jasong

Thought slag at first glance, but it appears to have some silicification occuring in the pore spaces. 2nd thought would be something volcanic, but zooming in I'm not sure about that either.

Looks more like something which had some mineral oxidize/erode out of it. Then water deposited that silicified/agate-y looking banded substance? Not sure what the rock itself is since it's so vuggy, porous, stained, and covered with secondary mineralization that it's hard to guess. 

Not sure if ore-type mineral, or something sedimentary. Could still be something volcanic too, with secondary mineralization. The geology of the area it was found in would probably lend clues.

I suspect an error in one of your tests. Describe your specific gravity testing methodology. Do you mean 10.5g/cc? There is no single mineral that meets the criteria of all your tests that I'm aware of if so. 

Despite being extremely rare, and even rarer yet in that size, it can't be sperrylite because it's streak is black/gray and that's a test that can't really be messed up, yours had no streak. It's also usually disseminated, or displays crystaline structure when not. Someone would almost certainly know what they had and where it came from (or was purchased for big $) if it was something like that too.

54g does seem heavy for the size it appears in the photo though. But I still suspect something, somewhere is wrong. I still think it's silicon. It lacks cleavage and crystalline structure, it's macro amorphous. It appears to lack oxidization. There isn't much else out there that meets the observable properties, at least not stuff that I wouldn't have to look up and figure out, which would be pretty rare and unlikely the original owner didn't know what it was, where it came from, or purchase it to begin with.

I've watched people try the Archimedes method with specific gravity tests and come up with 5x error due to bad measurements, math, or improper method. I would start with verifying that and then redo/verify other tests from there if 10.5g/cc is correct. 

Ever seen all the "broken down chip readers" on card machines in gas stations, etc that have a hand written note saying to scan your card because the chip reader is broken? After 3 credit card #'s getting stolen I got suspicious about those and started wondering how it is that so many chip readers seem to break down yet the swiper part magically never breaks.

It's because they don't. The easy to buy card skimmers work by taping over the existing swiper. The chip reader requires you to insert your card into the machine and it can't be faked without faking the entire machine. So they say the chip is broken and tell you to use the swiper instead, where you CC is stolen. 

Sure enough, I went back to the Loaf N Jug where I strongly suspected my last CC was stolen, and I used the chip reader despite the "broken sign". And lo and behold - it wasn't broken. 

It's these ones, here's a vid I found showing basically the same thing. I refuse to use any machine that says "broken chip reader" now. It's almost certainly employees stealing #'s. Something to be aware of today.

If there is no sulfur smell, no streak, and it can scratch glass then I'd say it's probably synthetic and likely to be silicon, google "silicon metal". It's not a real metal, it's a metalloid.

The fact that you said it conducts electricity "poorly" and was dense made me think galena since galena is a semiconductor. But pure silicon is actually a semiconductor too. And will conduct heat poorly as well. It's not particularly dense, but usually people say a rock/mineral is heavy when it's really about average density. 

Do a specific gravity test. Did it smell like sulfur when you drilled it? Hardness? Streak color?

I'd guess galena offhand but it seems to lack the typical cleavage planes, but you know how to do the basic tests to ID it, need those results otherwise it could be a lot of things based off the info/pics here. 

An RV is a game changer for that lifestyle, even a small lightweight one like 14-17ft. The shower/heat/ac/fridge/toilet make it so much more comfortable, especially since you are out working all day. You can get one for like $2500 down in AZ if you look around for deals. I can't remember what you are driving for tow capacity, but I had a Tacoma back then and it hauled a 20 footer ok in AZ/NV (2x leaf pack plus airbags). The Rockies passes were a bit tough, but doable. 

You are detecting a lot of the same places I spent time in when I was doing it full time. It's going to be a grind man. It was a grind 10 years ago and it was still possible to have 1-2 ounce days occasionally back then and find patches that could pay for a season of gas/food in one punch. Commerical mineral exploration (ie, extending outside of just gold) is the only feasible way I see to make a semi-comfortable living as a prospector today, and is the inevitable end game for anyone seriously trying to pursue field exploration as a job. Unless you own or have access to some primo land with an excavator to mine on. Just my view having spent the better part of 7 years doing the same thing, in the same places, and learning a lot from the experience. Might want to start expanding out from nugget detecting only, grab an RV, get good cell data and a computer, and start a mineral exploration business. You can make more with 1 good discovery you sell than 10 years of detecting.

*also wanted to say: yes NNV gold has a lot of silver. But find the right places and some of that gold sells for many times over spot, so it's actually worth more. GB/LB gold has horrible refinery returns, grab a good 20x loupe and look at some "solid slugs" of it and you'll see why. A lot of it has tiny grains of quartz imbedded all through it. More often with GB than LB, but seen it on both. It also has a lot of quartz/limonite inclusions in general. I sold almost all mine for spot or 5% under spot because the refinery returns were poor on it and it was easy to saturate the collector market demand. 

BTW, here is a piece of massive epidote from Wyoming. This one isn't water polished on the outside like your unknown sample is. This is a face cut on a rock saw. 

But it's very similar to what you have. I know this particular piece is epidote (and quartz+limonite, the "gold" bits) because I got it XRD'ed. 4 company geologists didn't believe me but I was positive, so I sent it to a lab on my own dime.  The company paid me back after the results came in. 

It looks pitch black. But flake a thin enough piece off and the very tips of the edges will will be dark spinach green under intense light. A cell phone flashlight isn't sufficient, it needs strong, direct light and a thin edge, I used a gemologist flashlight. 

