samuelbaldwin010
Well-known member
So, i had someone that I know who has given me (more like pawned off onto me) alot of "suspected" of containing gold ore.
Honestly, I am new to ores, prospecting in general, and I admittedly don't know a ton I those areas, but here's what I DO KNOW, or atleast have learned so far:
This person had gotten this stuff from what he claimed was "a gold assayers office" somehow. Didn't ask a million and one questions and just took it at face value.
This ore has apparently been found somewhere in oregon at an undisclosed area of the state.
Or atleast this is what I was told, again taking it at face value.
This ore is not magnetic/ ferrous, so I don't believe it's pyrite or even containing much if any iron. However, it does appear to have some rust-like oxidation and color on it.
It is a very shiny almost white silvery, underneath the oxidation layer.
It is VERY conductive and relatively heat resistant since it would not melt after I got it red hot by means of running alot of electric current directly through it.
It does have some spots in it that are gold in color, but kind of remind me more of chalcopyrite more than of gold.
It doesn't seem to be effected significantly by sulfuric acid either dilute or concentrated doesn't make a difference.
It doesn't seem to be significantly effected by nitric acid either. And again concentrated or dilute doesn't seem to change much if anything.
I have not tried hydrochloric, Aqua Regia, or any of the other common acids we typically use, other than what's been previously mentioned. nor have I tried using any strong and/or caustic alkaline of any kind. So I am unable to tell if those would or wouldn't effect it in anyway.
And so I saved the most (in my opinion atleast) interesting fact about it for last, and this was discovered on complete accident, as it turns out this stuff is (if not only slightly) radioactive.
In case you are curious about the way I discovered this fact about it, I was taking a load of scrap metal into one of our local scrap yards in portland, I tried driving up to the scale as I usually do to get weighed in and before I could, a alarm started going off and they were yelling at me to get off the scale and that my load was coming up as hot for radiation.
And so I had to pull off to the side so that they could use their little radioactivity detector probe and the isolated the area hot for radioactivity as the area closest to my cab and I couldn't think of what it was that would have caused this to happen.
Then on my ride home, it all of a sudden dawned on me that the spot that was given out the radioactivity was where I had those buckets of ore located.
Needless to say, I removed those buckets and went back and didn't set off any radioactivity alarms and was able to get rid of my scrap without problems.
So now knowing all of this, can anybody out there identify what it is that I got here? Because honestly, the radioactivity aspect of this stuff has got me kinda nervous but since I discovered it was,I stopped messing around with it but I am still curious about what the hell it is.
If anyone knows anything or has any ideas based upon what I shared, please feel free to let me know what you think and I will post some pictures of it later when i am around it again.
Thanks for your help!
-Samuel
Honestly, I am new to ores, prospecting in general, and I admittedly don't know a ton I those areas, but here's what I DO KNOW, or atleast have learned so far:
This person had gotten this stuff from what he claimed was "a gold assayers office" somehow. Didn't ask a million and one questions and just took it at face value.
This ore has apparently been found somewhere in oregon at an undisclosed area of the state.
Or atleast this is what I was told, again taking it at face value.
This ore is not magnetic/ ferrous, so I don't believe it's pyrite or even containing much if any iron. However, it does appear to have some rust-like oxidation and color on it.
It is a very shiny almost white silvery, underneath the oxidation layer.
It is VERY conductive and relatively heat resistant since it would not melt after I got it red hot by means of running alot of electric current directly through it.
It does have some spots in it that are gold in color, but kind of remind me more of chalcopyrite more than of gold.
It doesn't seem to be effected significantly by sulfuric acid either dilute or concentrated doesn't make a difference.
It doesn't seem to be significantly effected by nitric acid either. And again concentrated or dilute doesn't seem to change much if anything.
I have not tried hydrochloric, Aqua Regia, or any of the other common acids we typically use, other than what's been previously mentioned. nor have I tried using any strong and/or caustic alkaline of any kind. So I am unable to tell if those would or wouldn't effect it in anyway.
And so I saved the most (in my opinion atleast) interesting fact about it for last, and this was discovered on complete accident, as it turns out this stuff is (if not only slightly) radioactive.
In case you are curious about the way I discovered this fact about it, I was taking a load of scrap metal into one of our local scrap yards in portland, I tried driving up to the scale as I usually do to get weighed in and before I could, a alarm started going off and they were yelling at me to get off the scale and that my load was coming up as hot for radiation.
And so I had to pull off to the side so that they could use their little radioactivity detector probe and the isolated the area hot for radioactivity as the area closest to my cab and I couldn't think of what it was that would have caused this to happen.
Then on my ride home, it all of a sudden dawned on me that the spot that was given out the radioactivity was where I had those buckets of ore located.
Needless to say, I removed those buckets and went back and didn't set off any radioactivity alarms and was able to get rid of my scrap without problems.
So now knowing all of this, can anybody out there identify what it is that I got here? Because honestly, the radioactivity aspect of this stuff has got me kinda nervous but since I discovered it was,I stopped messing around with it but I am still curious about what the hell it is.
If anyone knows anything or has any ideas based upon what I shared, please feel free to let me know what you think and I will post some pictures of it later when i am around it again.
Thanks for your help!
-Samuel