Anyone know anything about gold that is still part silver?

[joe]

Well done G0lddigg@,color has changed in your favor now you can tell your buyer that you no longer collect silver nuggets.

thanks Joe - cant wait to show him these pictures

And ask for a refund lol

i don't like my chances

Then don't tease your buyer , Just tell him youre getting little bit more for your silver nuggets somewhere else.

 

[Guest]

LOL the greens having a field day with burning off a few Grams of mercury. Take a breath and Google before getting outraged people. Or stop using Electricity, Chlorine, most cleaning products and also cement, yes thats right stop using cement and electricity. lol. So dont worry about taking the pictures down because morally you need to turn your computer off. hahahaha

 

[G0lddigg@]

WORD!

LOL the greens having a field day with burning off a few Grams of mercury. Take a breath and Google before getting outraged people. Or stop using Electricity, Chlorine, most cleaning products and also cement, yes thats right stop using cement and electricity. lol. So dont worry about taking the pictures down because morally you need to turn your computer off. hahahaha

 

[shivan]

The small amount of mercury burnt off in the above pics would not even amount to an old thermometer being broken. Yes there will be some miniscule polution, but cleaning small amounts of mercury off gold has never been the big problem.
The push to stop mercury being used was to stop those who still use it on mass to capture and refine gold, as mostly now it is not needed due to new methods and technology.
So yes mercury is toxic and should be treated with respect, but if you get into gold prospecting then there is a high chance you WILL come across some gold covered in mercury, and most people will want to do something about their gold being silver I would recommend to anyone who finds mercury on a regular basis to look at a retort or using goldrocs suggestion of a potato, as both will recover some of the mercury being burnt off.

 

[Ramjet]

Would the mercury be naturally occurring or left over from the old timers using it to refine gold?
If it is the latter then it was put in the environment by man... Now removed by man?

 

[Diggerdude]

Correct Ramjet, we are actually helping the environment. Most mercury in creeks is excess that was washed of the copper collection plates of stampers.
The potato method is safe and simple.

DD

 

[Hunting the yellow]

and where helping us aswell because the goulburn river has heaps of it in it and it kills the fish there and who eat the fish from lake eildon us i never go fishing down stream in the river there allways up stream just before the town of seymour

 

[G0lddigg@]

I had a good read last night about mercury(http://www.epa.gov/hg/about.htm ) and found that the general consensus is that the main concern about putting mercury into the air is that is will eventually settle and end up in our waterways. considering as prospectors we will be removing it from our waterways only to place it back into the air in such small doses and it will likely resettle there again where it came from. IN saying this if I do find that I am collecting quite a bit of this stuff i will put it aside and invest in the retort method but at this stage it doesn't stack up.

Ramjet mercury is naturally occurring but has been used by diggers for years, I was wrongly under the impression that mercury was always in liquid form at room temperature which i have seen in a cleanout before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_extraction
Concentration

Gravity concentration has been historically the most important way of extracting the native metal using pans or washing tables. Amalgamation with mercury was used to enhance recovery, often by adding it directly to the riffle tables, and mercury is still widely used in small diggings across the world. However, froth flotation processes may also be used to concentrate the gold. In some cases, particularly when the gold is present in the ore as discrete coarse particles, a gravity concentrate can be directly smelted to form gold bars. In other cases, particularly when the gold is present in the ore as fine particles or is not sufficiently liberated from the host rock, the concentrates are treated with cyanide salts, a process known as cyanidation leaching, followed by recovery from the leach solution. Recovery from solution typically involves adsorption on activated carbon followed by solution concentration or stripping and or electrowinning.

 

[G0lddigg@]

and where helping us aswell because the goulburn river has heaps of it in it and it kills the fish there and who eat the fish from lake eildon us i never go fishing down stream in the river there allways up stream just before the town of seymour

certainly raises some concerns, between that and the gun club near the river and the lead shot in it i certainly dont eat the fish still enjoy catching them on the fly but theres heaps of kids that fish here during summer.

 

[Ramjet]

I do know mercury occurs naturally. Der
Just didn't know if it was present, naturally where the nuggets were found

 

[G0lddigg@]

sorry blond moment

 

[Marked]

If the "pollution" aspect is of concern to you...

Once you use a retort to collect the mercury...what would you do with it then? Not wanting to be smart or anything, but the retort suggestion is only half an answer when considering the pollution aspect. The potato/retort are probably safer methods at removing the mercury from the gold, but what is the final, environmentally friendly disposal method? I can't imagine a big market out there for mercury soaked baked potatoes

 

[Paydirt]

So last night I burned off the mercury covered bits from Adelong (heated/flamed until glowing red) but when I put the 'recovered gold' next to the 'free panned flakes' it doesnt look at all as shiny/sparkly (colour in right though). Is there any way this recovered gold will/can resume the golden/sparkly lustre or will it remain dull? Cheers Tim

 

[G0lddigg@]

I find that cooking gold that is not high purity usually dulls it right down. I always assumed I had burned some of tye silver out of the gold. Ballarat gold however is usually 98% and doesnt lighten as much. Someome more knowledgeable might know better

 

[Heatho]

If the "pollution" aspect is of concern to you...

