# found gold



## athometoo (Sep 6, 2009)

not sure what this is  , found on a creekbed . was gold color and after using silver polish and tooth brush it tuned silver or white bright . non magnetic and wont spark on a grinder .  any ideas? picked up a double handfull , it was half buried in shale rocks  . any other tests to perform? think im going to go back and pick up the rest to put in my rock garden . heres a pic of the ones cleaned


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## athometoo (Sep 6, 2009)

could it have been slag from a foundry? there is a t.o.c rroad bridge 300 yards upstream .


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## athometoo (Sep 6, 2009)

also i did use a giger counter on it , we use it at work for p.m on our scanners . this is what else i found at the site . not a very productive day on the bottle side  . do the rest of you pass this stuff up when walking creeks or am i just a weird feller who like to put unusual things in a rock garden .    thanks for any help im kinda leary of asking someone to run an acid test to see if theres any gold content to it . dont want to look foolish . there is probally a five gallon bucket full i left on the creek bed . anyway thanks again , hopefully i can find some glass next time .        sam


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## DiggerBryan (Sep 6, 2009)

Hey nice finds! I don't know what the little silver globs are but they're pretty cool! What is the thing below them? A fossil of some type? Pretty sweet whatever it is. I am the same way though. Being an artifact collector where ever there are rocks my eyes are always glued to the ground. Drove the girlfriend up the wall


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## GuntherHess (Sep 6, 2009)

The rocks look like they may be a form of pyrite.

 Nice big cephalopod fragment.


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## southern Maine diver (Sep 6, 2009)

Hey Sam...

 You will know gold when you see it.  I too was out diving for bottles last week and found some gold... in the form of false teeth!!!![][][]

 Don't know how old they are, but it looks like they are a set of "bottom chompers" with inlaid 18kt gold !!! kind of neat.  I brought them home and my wife wanted nothing to do with them... but my 17 year old son "Nathan" said, "Cool..." and put them into his mouth!!! Go figure.

 Anyway, i will be putting them into the acid bath to try an clean them up. I'll take some more pics and then put the gold into the "rainy day" jar. Never know what you're gonna find in or out of the water.

 Wayne


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## southern Maine diver (Sep 6, 2009)

Another shot... The teeth are all hand made and filed... custom fit I'd say... any dentists out there to give me an idea on the age????[:-]


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## cordilleran (Sep 7, 2009)

Great observation, Gunther. Appears to be marcasite concretions given the geological formation they were found and the mineral's silvery appearance. Both iron pyrite and marcasite are iron disulfides (FeS2). The difference is in crystalization. Both are brittle upon fracture rather than malleable, hence the name for both minerals traditionally known as "fool's gold".


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## Poison_Us (Sep 7, 2009)

A few of pyrites traditional tells are:
 it usually has a black hue to it.  It's also in cube shaped crystals and clumps of crystals.  Gold is usually curvy, globular or anything but in a crystalline form.  Pyrite also flakes when picked at, like mica.


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## GuntherHess (Sep 7, 2009)

Crystal form gold...
 http://www.crystalclassics.co.uk/UserFiles/old-site/Image/articles/denver%20show/denver06-153.jpg


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## cordilleran (Sep 7, 2009)

Pyrite does not have a basal cleavage like muscovite, biotite, phlogopite. lepidolite or vermiculite micas. Hence.it does not flake. When struck, however, it will give off the slight odor of sulphur.


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## pyshodoodle (Sep 7, 2009)

So - what's this? Gold? 
 I like your rocks. Definitely would have brought them home even though I don't have a rock garden. [8|]


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## cyberdigger (Sep 7, 2009)

Kate, that type of gold paint is usually made of brass powder.. looks like there's some copper in there too.. or is this some of your party make-up? []


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## pyshodoodle (Sep 7, 2009)

Charlie - I found it in the dump (most ended up in the dirt[8|]).. there are a couple chunks that look like they are copper (oxidated), but most of it is really 'gold looking' for lack of a better word. Does brass hold it's color like that for a long time? I figured whatever the binder was, it evaporated.... this is very very powdery. 

 Could use it for party make-up! Just would be curious what I'm putting on my face.[]


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## cyberdigger (Sep 7, 2009)

I misspoke before.. bronze is the most common "gold paint" ingredient.. depending on the other stuff in the mixture, the luster could be preserved despite the powdery consistency.. it was generally mixed with laquer or varnish...


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## photolitherland (Sep 8, 2009)

Its pyrite for sure. Im about to graduate with a degree in geology and we find pyrite sort of like this from time to time in the shale beds north of where I go to school. Its high in Fe and it precipitates usually around a central fossil thats usually made of calcite. Those are some pretty big chunks of pyrite though, nice finds.


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## cordilleran (Sep 8, 2009)

What are you going to do with a degree in geology?


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## capsoda (Sep 8, 2009)

Wack a piece of it with a maul. If it breaks put it in your rock garden. If it mashes take a piece to a jeweler and have it tested.

 Looks like slag or casting material to me.


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## Just Dig it (Sep 9, 2009)

The gold powder looks like pigment...


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## Plumbata (Sep 10, 2009)

Nodules of pyrite; FeS2, or chalcopyrite, CuFeS2. I tend towards the former due to the morphology and color, but I ain't a geologist and just collect the crap for fun, so i am not certain. It is almost definitely a metallic sulfide though.

 I would be really happy with those finds, honestly. Nice job!


