What Does Real Gold Look Like In Rock

As an amateur you can test a rock for gold in several ways.

What does real gold look like in rock. September 2017 by chris ralph. How to recognize hard rock gold ores. I am using a light source to show the difference between gold which shines and pyrite which sparkles. Gold feels heavy like a lead fishing weight when you hold a placer nugget in the palm of your hand.

However weight alone is not enough to identify real gold in a rock. A copper penny and a tiny gold nugget on a black streak plate with a small streak made by the nugget. How does gold look like in rocks. The tiny nugget weighs 0 0035 troy ounce and at a gold price of 1200 ozt the nugget if it were pure gold would have a gold value of 4 20.

Natural gold looks like gold it looks like jewelry it s a buttery yellow color and it s soft looking. The copper penny is in the photo to serve as a scale. Fool s gold can be mistaken for placer gold gold found as rounded or flat nuggets in dry and wet stream beds and rivers or creeks because they both look golden. This very large nugget gold specimen contains significant quartz and is from alaska.

Only a very small percentage of the gold occurs in visible pieces like this. I regularly get inquiries along the line of. Fool s gold and other minerals that look like gold will not produce a weight difference between the pieces of quartz. The gold is formed in a mossy crystalline pattern on the surface of the rock.

Everyone knows what gold looks like but raw gold as it has formed in the natural environment is very different than gold that has been melted and refined. If you look at this picture you will see a gold ring next a couple of different kinds of gold naturally occurring in their rock. But real gold stays bright even when out of direct sunlight and though soft does not fall apart when you touch it like fool s gold can. The first is that gold in rock usually has a corner flat face or a straight edge.

Real gold will still maintain a diluted glow though not as bright as it would be if in full sunlight. Look at how the gold reflects light. There are several key indices. Fool s gold tends to be bright and shiny much shinier than actual gold.

Fool s gold is glittery and bright but if you shade it in your hand it will become dull and drab looking. How can i tell prospectors are always on the lookout for gold bearing rocks that may be the source of any nearby placer gold. The bulk of the ore which comes from his mine produces gold only in tiny microscopic particles. Hey i found this rock and i think it might be gold ore.

Real gold weighs about 1 5 times more than fool s gold or iron pyrite.