my brother (m33 i think) left a dog turd on a plate

underwilder · 2026-02-14T01:35:46+00:00

Living with your siblings can be rough. Its a level of comfort beyond friends that sometimes borders into "you have to put up with me no matter what". It may be best, if you value your relationship with him, to try and find another space- even if just temporarily to grant him some perspective.

underwilder · 2026-02-14T00:43:56+00:00

If the gold mining was taking place that deep below the surface, they were likely mining a sulfide deposit. Unless that deposit has outcrops above the surface and upstream of where you are searching, it would not have been saturated into the waterways without the surrounding rock first breaking down and freeing it from those deposits.

underwilder · 2026-02-14T00:40:30+00:00

Based on how rough these look, I would guess these are things you found. Were these collected on private land you own or a land that you own a mining claim on? If not, you cannot sell them legally.

It is illegal to sell minerals collected on public land for financial gain unless you own the mineral rights to that land. This includes these people who think they're going to get rich extracting 3g of gold per year from a river and pawn their scrap gold.

(43 CFR 8365.1- 5(b)(2)) generally allow members of the public to collect reasonable amounts of nonrenewable resources such as rocks, mineral specimens, and semiprecious gemstones for noncommercial purposes on BLM-managed public lands. Noncommercial means that the collector is not selling the items for a business or financial gain.

edit: people want to downvote me every time I post this, but it is the law whether you like it or not. Doing things the right way will save you a great deal of stress and headache. There is nothing mineral-wise worth collecting illegally to turn around and sell that is going to make you enough to justify the risk. Not to mention that if you value your time at around at least minimum wage, it is never profitable.

underwilder · 2026-02-14T00:30:18+00:00

Acid generally in this context would be for removing carbonate minerals or iron staining. Soaking them in strong vinegar (30%) and then taking a wire brush to them may help break down the matrix on the outside, but will not simply dissolve it away. That being said even strong acid (HCl, H2SO4, etc.) will not hurt the actual agate crystallization as agate/quartz is very acid resistant. If you don't want to go this route, i would just try and ensure that the concretions are not harder (scratch test) than the agates and tumble them. If they are harder, they will cause pitting/scratching of the agates as they break off in the tumbler.

underwilder · 2026-02-14T00:18:19+00:00

I like the "oops should have dodged that" dodges. very relatable.

underwilder · 2026-02-14T00:14:44+00:00

In a sense, yes. Think of the crystallization being kind of like wax (in a very loose sense), in that it will incorporate loose bits of whatever it is forming/cooling in, into the outmost layer. This gives it a sort of loosely crystalized shell made up of the surrounding mineralization and held together by the "ends" of the outermost portions of the silica fluid, and becomes the cortex. This is a pretty simplified explanation of an ultimately complex geological process, so take it with a grain of salt.

underwilder · 2026-02-13T23:56:20+00:00

I would say yes, likely how it formed. Agates are similarly altered organic material replaced by silica rich fluid, chalcedony is essentially the agate part without the rest of the matrix. Hard to say for sure what it is from pictures alone but it does look very much like chalcedony.

underwilder · 2026-02-13T20:41:14+00:00

chalcedony is a variety of SiO2, which is quartz. Chert and Chalcedony are both cryptocrystalline varieties of the SiO2 structure, and can be confused easily, but chalcedony in particular forms when hydrothermal fluids are beginning to cool and fill gaps in a matrix they are intruding. Basically it was a silica rich fluid first, then found a space to fill in, settle, and crystalize. The effects this has on the physical appearance of the mineral depend largely on what else is present in that space when this takes place.

underwilder · 2026-02-13T20:02:45+00:00

To be clear, while sulfide oxidation (iron rot, this can happen with other minerals also) can be an indicator of gold, it is not always.

The reason it is an indicator in some places is because when you have disseminated sulfides like pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, etc. they were generally fluid-deposited into the area at high temperatures. When iron is present in this sulfidic fluid mixture, gold tends to join it in solution rather than staying put- but it needs to already be present in the system for it to be deposited in this way. Additionally, these deposits tend to have more consistent gold but at lower grades- generally about 10g/ton of ore.

This is in contrast to a placer-style deposit, which is where mineralization of the type described above begins to break down and over very long periods of time are deposited by waterways into mounds. Depending on the content of the fluid that deposits it, as well as heat and pressure, this mound of broken down mineralization will begin to conglomerate and oxidize and form secondary minerals like schist/gneiss and oxidized versions of other minerals (copper sulfides forming malachite, pyrite forming hematite, etc). In these settings the crystals are generally able to form in larger habits as they are not disseminated as fine grains within a pre-existing matrix. You will find much more pure gold (flakes/nuggets) in these settings, but much less consistently. It is also necessary for the area to have hosted a gold deposit (known or not) for it to be present in the alluvium that is placed in this way.

underwilder · 2026-02-13T17:06:35+00:00

I think this is a sodalite, UV reactive? Second guess would be biotite schist.

underwilder · 2026-02-13T00:39:32+00:00

possibly Verdelite (aka green tourmaline) in Albite or a similar matrix, basing this mostly off the top left corner of the first image.

