. It seems to come mostly in 2 colours, this type and a more "orangey" type. I find colours hard because I'm colourblind (red/green) which is a disadvantage, but can also be an advantage because sometimes I can see things that don't stand out to people with normal colour vision.

 

[Pat Hogen]

"... I'm colour blind (red/green) which is a disadvantage, but can also be an advantage because sometimes I can see things that don't stand out to people with normal colour vision", yep, like the numeral in the spaghetti colour chart that the non-colour blind cannot see

Blue/ purple is a highlight for the colour blind brigade.

And the "orangey" type is heading to precious beryl.

 

[22shells]

Yes, I often get blue/purple mixed up. And dark green/brown. Here is an example of the other type, which doesn't look like aquamarine to me but maybe getting close to some sort of precious beryl? There was meant to be aquamarine and emerald found years ago, so far all I can find is this type of stuff. Maybe it's there somewhere.

 

[Jebus]

Not sure what these are scratches tested them on quartz and they are harder so I am thinking corundum, if they are corundum was wondering how much they'd be worth also, cheers

 

[Dihusky]

Look very much like sapphires, if they're clean, then the real value will be once they are cut, in general small sapphire rough isn't worth much unless the stone is big and really clean. How big are they and where did they come from? Bit hard to tell much more as the pic is a bit fuzzy unfortunately.

 

[liliane]

Hello 22shells, nice stone, I found some too, where did you find yours ? message me please, thanks I was thinking about paying for identification to know what they are cheers

 

[Heatho]

Almost certainly sapphires Jebus, the bottom one you can see one side looks hexagonal like sappire crytals. Depends on their size and quality, probably not worth much, good quality rough sapphire goes for about $30 per carat when up around 5ct.