GOLD YOUR GUIDE & Resource Center To Modern GOLD Detecting

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By Licensed Australian Gold Miner Gene Casanova  

GOLD

Gold has been coveted throughout the history of man around the world.

Gold is almost indestructible and does not tarnish. Gold's natural characteristics has proven it to be the choice medium for jewelry making.  Native gold ore veins emerging from massive white quartz can make for a visually stunning specimen.

Naturally formed gold nuggets are sought the world over as prized collectable pieces of natural art.  Some gold nuggets are turned into one-of-a-kind unique gold nugget jewelry.

A few of the minerals that bear gold in their respective formulas are in a subclass of sulfides called the tellurides. The element gold seems to have an affinity for tellurium and this is one of the only elements that gold can bond with easily. In fact only a few rare tellurides are found with out gold. A few of the tellurides are nagyagite, calaverite, sylvanite and krennerite . These are all minor ores of gold but their contributions to the supply of gold pales next to native gold's own contribution. Occasionally these minerals are associated with native gold.

There are a number of minerals that are named "Fool's Gold" because only a fool could believe they are gold! Actually it is easy for people who see shiny golden colored flakes sparkling believe that they have struck pay-dirt. Gold's ductility, sectility, density and softness are usually sufficient to distinguish it from the much cheaper imposters. The most famous "fool's gold" is the very common sulfide, pyrite. Chalcopyrite, marcasite and just about any golden colored sulfide has been also proven to be worthy the "fool's gold" name. Weathered flakes of biotite which can sport a bright yellow color and a nice flash of light when viewed just right, have also been mistaken for gold.

Gold specimens are sometimes artisticly stunning and a good investment as well. After all, it is gold, which never seems to lose its value. Good natural specimens though are more expensive than their actual weight value. This is to be expected as good gold crystals are somewhat scarce (most are melted down for quick profits) and you really don't want a natural specimen to be worth what a lump of previously smelted and refined gold is worth, do you?.

Au; periodic table element symbol.

Elements - The elements which include over one hundred known minerals are a diverse class when taken as a whole.  Most of this diversity, however, is due to the diversity of the Non-metals Subclass.  The Metals Subclass and related metal alloys contains metals whose properties are rather similar due to the common way in which they crystallize and bond.  The greatest difference in the metals is color.  The non-metals, however, are extremely diverse.  For instance, the hardest mineral known to man is from this subclass, as well as one of the softest.  The non-metals include some elements known as semi-metals who share some properties with metals but differ in other characteristics.

Metal alloys are minerals that are composed of combinations of different metals in one mineral. All native metals are impure usually by several percentage points, but these are not distinguished as distinct minerals unless they meet certain mineralogical criteria. Generally they must be consistent in their composition and have their respective elements occupy specific sites in their crystal lattice in order to be named as new minerals.

Alloys that are composed of semi-metals with metals are classified as sulfides but are sometimes listed as elements. They usually share similarities to other sulfides in their physical properties. These minerals are in the Selenides, the Tellurides, the Antimonides and the Arsenides Subclasses of the Sulfide Class. The main difference between elemental alloys and these semi-metal alloys is the presence of covalent bonding in these minerals as opposed to the strictly metallic bonding in pure metals and their metal alloys.

The most difficult to classify are the metal/non-metal mineral combinations. These minerals, which combine metals such as iron with the very non-metallic elements of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and silicon are quite unique and quite rare. They are not too different from sulfides which typically combine metals with sulfur. But the sulfides class is by convention limited to sulfur and semi-metal combinations as discussed above.

It might surprise people to find out that the Elements Class contains minerals that are composed of more than one element. Elements, by the chemical definition are composed of all the same atoms; whereas substances composed of two or more elements are compounds. The inconsistency is explained by allowing only those minerals whose bonding is similar to the more traditional elements. Metal alloys bond with metallic bonds and the carbon-carbon bond of diamond is similar to the carbon-silicon bond in moissanite.  This type of covalent bonding is called elemental bonds.  All in all the Elements Class is a rather complicated and interesting class of minerals.

Subclass: Native Metals:

• Aluminum Al
• Cadmium Cd
• Chromium Cr
• Gold Group:
  • Copper Cu
  • Gold Au
  • Lead Pb
  • Mercury Hg
  • Silver Ag
• Indium In
• Iron Fe
• Nickel Ni
• Platinum Pt
• Tellurium Te
• Tin Sn
• Titanium Ti
• Zinc Zn

Group

GOLD - The Gold Group is composed of metallic elements that have the same crystal structure as gold. The group is composed of only five minerals:

1. gold
2. silver
3. copper
4. mercury
5. lead

People familiar with the periodic table would understand the similarities between gold, copper and silver since as they fall in the same column and thus they share some similar chemical properties. Lead however, doesn't lie in the same column as the others but still crystallizes with the same structure as the rest of this group. Mercury is only grudgingly included in this group because it is found alloyed with other members of this group, however it does not by itself form crystals and in fact is not even a solid. Minerals of gold, silver and copper are all found in relatively large concentrations within the Earth's crust, but mercury is much rarer and lead is extremely scarce as a mineral.

The structure of this group is very simple . . . honest. Every atom is of course the same since these minerals are composed of a single element. The structure is based on a face centered cube. The atoms are arranged in such a way that they occupy the corners and the centers of each face of a cube. Every atom is touching 12 other atoms. There are exactly four atoms contained in the face center cube (you only count the portion that is actually in the cube). The symmetry of this group is the highest symmetry allowed in a three dimensional system; isometric 4/m bar 3 2/m.

Victoria Gold Field Nugget $660 USD

• Color: golden "butter" yellow.

• Luster: metallic.

• Transparency: opaque.

• Crystal System: isometric; 4/m bar 3 2/m

• Crystal Habits include massive nuggets and disseminated grains. Also wires, dendritic and arborescent crystal clusters.

• Cleavage: absent.

• Fracture: jagged.

• Streak: golden yellow.

• Hardness: 2.5 - 3

• Specific Gravity: 19.3+ (extremely heavy even for metallic minerals)

• Associated Minerals

  • Quartz

  • Nagyagite

  • Calaverite

  • Sylvanite

  • Krennerite

  • Pyrite

  • Other Sulfides

• Other Characteristics: ductile, malleable and sectile, meaning it can be pounded into other shapes, stretched into a wire and cut into slices.

• Notable Occurrences include Central Victoria, Australia; South Africa; California, Nevada, South Dakota, Nome Alaska, USA; Siberia, Russia; and Canada.

• Best Field Indicators

  • Color

  • Density

  • Hardness

  • Sectility

  • Malleability

  • Ductility.

• Gold Pans

• Gold Detectors

• Electronic Prospecting Gold Metal Detectors

Casanova's Metal Detector Center

Est. 1930

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