Mystery rocks found in NE Victoria while panning for gold.

[Seldomsean]

AtomRat, Yeah m8 i have heaps of tiny ones that i kept thinking if it was gold in it that would be a shame to throw it away. so i will put heap in old rag & i have large sledgy that i can hammer it on, just a matter of pulling my finger out & biting the bullet to find out the truth i guess. I'll do it in the morning sometime b4 heat gets here as it knocks me around these days.

 

[Seldomsean]

Experiment of crushing mystery rocks part 1 complete.
Appears not to be any pure gold in the rocks, yet maybe some black sand.
Things to do next time : i am not sure whether i crushed it quite fine enough, as all is heavy & hard to pan. Was hard to see how fine it was when some turns to dust. Sock did not last long, so i need piece of steel pipe to keep it all confined, which i have somewhere in unpacked trailer. Also i need to brush steel off b4 using it to crush on, not thinking about rust crushing down also.
No real sign of gold in it, but lot of white & black sand. I don't like my chances, but think that crushing a few bigger ones later maybe worth a try, with better tools & when not as hot.
Maybe someone will be able to definitely ID the rocks for me. Cheers Sean.

 

[Seldomsean]

i guess i can put a bit of fine gold in the pan with this material & see how easy or hard it is to separate ?

I actually wasted a lot of time looking for these rocks in the refining process not knowing what they were. If they are only agate or jasper, then it would be waste of time worrying about them. Also i do want to purchase a detector in the near future, which i will be able to check them then to see if any metal or ore in them.

 

[AtomRat]

Glad that you got through the day with a complete crush mate, howd the heat go?

There's nothing wrong with sampling but you may find yourself needing a jaw crusher or hammer mill type machine to crush some stuff up with ease. Black sand isn't always bad..I've crushed lots of rock with no blacks.. so there is a mineral flow that's gone through your rock. If you feel your leaning in the wrong direction, check out your other options. Detecting means lots of digging hard ground and bending over just for futures sake.

Have you found any 'blobs' of tin by any chance which may look like solder in the pan?

 

[Seldomsean]

AtomRat, Yeah m8, i don't rush things when i do them & avoid bending over as much as possible, sitting down to dig at all times. I made up series of solid tools with short handles so i can dig while on the ground. I will be trying to target mainly areas of bush that have been burnt out in this area recently with detector, but hoping just to get miles in the legs to improve fitness which i hope helps with health. I am passionate about photographing wildlife & this also gives me good reason to get out in amongst it. I am happy with the pure gold i am getting & also remembered that the oldman found a 2 ounce rock while panning which had that fine lighter coloured gold in it from this area, also remembering that he told me that most gold has a certain percentage of silver in it & gather he must have read it somewhere & know he subscribed to Gem & Treasure back then. From memory the specimen he found had like quartz like jasper in the piece & fine gold all the way through as he broke it in half to see if it was all the way through. So i am not giving up on the flour silver/gold yet & i have learnt heaps watching videos on youtube about crevassing, bedrock etc, over last month or so. I was processing all the overburden because was so much what i thought or think is real fine gold. i did find a patch i had little like droplets of like silver with tails on them, like solder dripping into water i guess & cooling, not sure whether that is what you mean. But i was last working about 6-7 metres above level of river in real old stained wash, well away from the water, pretty much testing places as i went higher & backfilling as i went. The droplets were down a fair way from where i was b4 heat got here. So i am thinking about just chasing the goods stuff, processing a lot less when digging again. i will post pic of better panned fines when you can only see it with pale gold colour in it & see what everyone thinks then as i have learnt the tapping technique & practising it, getting rid of more black sand. Using tomato sauce bottle to suck it up.

 

[The Green Wanderer]

Gday Seldomsean,
interesting collection of riverstone youve got there!
I come across similar stones up here in Nth Qld, mostly they are just tumbled rusty quartz but every so often theres a similar one to your larger creamy piece. Usually ten to fifty cent size pieces with a dull sort of luster to them, mostly figured they were some form of agate as little shards of jasper are common too.
The bits that really make you scratch the noggin are like your long bean shaped piece (top of the jar photo), really compressed minerals in a sort of swirl. Nearest id I can put on those is a mix of feldspar (pale cream colour)on slate? (grey flaky mineral) with inclusions of hornblende (black mineral).
I dig these up from time to time though the variety I get up here is a bit different, sometimes magnetite instead of hornblende and occasionally there is a thin vein of quartz in there too.
More often than not the whole stone is loaded with mica which is a real pain when you put it in the sun since everything shimmers silver in the pan.
Next time I come across a piece ill hang onto it and post a pic for comparison.

Goodluck with the digging. TGW.