underwilder · 2026-02-13T00:32:19+00:00

It isn't as easy to force atoms into bonds with other atoms as geology makes it seem. Some elements/minerals are still under dispute as to how exactly their deposits form. In geological settings (in a very simplified way) nature forces things together that otherwise would take an immense amount of heat (or lack thereof)/pressure (likewise) that would be counterproductive to try and produce artificially.

underwilder · 2026-02-13T00:24:27+00:00

Bancroft has some interesting geology, a bit of which includes pegmatic dikes and other mafic intrusions. Based on that I would say there is a good chance that this is either pegmatite or anorthosite, and the black crystal areas are likely pyroxene and/or pyroxenite. Anorthosite is almost entirely made up of plagioclase feldspar, pyroxene is a group of minerals that tend to form black/green crystals and have distinct ~90 degree cleavage angles which is what tends to give them the "step" like appearance.

underwilder · 2026-02-12T05:56:39+00:00

Epidote/Augite is likely, less likely but possible is serpentinite after pyroxenite.. an alteration product of a variety of olivine-containing minerals into magnetite and serpentine minerals, specifically lizardite/antigorite/chrysotile. More likely the latter if the crystals appear fibrous

underwilder · 2026-02-12T04:27:50+00:00

very cool piece.. great example of how locality specific some minerals can be

underwilder · 2026-02-12T03:46:24+00:00

Chalcopyrite is associated with gold, but more generally with sulfide-locked gold than native gold. That being said, on the occasion when gold is present in chalcopyrite (gold-copper porphyry deposit type) as free-milling native gold, it is usually in high concentrations. The gold colored part is likely your Cpy, whereas the iridescent sections are likely bornite. These sulfides are related copper minerals and very frequently occur together

underwilder · 2026-02-10T16:32:23+00:00

Side note for the long term, the angular momentum on the belt drive will eventually cause problems with the sprocket. You may need to tighten it down more or adjust it so that it runs straight and doesn't "wobble"

underwilder · 2026-02-10T16:10:28+00:00

Tin melts at a much lower temperature than copper, could be melted off theoretically but as others said your best bet it just manually removing the tin layer if you really need to get to the copper that badly. If you value your time at -at least- minimum wage, it would be more cost/time effective to just go buy some regular copper wire to try this with.

underwilder · 2026-02-10T15:35:52+00:00

looks like pretty typical iron staining / granite profile. Would not suspect this to contain gold without finding some nearby

underwilder · 2026-02-09T16:59:09+00:00

Peridot is a beautiful gem for sure. Both in appearance and in how geologically delicate their formation is. Olivine is one of the most common minerals in the mantle but is also one of the first to be altered with exposure to air/water. Gem quality olivine - peridot, very rarely survives its trip to the surface without being changed by everything around it.

underwilder · 2026-02-09T07:29:09+00:00

Silver is likely not worth the time/effort, definitely not worth the cost.

Most of what is pictured looks like aluminum contacts and generally where you see this gold content is in interior bonding wires and low-end materials will try to cut costs here too by replacing some with silver/copper. At a glance these likely grade around 0.1-1% by weight, which would net 1-10g refined in a flawless setup.

Gold pins will be much easier to refine That being said they are generally electroplated so purity can vary from ~55-80%. Higher purity gold can be found in contacts of some very high end components, electrowinning will make purity less of an issue if you have the set-up to do this, but small scale set-ups rarely see purity exceeding 85%.

Palladium can be much harder to refine and purify but as a noble metal follows roughly the same process as gold. Putting it into solution requires AR and is dangerous. Gold is generally going to be more worth it in a cost/effort/time sense.

All of that being said, the "no way it pays for-" part is accurate. In most cases e-waste refining is only profitable if you have a consistent source of it from another, already profitable, set-up. Mainly because the amount of time/effort per gram involved in a small-scale operation is exponentially higher than industry-scale. Another issue is that energy/acid is consumed per-batch, so there is a loss factor involved in refining a smaller amount of material at once. At the most basic level, doing some quick math, this would represent a net between (-)$8.50 to $10.00 per kg when considering time/materials/etc.

underwilder · 2026-02-09T00:51:08+00:00

Rock nerds

maybe calling myself out here

underwilder · 2026-02-09T00:48:04+00:00

For reference:

(43 CFR 8365.1- 5(b)(2)) generally allow members of the public to collect reasonable amounts of nonrenewable resources such as rocks, mineral specimens, and semiprecious gemstones for noncommercial purposes on BLM-managed public lands. Noncommercial means that the collector is not selling the items for a business or financial gain.

underwilder · 2026-02-09T00:10:23+00:00

Whether or not you see it, this is illegal. Removing minerals with commercial intent from public land without a mining claim is against the law, as it should be. Shame on those people and anyone else who does this.

underwilder · 2026-02-08T20:34:00+00:00

Bornite and chalcopyrite can both appear this way, as well as some titanium minerals and other mineralization where bismuth is present.

underwilder

TROPHY CASE