Questions about quartz - see website 'The Quartz page'

[loamer]

http://www.quartzpage.de/intro.html

This site gives explanations, pictures and tables of quartz variations. It will help explain the colours that can be seen and how the quartz was formed and with what other minerals. Hope it helps. I also keep a pictorial folder of quartz associated with areas that I know have gold or where I have found gold and I align these pictures with other geological data, map references and mud maps - the data helps build up your 'treasure maps'. I would recommend that if you are starting out- get to know your quartz as it can tell you very many things.

An example from the site:

Quartz is a very common mineral, a chemical compound of silicon and oxygen, silicon dioxide SiO2, commonly called silica.

If pure, quartz is a colorless, transparent, and very hard crystalline material of glass-like look. The well-known rock crystals - six-sided prisms with a six-sided pyramid at their ends - are simply well formed crystals of quartz.

Quartz appears in a number of colored varieties, like amethyst (violet), citrine (yellow), or smoky quartz (gray, brown to black). It also occurs in dense forms with no visible crystals, like the multi-colored agate and the gray flint.

 

[silver]

Very informative link Loamer, and I've only scratched the surface of looking at it (I put it in favourites)

 

[Twapster]

Hope this is not a silly question but for those of you that have found decent gold deposits, what type of quartz are we looking for to indicate possible gold areas? I'm under the impression that its the "dirtier" quartz not the nice white stuff. Is this kind of true? Or the "sandwich" quartz maybe with "slate" rock.

 

[loamer]

To be honest - it can be in any quartz, white included. The indicators are to look for 'rose' coloured quartz as this reveals that the quartz has been subjected to high temps and also subjected to mineralisation. Also, you will see from time to time what appears to be 'mouse eaten' or 'rotten' quartz - it has little holes taken out that look like a piece of cheese that's been eaten into. If you are ever lucky enough to get onto a line of gold in a quartz reef, you will see what I mean. They are however only indicators and I have spent many an hour on ground strewn with rose coloured and mouse eaten quartz for no return. There are other indicators as well - quartz in ironstone that look like sandwich as you say, quartz associated with slates (blue and green) etc.

If you ever walk through the miles of gold bearing areas around the Vic golden triangle you will see gullies that are identical but some have been mined and some are as barren as the day the old timers first spotted them. The reason? Some gullies/fields are absolute duffers,no PAYABLE gold, and I stress payable because it was not to them. But, these same virgin/barren gullies deserve our attention because they may have detectable gold. If you get into these gullies, look carefully and you may find old diggers small test/loaming holes. They have usually had a crack but the returns did not warrant their effort. It may do for us and little (and big) patches can be found this way.