Is there Gold in fools Gold

that page was posted as an example
i deal with this stuff every day and there is a danger of poisoning with Arsenopyrite(been there done that) im not a green kid that just started prospecting and refining PM's and i dont feel the need to make up stories just to look like somebody on a chat board, i work with mercury and acids daily as well as other toxic chemicals related to the reclamation and refining process of PM's and have been for more years than i care to count and most of it can kill you just as dead as walking in front of a truck on the highway
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as far as color goes its apples and oranges, if it sparkles in the pan and you think its gold then its fools gold.
real gold doesnt shine and sparkle when the sun hits it and you can scratch it pretty easy with a pocket knife, the best way to describe it is that it just glows in the pan and when you crush or scrape most pyrites they give off a sulphur smell and you wont scratch it like a soft metal because its brittle.

		Quote:			Posted by daddio
	I think you are over-reading the McCracken article. First of all, iron pyrite is gold colored. Arseno-pyrite is a gray to silver color.They don't look the same as far as color goes. Arseno-pyrite would more likely be mistaken for silver. The danger that you are kind of pointing to in the article comes from the acid itself, which must always be used with adequate ventilation. There isn't a danger from the arsenic. Nobody who is new to prospecting has any business messing with any acid anyway. Slow down and learn a little slower. The acid is rarely ever necessary for even an old timer and is mainly used to remove mercury from gold, but that is an advanced lesson way down the line.  Any time a person is unsure how to determine the difference between gold and fool's gold, they should try this test. This is easy to do. Take a hammer and set the suspected piece of material on one hammer head and then tap it - not smash it, but just a light tap with another hammer. Fool's gold will smash into dust. Gold will just continue to flatten out no matter how many times you hit it. Before messing with any chemicals or acids, just take a sample to a coin dealer or jeweler and ask them to test it for you.

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,15730.msg103071.html#msg103071

Okay, let's put an end to this "I know more than you do." ridiculous back and forth. Arsenopyrite may have an occurrence of gold, so yes, when you are reading the short articles about gold, you would be able to say there was gold in pyrite. BUT, there is no arsenopyrite in the USA, so nobody found any and broke it up and found some good gold in it period. It didn't/couldn't happen. Second, even if there was a chance that someone's buddy got ahold of some arsenopyrite and then broke it up, they would have never recognized any gold in the mix of stone and sand left in front of them. 90% of non geologist prospectors wouldn't even recognize gold in it's natural lode form if it was right in front of them. It looks like an off silver crystal , and has no look or properties of gold as we are talking about it, in a placer or nugget form, as a metal. Any gold occurring in the smashed up pyrite would need to be completely processed with cyanide leaching and recovery and then melted at roughly 1950 degrees Fahrenheit and then poured into a mold before it would ever be recognizable as the metal we are talking about.

So regardless of what anyone will quickly look up in Google about pyrite and gold, the true and actual answer will be NO, just because you have found pyrite does not mean you have found gold. Yes, there is a very remote possibility that there is some microscopic unseen by the human eye particles of gold in the mix somewhere, but for the purposes of a treasure hunter's or gold propspectors point of view, the practical answer should just be taken as no. There is gold in many places in the USA, and it is possible to find some in most states, but as far as prospecting and then panning or sluicing, it isn't practical in most states, and even in the states where one ounce nuggets can still be found, it's just like fishing. You will fnd some little stuff, maybe flour gold or even a couple of bigger pieces including some pickers, but you won't make enough money to quit your job. Most of the time you won't even find enough gold to pay for your gas for that trip or the equipment you purchased to go prospecting with. Washington, Oregon, and California still hold a lot of big gold hiding places. Colorado and Georgia have some nice spots too, but not as productive as those other three. The other states you will find some gold here and there and might even find a big piece once in a while. Obviously the old timers of the 1800's didn't get it all, because according to statistics, only about 3% of the gold that exists in the world has been recovered. That means the rest is still waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately, a huge part of that 97% is gold in liquid state in ocean water or other microscopic gold that cost more to recover than it is worth, but there are still some i nuggets waiting to be found, maybe right next to where those old timers quit digging. If you become a student of gold prospecting, you can have a fun hobby, make a little money , and find some beautiful pieces of nature's most beautiful metal.   
 

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Well written, Daddio. The difference between alluvial gold and lode gold are significant but most people think that the gold is in a form that can be seen with the naked eye even as ore. Not always so. As I have said many times before, where you find iron pyrite, you will not likely find gold. Oh, yes. People HAVE found them together but most experienced prospectors find iron pyrite and move on to a more likely spot. The word prospect says it all. It doesn't mean FINDING gold. It means LOOKING for gold. When you don't find it, you move on.

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,15730.msg103255.html#msg103255

Beaks, calm down regarding Daddio's comments. He didn't say you were lying but that your experiences may or may not be relative to fact. That's a far different thing. As I said above, gold HAS been found near pyrites but in my experience over the past 40 years, they are so rarely found together that when I find pyrites, I move to another location. It's a geologically sound determination. The percentages must be down in the 1% or lower of them being in the same location so with those odds, I look elsewhere.

Daddio has a lot of experience in these matters. So do you. He explained his experiences and now you have. Sounds like everyone could learn from both of you. Keep on with descriptions of your experiences because that is what allows others to learn rather than beat their heads against the same spot as previous prospectors. When I suggest that gold and pyrites are not often found together, I could die in a ditch trying to argue with someone who found one pan full of gold with pyrites in it or I could simply state it and allow it to sink in to the memory of some new prospector. If they remember it at the right time, it could save them from wasting a few days looking for gold metal when all they're going to find is metal that is golden.

We all have a lot to learn, Grasshopper. As Spock might say, "Live long and prospect."

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		Quote:			Posted by beaks
	good point! just dont like to be talked down to, called a liar or treated like a greenhorn it gets on my nerves.

Mate, I should have stated that a tiny bit differently. I should have said that your facts are different from his facts. As are my facts. Combined, they should be AWESOME facts. Keep presenting what you have found and what you have learned. We can safely let the readers sort it all out or, if they are confused, ask questions.

I have to say that moderating this forum is easy because there are so many ways that gold can move around this earth. I once found a gold nugget at Venice Beach in California. It must have been dropped from a beach goer's pocket. An inexperienced prospector might have staked a claim then and there. That nugget moved there from God knows where until I found it. So small it slipped through my scoop half a dozen times before I finally saw it. The look on my face must have been a MasterCard "priceless" moment. Could have knocked me over with a feather.

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