Newbie needs help from diamond prospectors, Haven't been able to find someone to positively identify |
Newbie needs help from diamond prospectors, Haven't been able to find someone to positively identify |
Aug 8 2015, 08:07 PM
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Diggin' In! Group: Members Posts: 16 Joined: 8-August 15 Member No.: 121,288 |
Okay, to start off with, this is my first post, here. I'm not from Colorado, and neither are the minerals I'm asking for help with. I hope that's not a rules violation. To make a long story short I was doing some gold prospecting in NE Illinois. Yes, Illinois. In with my black sands, which turned out to have some gold, but not enough to mess with, I found these:
After doing a little research, they look to be pyrope, I think. Let me know if you disagree. Then I found a few rocks like this: So, I extracted a bunch of the small crystals. Which look like this: A lot of them still have a bit of the host rock still stuck to them, but, as is, I did a Specific Gravity test and came up with between 3.1 and 3.2 with less than lab-grade equipment. I'm working on cleaning them up some more & when completed in a day or so, will redo my SG test. I also did check the SG of the host rock and that came back at 2.5. My guess is that the cleaning will raise SG to 3.5, or so. The way I did my SG test was to weigh out a sample, then put them into a graduated cylinder half full of water to see how much water was displaced. Using water I had a bit of a problem with air bubbles that just were a bear to get rid of. Would it be better to use a light oil when I rerun my test? I've also subjected them to scratch tests up to mohs 8 (beryl). I don't have any corundum to check further, unfortunately. I've also soaked them in strong, hot acids, and also in lye, none of which has any affect on them. The only thing I've done that had an adverse affect was to heat a couple of them over an open, natural gas flame, 'til they were red-hot, which turned them an opaque white. I've taken these to jewelry shops, rock shops, and a lapidary museum. So far, no one has been able to positively identify these crystals. |
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Aug 13 2017, 12:41 AM
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#2
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Shovel Buster! Group: Members Posts: 107 Joined: 23-September 14 Member No.: 118,169 |
Not all Whink is created equal.
Only the brown bottle Rust Stain Remover has Hydroflouric Acid. Their other products will not work. Whink Rust Stain Remover has a very weak Hydroflouric Acid solution (1-2%) so it may take a while to see any effect. |
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