hot rocks

[Davent]

Ok, hit a creek line today, really shaley ground, with rock bars crossing several places. Was pretty dead, then I found a little pocket with a feint signal.
Scraped the top, and quickly pinpointed a purpleish rock, it does have a few lighter patches, yellowish in colour, so, I thought, maybe a speccy?
Was about to move on, when I got another, deeper signal. Dug down about 6 inches, and it was out. Another, nearly identical rock.
Waved the 14 x 9 over the hole, another signal! Dug down to some really compressed clay, and got a signal from a fist sized lump. Put it in the bag to pan tomorrow. Then another couple of lumps with signals, into the bag.
Anyway, on the drive home, (I had my small pick on the passenger seat) I remembered the magnet. I put one of the purple rocks near it, and the bugger stuck to it! So did the other one.....so, are these purple rocks, ironstone and are they hot rocks.
Could the yellow tinge be gold in it, or more likley rust?
cheers, dave.

bet the clay has iron stone in it too.....useless photo, s .....sorry, don, t think they will help

 

[Tathradj]

Might be lucky enough to be meteorite fragments eh. ?
Whatever, They are rippers in their own right.

 

[BigWave]

I've had a few gold species that initially looked like that. If you want to etch off the surface ironstone to see what's inside, dip them in Alibright (from SuperCheap Auto) for a few days in a PET plastic container - not glass. Don't let the liquid get on you though - it's 5% HF (very bad stuff). Use nitrile gloves and glasses.

 

[Davent]

Will try the alibrite, but the rocks are magnetic, so nt confident about the good stuff, also, just panned some of the clay lumps (the 2 biggest that gave signals) no color at all, lots of fines, lots and lots of sharp gravel, no color.

 

[user 4485]

Dave I've had an ironstone specci that would stick to a magnet & have heard many other examples of this happening. There was a thread on here somewhere where it was discussed & I'm pretty sure there's a photo on here of an ironstone specci with visible gold sticking to a magnet.
I always just smash em in the field - you'll either see the gold or the signal will remain in one smaller piece if it's got gold in it. Hot rocks etc. the signal generally disperses once smashed.
You might of guessed I don't really buy into keeping speccis or that they are more valuable , although at times I've kept a few, it's usually the gold content that's worth the money unless it's a rare matrix or crystalline gold on a host rock.

 

[scottlucky]

I have found ones similar and thought hello hello only to crush them into dust and then use the magnet.

100% of it stuck to it like flys to s---t.

such is life, keep trying and test everything.

Scotty

 

[Davent]

And thats exactly what happend with mine......nothing in the clay either.

 

[Davent]

I might keep speccis whole if they look really good, but will crush em otherwise.
on a nonther note, the day wasn, t a complete loss, found some great looking ground, one mine shaft that I couldnt see the bottom of, even with a powerful torch, the chinese must have had a mobile boot making shop, found heaps of boot tacs!

 

[Chris37646]

Hot rocks do my head in. More annoying than buckshot

 

[limpalot]

Was at Whroo a couple of months ago; they really do your head in when they ping at one spot on the rock. Brought some home to crush, just checking to make sure I was not missing a small nug; no joy though. They had steaks of quartz through them so looked productive. There was a large quartz reef through the site as well.
Cheers LL

 

[Nightjar]

Never pass up a hot rock Davent, this one jumped to the magnet but after Alibrite all was revealed.

 

[BigWave]

Bloody hell NJ. Looks great! Just lurve those dudes!

 

[grubstake]

Never pass up a hot rock Davent, this one jumped to the magnet but after Alibrite all was revealed.
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s122/nightjar3/AUFE002.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s122/nightjar3/AUFE003.jpg

That looks like the twin of my "sheepsh1t" nugget: :lol:

 

[Davent]

Most of the hot rocks ive found here are more like a purple sandstone, break up pretty easy when tapped with a hammer. Really compressed, and finer grains than normal sandstone, but really pretty crumby.
love that one in iron stone Nightjar!

 

[Coota]

I tried the ZED in normal for a short while a few days ago, hot rocks galore! This one sounded a little sharper so I pocketed it and just gave it a whack after seeing this thread.

 

[Chewy]

Nice job guys. Well sniffed out.

 

[Hotrob]

Hi Davent.

Cut ya toe nails mate .

Rob.

 

[Moneybox]

Dave I got a hot rock that I thought might be speci about 150mm long. I wacked it with the pick a couple of times and cracked it into three bits. All went off on the detector the same and I couldn't see and gold so left it there. I think there's unlikely to be gold in each bit. The last ones I got at Meekatharra were in an area where I saw three quartz species come from last year. They stick to the pick but go off like a nugget on the 4500 and the SDC. I've kept them all because I've never had a hot rock from there before. They don't look much so I'll build a little crusher one day after we get home and try my luck.

 

[Nuggetunter]

A few years ago north of Kalgoorlie where the the hot rocks are thick and strong it was very easy to become complacent about hot rocks and ignore them. One day while detecting with a mate who had been carrying around a 6 inch hot around in his vehicle for a while, he chucked it on the ground and said, What do you think of that? I passed the coil over it and got a strong signal but still passed it off as a hot rock. He also thought it was a hot rock so imagine how stupid we felt when after detecting all day we came back to the car and he split the rock only to find a beautiful clean about half ounce nugget. Lesson learned !!

 

[Peko]

I don't see how you can call a hot rock,a hot rock if it has gold inside.
My understanding of a hot rock is a rock that it heavily mineralised compared to the surrounding rocks that sounds off a detector and maybe magnetic also,but contains no gold.
A specimen is gold in either nugget form or reef form in a host rock like Quartz or ironstone.

So tell me how a hot rock can contain gold.