New guy with a couple questions Options

[yakyakgoose]

Hi everyone, I figure I should introduce myself first. I just recently picked up official "rockhounding" as an active pursuit but have always dug around for fossils and stopped and looked at interesting rocks since I was a kid and wanted to know more and understand what I was looking at. Most of my other hobbies involve being outdoors deep in the mountains and I tend to run around off trail and find alot of interesting things which leads me to a couple questions I have. Ive discovered a couple places a while back that Id like to understand if they are of any significance and what they are.

So first one, I found a symbol for a mine on a topo map here in CO with no roads or trails that led to it so I decided to bushwack my way to it to find out what is was. On the way you could tell there was a road that had become overgrown that used to lead to the mine. There were also big chunks of quartz everywhere like they had fallen off of something moving down the road. When I get to the mine its a big open pit completely made of quartz. The floor and walls 3x as tall as me...all quartz. It seemed all cloudy and "Massive" form....I think thats the term? It seems obvious that they were mining this quartz but why? Is there anything of significance I could find here? I remember some very tight cracks that had something soft in it..but I couldnt tell if it was metallic or dirt. I just remember it was odd enough for me to remember here 3 years later. I think I also remember some of it having a pinkish hue.

Second one, only about a mile from the first location was a small creek that seemed to have substrate that was all black sand. There were also shiny specks in it that would swirl up like glitter if you agitated the water. I know since then that this heavy black sand is associated with gold..dont know why, and that the flakes were most likely pyrite or some other thing I cant remember.

I did a little research of the area today and found that there was one gold mine started in the area there that puttered out eventually and nothing much came of it.

[johnnybravo300]

In that area most of what I've found has been in or near pegmatites, amazonite and smokies. Lots of those there.
The best tool at your disposal to start with is reading material. To learn as much as possible about the area and whatever it is you're looking for can save time, money and much frustration. The most successful prospectors are usually the ones that are most educated in their trade. Luck plays a small part.
Hammering into that quartz will give you an education but probably not much else! Hehe
Watch out for mining claims and read read read.