Monday 21 April 2014

◊ ♦ ◊( Gold in madoc ) ◊ ♦ ◊ 金 Theres gold in them there hills!! 金

Location is secret, the stash is plenty, the element is in question. Is it gold flake on this quartz or some form of pyrite? I believe its gold....well, I'm hoping its gold. If its true, this might mean there is more in this little off road area, tucked away in a place never mined before.
As you can see, the pieces were substantially large in some areas. Compared to my hammer, it's a decent sized specimen.
This is probably my favourite of the bunch, it glows a shimmering gold colour in any light. from front to back its got showings of gold.
Uraninite? combination specimen
(If anyone can help me with this I would appreciate it) 
There is quartz on the bottom with what appears to be a layer of pyrite followed by these black crystals BUT WAIT!! to the left of those crystals/gems is a tiny piece of galena. I need to take a better photo as my iphone just wasnt getting a good shot. but its quite easy to tell in person that its galena, so, that leaves me with these mystery crystals/gems. all in all, 4 elements on one matrix makes me one happy hiker.

Is the black mineral uraninite?
 Another shot, still cant see the galena but it gives a better showing of the quartz.
 any ideas? shale with iron staining?
 Its seems to have pyrite on some samples.

 schist?
View of everything collected in Madoc trip. Large batch of gold covered quartz separated into two categories, quartz with visible gold on/in it, and D grade gold quartz, barely visible with gold but from the same area.

 Another large quartz with gold wrapping around it.
 This is the last of the large gold covered quartz, WOW, what a looker.
 One more shot of the mammoth quartz gold rock.
 Found this in my backyard, It seems to have many fossils in it.


There seems to be three different fossils embedded that I can see so far.



Sunday 20 April 2014

Rockhound's dream wall. ( moving to the country!! )

We've moved! and let me tell you, eastern Ontario is AMAZING. The people are friendly, the driving is open and free, there is wild life galore, ( moose, bear, beaver, loon, woodpeckers, even wolves). The police are more relaxed THANK HEAVENS. The farm dogs wander the roads saying hello, and the barn kittens come and go as they please. If I had known it was this beautiful here, I would have moved a long time ago, it feels like what Canada is suppose to be like, a little bit country, and a little bit city. The opportunities for outdoor activities are endless here, and since We're now near the township of Stirling -Rawdon, its easy for us to commute to the Madoc/Bancroft area for the day and see what rocks and minerals We can find.
( I FOUND GOLD! another blog on this later.)

One of the perks of this move was the Mineral and stone wall greeting you at the front of an old 100 acre 1850's farmstead.
A ROCK HOUNDS DREAM WALL 
The amount of gems/minerals/rocks in here was impressive, I'm no geologist/gemologist but it looks to be worth quite a few dollars.

( if someone out there has a clue, feel free to chime in on some of these specimens)





 This looks to be a ruby that someone has hacked at,

 This looks like azurite in quartz matrix?
 Maybe azurite calcite?
From my tests I believe its pyrite, but the matrix its in I do not know, either quartz or calcite
(Im learning, bear with me).
ʕ•͡ᴥ•ʔ



Calcite?
 Calcite right?

 Very metallic, non magnetic.

Its either pyrotite or magnetite but something is heavily magnetic. Right at the corner where the gold colour is, I can stick a magnet of any weakness.
( which I should have done for this picture but now its dark, maybe later)

Rose quartz?

 Its hard to pick up but all those little flake like dots are all a metallic silver colour. Quartz?
 Major iron rust in quartz.
Rock wall full of gems /minerals

Rockhound dream wall

Gemology

Almost looks like that hooked X,


 Azurite

Its amazing how spread out this group is, Im way in the country and all of a sudden I see this building driving down the road.