Once you use a retort to collect the mercury...what would you do with it then? Not wanting to be smart or anything, but the retort suggestion is only half an answer when considering the pollution aspect. The potato/retort are probably safer methods at removing the mercury from the gold, but what is the final, environmentally friendly disposal method? I can't imagine a big market out there for mercury soaked baked potatoes

You can reuse the Mercury again and again once collected from the retort.

 

[Westaus]

Just on the safety side FYI firstly good to see that you had the insight to use some protective equipment. However you need to be aware of choosing the right cartridges and then knowing how to store and keep them. If any of them have activated charcoal in them they will have a limited open life. As once they are opened the charcoal just keeps absorbing any smells etc... Then it reaches saturation and doesn't work, you put it on and are not getting the protection, so always keep in a sealed bucket when not being used. Some say you can smell when it is used. I say not everything has a smell, also some chemicals kill your sense of smell and finally if you are smelling it then it is getting into your system.

Also using a face shield is a good idea with the heat, however because you are dealing with something that puts off gases and vapours you need to protect your eyes better. They will absorb chemicals quickly and cause serious issues. So ALWAYS wear goggles much safer alternate.

Small amounts are not a big problem for anyone really, but the problem is that it accumulates, so a little when you were a kid a bit more messing around as a teenager. You are now burning it off and handling while detecting etc... So that is all contact. If anyone is interested how little can become a problem here is the IDLH data - http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/idlh/7439976.html

Edit - Just to add this is what you should be looking at if doing it often http://www.shop3m.com/3m-mercury-or...9.html?WT.ac=US_EnterpriseCatalog_70070514057

 

[Wally69]

What has cometh from the earth, then used in the earth, then extracted from the earth, is now above the earth, soon to be repatriated to the earth through precipitation, then deposited in a layer of earth and perhaps mined in the future to extract it from the earth.............(return to the top of page)

Mercury is a natural element that was borne to be transient and deserves to be set free to make its own way in this world. GOLD however, is the most sinister of elements and deserves to be captured and bound for the term of its natural life, preferably in my vial.

Do put safety first though and consider using a retort to build up a blob of mercury for use to recover fine gold, no point wasting a valuable resource.

 

[Paydirt]

Government should hand out retorts free, another 100 years the rivers would be clean

 

[rc62burke]

What has cometh from the earth, then used in the earth, then extracted from the earth, is now above the earth, soon to be repatriated to the earth through precipitation, then deposited in a layer of earth and perhaps mined in the future to extract it from the earth.............(return to the top of page)

Mercury is a natural element that was borne to be transient and deserves to be set free to make its own way in this world. GOLD however, is the most sinister of elements and deserves to be captured and bound for the term of its natural life, preferably in my vial.

Do put safety first though and consider using a retort to build up a blob of mercury for use to recover fine gold, no point wasting a valuable resource.

Not quite correct, Mercury is the metal (liquid) that has been mined & produced to it's liquid form by humans, to contaminate waterways, fish & humans.
Mercury is derived from "Cinnabar" which is the main "Ore" mined for "mercury" but it is found in many different rock types and is found naturally as a "Sulfide" & we all know that that requires heating to release the "Mercury" so once again human intervention.

There is an amount of mercury that has been released from it's "Sulfide state due to environmental factors, like Volcanic activity.

http://www.galleries.com/Mercury

http://www.epa.gov/hg/exposure.htm
cheers
Lee

 

[Wally69]

What has cometh from the earth, then used in the earth, then extracted from the earth, is now above the earth, soon to be repatriated to the earth through precipitation, then deposited in a layer of earth and perhaps mined in the future to extract it from the earth.............(return to the top of page)

Mercury is a natural element that was borne to be transient and deserves to be set free to make its own way in this world. GOLD however, is the most sinister of elements and deserves to be captured and bound for the term of its natural life, preferably in my vial.

Do put safety first though and consider using a retort to build up a blob of mercury for use to recover fine gold, no point wasting a valuable resource.

Not quite correct, Mercury is the metal (liquid) that has been mined & produced to it's liquid form by humans, to contaminate waterways, fish & humans.
Mercury is derived from "Cinnabar" which is the main "Ore" mined for "mercury" but it is found in many different rock types and is found naturally as a "Sulfide" & we all know that that requires heating to release the "Mercury" so once again human intervention.

There is an amount of mercury that has been released from it's "Sulfide state due to environmental factors, like Volcanic activity.

http://www.galleries.com/Mercury

http://www.epa.gov/hg/exposure.htm
cheers
Lee

Interesting reading Lee

So in order for us to fully recycle the mercury we find in the creeks it would have to stay suspended in aqueous form, make its way into the earth's water table and leech into an ore body to return to the earth.

I was interested to see silver and gold mercury amalgams can be naturally formed in some of the galleries and and it is common for dentists to use mercury amalgam in fillings. Do you know if this means mercury is stable in an amalgamated state?