Okay, who knows their Rocks?

[GoldCheddar2005]

Thought this might be an interesting thread to start, with all the whizz bang metal detectors out there, do you know your rocks?? Have been flicking through plenty of pics today, trying to unravel the mine sites in the Proserpine region, thought this could be fun, a little trivia like the Aussie history thread....

Got my older bro coming out to Dittmer soon, when he finishes the Cecil B in Bowen. This regions geology is very complex, however there is a lot of gold out there, and mixed with lots of pyrite, so a metallurgy and chemistry lesson is needed, that is next term, at Uni!!!

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...2AAC51FD0B251D88B82D0EFDE84C&selectedIndex=57

 

[Heatho]

The old timers used to roast sulphides out, seeing sulphur dioxide is toxic there is supposedly another way. Crush your sulphide ore to a fine powder and keep moist for about 1 year, bacteria and oxygen will/may release gold from such minerals.

Can't remember where I found the article but it is on the WWW somwhere.

Yes pyrites and other similar minerals can and do contain gold but extraction is the hard part.

Peroxides, acids and Cyanide can also do the job but........ getting extremely dangerous for a novice, which is why most of us amatuers only go for Gold which is already free in nature.

 

[GoldCheddar2005]

Cool, got a new pic coming

I know it looks like the dog's breakfast, but that is the large rock from yesterday.... and yes heatho, that is why I suspect the companies that have had the mining lease out there have gone bust, Dittmer has broken a few companies. I am enjoying exploring a piece of my towns history. Potentially, people have been kicking that grainy stuff around, not knowing what is in it. Typical of this town but. This made its money on cane and cattle and now tourism.

 

[GoldCheddar2005]

 

[Guest]

Looks like arsenopyrite. Be careful of this if you are crushing it. It is basically arsenic. You are a long time dead with this. The only proven way to recover gold from this type of ore is roasting in a reverberatory furnace then using a halox (chlorine) method to put the gold into solution. Then you have to precipitate it out with a zinc process or electroplate the gold in an electrowinning set up. Way too hard for the small time prospector.