Gold in rounded/waterworn rocks

[Billy]

G'day all, I have a question.
Is gold found in rounded, river quartz? The reason I ask is that I have found an area with plenty of the stuff and after classifying the rocks out of the dirt/clay etc and panning the material I am finding small but numerous flecks of gold in nearly every pan. Ok then its 2 questions and the second one is...Is it worth crushing the quartz rocks when there is gold in soil from which the rocks came from? Or would it be a case (yep its now 3 questions) of the gold being deposited there along with the rocks?
This area is on top of a hill and I guess that at some point in time it was a low area that had water flowing with enough force to transport and round off the rocks.

Cheers, Billy

 

[headbut]

Whilst gold is found in Quartz , not all quartz carries gold, very small percentage does. Rose colour quartz is supposed to be the best type to crush , but I would take a sample & see for yourself. If there is mineralisation on the quartz , you may have an even better chance.

Mind you a guy with a 63 KG slab of quartz , pulled 14KG of gold dust out of it.

http://www.blog.minersdenaustralia....ecimen-found-containing-aprox-14-kgs-of-gold/

 

[TenOunce Tone]

Give it a crush and run it through a pan, never know your luck! My only concern is that the quartz is rounded, this means that it has traveled some distance.

This would indicate to me that the gold in the river has also traveled, given that the quartz is about 3 - 4 lighter than the gold, I would be looking at the gold, if it is rounded or flattened, I would be headed up stream and checking the tributaries to this stream. Flattening indicates to me that it has been hit or has been hitting other objects on its trip from the source. the bumping casused it to flatten out and bits to break off through wear and tear.

Good luck with it, post some pics if you can, both of the gold and the stone you think contains the good stuff, someone with more knowledge on these matters will give you a more experienced appraisal.

Cheers, Tone

 

[Prospector B]

What headbut said, not all quartz contains gold and you have a better probability of finding it in quartz which is mineralised. Gold gets smoothed as it travels from it source, I've found flat gold in quartz but it had creators in it under a loupe so flat is not always the case but certainly the norm.

I would say that the gold source in your case is still some way off because you are only finding small flecks, gold generally gets chunkier and less worn the closer you get to its source. However headbut has highlighted that gold dust and fine bits of gold can come from quartz so you may get lucky! I would suggest kept panning up the creek or river to see if it gets bigger or runs out.

Hope that helps and makes sense.

 

[SWright]

G'day

Its an interesting question. As far as I know there are no active mines anywhere where they take and crush the alluvial material. All alluvial gold is currently extracted as free gold and the quartz is discarded.

As a geologist I think that this is due to the observation that most primary gold in quartz reefs is located in small fractures, holes, internal areas of iron oxide and on the edges of dark material (called stylolites) in the quartz. When the reef is weathered out the quartz will tend to break up along these lines of weakness preferentially and shed its gold. Only the generally hard, solid quartz will survive the grinding and bashing that occurs as the quartz travels along the river beds. That said - if you find blocky quartz with iron oxides or dark "veining" then it is well worth a look. those type of boulders are likely to be located very close to a reef.

Araluen

 

[Goldtarget]

Whilst gold is found in Quartz , not all quartz carries gold, very small percentage does. Rose colour quartz is supposed to be the best type to crush , but I would take a sample & see for yourself. If there is mineralisation on the quartz , you may have an even better chance.

Mind you a guy with a 63 KG slab of quartz , pulled 14KG of gold dust out of it.

http://www.blog.minersdenaustralia....ecimen-found-containing-aprox-14-kgs-of-gold/

Thanks for this post, id love to understand how that works geologically speaking. Looks alot like some of the rocks I've pushed aside in the river haha, that pic makes it look so regular. Before i read this i was going to say better off chasing up on the gold and leaving the quartz, the amount of time spent hauling and crushing it you'd do better finding the gold, but now i sit here in a stunned silence. The more i learn the more i realise how much i don't know.

 

[Galena]

Hi Billy,

I have found some flat specks in the same type of ground, up on a hill above a creek with rounded quartz rocks in the mix, I got 2 more buckets to pan. If your finding some in the dirt I would keep going.
Much easier than crushing the round quartz especially if they don't have much colour in them.
The rocks in the ground where I'm digging have yellow stains but when you break em they're mostly white inside.
Have you cracked one open yet to see?

 

[KarlS]

G'day

Its an interesting question. As far as I know there are no active mines anywhere where they take and crush the alluvial material. All alluvial gold is currently extracted as free gold and the quartz is discarded.

As a geologist I think that this is due to the observation that most primary gold in quartz reefs is located in small fractures, holes, internal areas of iron oxide and on the edges of dark material (called stylolites) in the quartz. When the reef is weathered out the quartz will tend to break up along these lines of weakness preferentially and shed its gold. Only the generally hard, solid quartz will survive the grinding and bashing that occurs as the quartz travels along the river beds. That said - if you find blocky quartz with iron oxides or dark "veining" then it is well worth a look. those type of boulders are likely to be located very close to a reef.

Araluen

That's interesting, thanks for posting. Just before Christmas I picked few pieces of quartz from access track to the farm. Bulldozer must have, cut across reef when making the road some years ago. The quartz was milky white and had redish brown (Iron Oxide?) covering. It also had number of cavities covered in black stuff with tiny clear crystals growing inside. I have examine the rocks with magnifying glass but did not see any visible gold . So I went to search elsewhere. I think I better get few of those rocks on my next trip there and crush them.
Karl

 

[Billy]

Thankyou to everyone that replied. Is going to be a bit hard to trace back to the source I think as it is on top of a hill and the present day watercourse is over a km away. I haven't cracked one open yet but next time I head out there I will and will get a few photos as well. The soil is quite a red colour but the quartz itself is white. Thanks again all