Gold from the patio


Recommended Posts

I spent the last two days catching up on some long overdue clean-up on my patio. I had numerous buckets of gravel, dirt, sluice cons and six sniffer bottles with various amounts of gold and black sands that I needed to classify down to at least 30 mesh for my blue bowl. After screening all of it through 1/2",1/4", a flour sifter and 30 mesh, I panned everything twice and ended up with 2/3 of a 5 gallon bucket ready for the blue bowl. The nice surprise was the amount of gold accumulated from my efforts.

The pics also show a small bucket full of common opal and some chiastolites ( Crystals of Andalusite containing cross-shaped inclusions of carbon. Common in some metamorphic rocks. Found in England, Australia, Arizona and Ca.) that I got on a trip to Mariposa last Sunday.

Rick

P4300028.jpg

P4300032.jpg

commonopal4-30-20094-08-20PM3264x24.jpg

commonopalclose-up4-30-20094-08-27P.jpg

Chiastoliteclose-up4-30-20094-09-18.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you know if the chiastolites take a polish? Very cool looking stones

Sorry Steve...I don't know if they will polish up well or not. I plan to try using the lapidary equipment at the Calaveras gem and mineral clubhouse.

Here is a link to a video I just finished that shows the chiastolites:

Happy Hunting,

Rick

P.S. I really like your jewelry!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rick,

I tried doing up some cabochons many years ago and did not have much luck in getting a good polish on them. They are quite fascinating with no 2 being alike. I did a little search to see if something new was out there and came up empty-handed except for this link. I cannot get the link to work without a cut/paste direct to your browser. Hope that it works and gives you a little information.

www.etsy.com/profile.php?user_id=5034334

Jim

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.