Fractures and cracks in the bedrock form ideal pathways for superheated water and steam under pressure to flow and to precipitate out their dissolved mineral and heavy metal loads.
Gold vein in quartz rock.
Rivers and streams wear down through the bedrock and can leave patches of gravel high and dry.
Most of the prospecting methods for finding gold that we discuss on this blog include panning for flakes and dust metal detecting for nuggets.
There is another less common method of finding gold however.
Gold occurs in between the other crystals found in quartz.
Finding gold in quartz rock.
Gold quartz specimens are in a completely different league of their own.
Often these gold in quartz specimens are very beautiful and interesting causing them to be highly valued by mineral collectors sometimes even more than the value of the gold itself.
Look for gold in quartz veins in areas where the bedrock is fractured by tectonic and volcanic activity.
Searching for gold veins that exist as deposits in exposed rock formations above the ground usually mixed with formations of quartz.
Yes gold can be found in quartz.
This type of gold is highly desired in the mineral collecting community.
Gold bearing quartz veins blue ribbon mine alaska for this reason veins within hydrothermal gold deposits are no longer the exclusive target of mining and in some cases gold mineralisation is restricted entirely to the altered wall rocks within which entirely barren quartz veins are hosted.
Normally even good rich gold ore has no gold metal which is visible to the naked eye.
When gold is still encased in quartz rock it is called a gold specimen.
In most gold ore the gold is present in tiny specs either within minerals like pyrite or spread out free among the quartz.
In epithermal gold deposits it is quite common for sizable gold veins to run through quartz rock and these specimens can be located using a quality metal detector.
This chunk of vein quartz from mariposa is typical of gold quartz material from the mother lode district of california.
Remember the specific gravity of quartz is 2 65 times heavier than water whereas pure.
The geologic concepts and indications that are the most important for finding gold vary from location to location.
Hard rock mining also known as lode mining is obviously the best method for finding gold specimens since you are mining the true source of the gold by following veins of high grade ore into the mountain.
Gold and quartz specimens.
Outcrops of quartz vein matter among slabby slate rock as pictured here is a fine geologic indicator that gold could be found nearby.
In some cases you may be able to see small masses of gold within quartz but much of it is invisible to the naked eye.
This ore shows considerable bright and visible metallic gold disbursed through the quartz vein gold ore.
25 perched gravel benches along gold bearing streams.
This page is dedicated to the gold that s still attached to quartz or a host rock.
It nestles in the veins lines or cracks in quartz and will appear as small particles or scales.