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## rockbot (Sep 15, 2009)

athometoo, I'm no rock expert but it sure looks like welding slag. All we have around here is lava rocks but I do a lot of welding. What size pieces are they?

 Rocky


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## GuntherHess (Sep 15, 2009)

> welding slag


 
 That would be easy to determine. Hit a piece with a hammer. If it crumbles to powder its probably pyrite.


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## athometoo (Sep 15, 2009)

ran a few more tests , hammer test  = cracks up . rosebud torch = strong sulphur smell and evaporates . steel file = sparks . final conclusion = its gold , just the wrong kind . sure is pretty though . we just got 8 inches of rain and the river is swollen , wait a coupla weeks and go back and pick up the rest . and a little bling to my rock garden . plus i have given some to the neighborhood kids . they think its cool too .     sam        sorry sizes are golfball to raquetball size although some resemble large dog droppings . kinda like the goose and golden egg[]


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## rockbot (Sep 17, 2009)

athometoo, save me one of those rocks, (minerals). This is all we get around here!


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## rockbot (Sep 17, 2009)

This is another hobby of mine. Unfortunately I can't find any of this around here.


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## Plumbata (Sep 17, 2009)

Racketball size?

_really?_

 You want to sell me a bagfull of those bad boys? No need to clean them either! There are probably some good fossils in there too, hidden deep below the grasp of rock-hounding landlubbers like myself. 

 Which reminds me, when i was young (8 and younger) I lived in Maryland and my father would take me out to the Chesapeake to hunt for Miocene shark teeth and other fossils. This one outing, I see these 2 scuba divers emerge from the murky deep with a mesh bag filled with gigantic megladon teeth and interesting fossil bones, ranging from 2 to over 5 inches (probably 30 spectacular teeth they had), and in awesome shape too. I could hardly believe it, and the stories of the large items they had to leave behind were insane. Made my little <3/4ths inch teeth seem like peanuts. []


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## GuntherHess (Sep 17, 2009)

The bay is good for fossils but if you want to find really nice ones you need to go down to the phosphate mines in NC. The shark's teeth are still razor sharp when you find them.


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## GuntherHess (Sep 17, 2009)

-


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## cyberdigger (Sep 17, 2009)

[][] Wonderful pic!!! I see you have.. backbone??


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## GuntherHess (Sep 17, 2009)

Lots of nice whale vertebrae there, the trick is hauling them out alive[]


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## RedGinger (Sep 18, 2009)

Cool pic Gunther!  That must have been fun!


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## athometoo (Sep 18, 2009)

plumbata  , and rockbot i will pick the best and largest size for you (you perfer round or croissant shaped?) weve had a week of rain 12 inches or more . as soon as the river drops i will go back and pick up a 5 gallon bucket of it  . there was a rock nearby 6 ft away that was 2ft long and 1 foot wide that resembled petrified wood but looked like the stuff stallagmites(caves) are made of  . is that calcite? it had some pyrite chunks in it but was to heavy to hold with both hands already full of chunks . when i go back i will take pics of the area .     sam       as a kid we picked up chunks of real stuff in creede , cripple creek , and silverton colorado . i have a burlap sack full of those . 2 areas were old mines and 1 was the back side of a famous still working mine . everyone thinks to check the tailings but no thinks to check around the pylons where the cable cars used to bring it down the mountain . at one point me  ,my father  ,and my son had to take off our socks (they make good gold sacks) because rolling your shirt up off your belly was full .we rolled a 30lb chunk of quartz with gold flakes down the hilland put it beside a tree vowing to one day come back for it with my grandson .  good times . miss my son at 4 yrs old he was so sweet .      sam


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## rockbot (Sep 19, 2009)

Hi Sam.  I would be interested in a crescent piece. I would gladly trade with you something. What would interest you?

 Aloha, Tony


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## JGill (Sep 19, 2009)

Hey Sam cool thread, really enjoyed seeing and reading about all this stuff.  I to dabble in rocks, minerals and fossils and I have actually been to the Clavert Cliffs where you can find the sharks teeth and whale bones and other stuff.  It's hard to get to unless you come in from the water when I went I climbed down the cliffs maybe 100' but couldn't get back up because they are made up mostly of sand.  I finally had to walk down to the nuclear power plant and go under the fence.  Lucky me no one saw me.  They have a neat park/museum there too.


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## JGUIS (Oct 2, 2009)

> ORIGINAL: GuntherHess


 Hmmmmmmmmm


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## ancientdigger69 (Oct 2, 2009)

now THATS wrong but oh so funny.  TACKLEBERRY!!!!!!!!!


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## Just Dig it (Oct 2, 2009)

I used to volunteer in a nature par In sarasota Florida
 They had dug the intercoastal waterway and disturbed the geological record spreading  the sand to form the park
 One day i had a 6 inch megalodon tooth in my pocket when i came home so happy to go surfing i forgot the tooth when i came home my mom had put the pants through the dryer..
 it was so nice of a speciment like a light golden brown turned to dust after it hit the dryer = (
 ..


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## bottle_head9 (Oct 2, 2009)

It survived a million years of heat and pressure, but couldn`t survive your Maytag.What causes that to happen?I don`t know a thing about fossils.[8|]


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## rockbot (Oct 2, 2009)

Its Surfing! It seems that surfing and shark teeth have a lot in common. lol, Rocky


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## JGUIS (Oct 4, 2009)

> ORIGINAL: JGUIS
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 Sorry Gunth, didn't think it would piss you off.


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