These massive epidotes also have "imposter" cobbles that look identical via all macroscopic tests, still a mystery to me. They are something else...haven't XRD'ed them yet but they are some partially metamorphosed epidote, quartzite, or amphibole. Metamorphism can leave stuff as a total mishmash. This is why I say these sorts of cobbles can be mysteries forever unless you get a real XRD analysis, even XRF won't help. 

If your sample doesn't scratch with a knife (scratch the outside where it's polished a bit and not rotten), then I still think this is the most likely answer. But I'm not 100%. Maybe something else in the Epidote Group minerals (clinozoisite, etc)? Potentially serpentine/amphibole groups if scratches easily with a knife. 

There is also the somewhat less interesting option that it's just some kind of chert. But it's fracture is what led me away from that at first. 

If you want it specifically ID'ed, you'll need to send it to a lab that does XRD. Mineral Lab in Denver is one such place, might be one cheaper/closer to you, you'll have to look it up online. A university might do a thin section for you too, they could ID consituent minerals that way too. The local geology around Lake Erie makes almost no difference because much of the cobble in that part of North America came from the Canadian Shield via glaciers, from...who knows where. 

It doesn't look like shale or sandstone to me. Scratch it with a knife. What I really want to know is if it's harder than 4 but less than 5.5, unfortunately there aren't many common objects that you can use for that range. But I still think it's likely massive epidote (unless your photo is playing tricks with light, I can see dark spinach green), however if a knife scratches it, then it definitely isn't that.

Serpentine can look silicified/granular (it's an amphibole too like hornblende), and it can be close to jet black in some cases though it too often shows green under intense light and thin enough flake, but it's usually around a 4 or 4.5 hardness, I've seen up to 5 and as low as 3. 

That's one of those ambiguous, amporphous "whatsits". Even with some basic testing (streak, hardness, density) they can still be a handful of potential rocks/minerals and XRD analysis is often the only way to be certain. It's also clearly been polished by water, naturally. But from the photos it definitely looks like a silicate. It's crystalline. It's fairly fine grained and homogenous. It looks metamorphic to me, in other words it used to be something else. 

I think what you have is a massive form of epidote. Potentially with some quartz in it. See if you can knock a real thin flake off, or put the rock up to the sun/bright light and look at the edges - I'm guessing it's going to be a dark, spinach green. If it is, I can tell you exactly why I think it's a massive form of epidote. It's not very translucent, but with bright enough light and thin enough edge it should show green. 

My 2nd guess would be some kind of quartzite with iron or another metal in it lending dark coloration. My 3rd guess would be some kind of amphibole like hornblende. 4th guess would be magic meteorite with leprechaun inside. 

9 hours ago, Hard Prospector said:

Always had my doubts about these things for placer work. I mean; bed rock cracks, under boulders or just a quick pass through in screened material before it being sluiced or drywashed. Usually I reach for my trusty GB2 for such applications. Always thought the pin pointers are better left for the parks?  Perhaps I should be more open minded........?

For most of those applications, if you already have a GB2 out with you, my guess is it's probably better than a pinpointer with the exception of maybe very tight or hard to reach places. 

Pinpointers while detecting with a machine like the GPZ are useful, for me at least, because I can keep it strapped to my shoulder and easily access it, it's not very practical to keep a GB2 strapped to me and quickly deploy it too. If it were, I'd do that instead of a pinpointer. It'd also interfere with the GPZ a lot more. If you are just doing placer work, none of that is an issue. 

Whatever saves you time/work though. I save 5-10 minutes per hole with a pinpointer in places with lots of rock chiseling, or in places where I'm using a big coil and going really deep, and can dig a smaller hole using the pointer. In most those cases, I usually feel a GB2 would help better, but it's not really feasible to carry it around like a pinpointer can be. 

My initial thought would be "no", based on the layering there which seems to indicate sedimentary rock like a concretion and not a meteorite. I don't think chondrites have layers other than fusion crusts, and that outside layer appears too thick to be fusion crust it doesn't seem to have any indications of melting. The interior part looks more meteorite-y than the outer part but I'm not certain it would be possible for a meteorite to land on Earth and then acquire an outer shell of mineralization without the meteorite oxidizing to nothing first. 

I'd guess ironstone concretion based on that. But maybe a meteorite expert might have another idea. Also, could try filing a window into it, you will see chondrules and iron/nickel native metal if it's a meteorite. 

Not jade.

I own a few jade claims, here is some stuff from them so you have an idea what to look for if you are in the US. It's mostly black and dark green stuff here in Wyoming (and usually has a red/brown weathering rind on the outside), most people wouldn't recognize it. CA/WA jade might be different, Canadian jade is different too. But you get the general idea. 

Jet black nephrite from my claim, a chunk this size without fractures or flaws and zero inclusions is almost nonexistant these days, it may look unimpressive but in terms of scarcity it's probably my best material. This stuff is totally reddish brown on the outside, have to hit it with a sledge hammer to see black inside, which is the technique to prospect for it. 

Dark green nephrite with emerald colored nephrite inclusions from chromite, from another of my claims, something not really seen anywhere else here other than 1 other place, but you do see in Canadian nephrite.

 Larger medium to dark green stuff, has fractures but they are healed. This stuff also can be highly chatoyant (changes color/pattern as you move the stone in the light), but I can't really show it via a photo.

An outcrop on one of my claims after prying stuff apart, dog checking it out. 

Gold rushes come and go, and another one will come again. It's a certainty. The question is when...5 months, 5 years, 50 years, who knows. Nugget depletion is ongoing, but hasn't forever killed off gold detecting. $4000 gold and I'd go full time again, have to imagine there'd be some significant mobilization of prospectors in Africa, Latin America, Australia, and Russia too around those prices. Definitely a lot of areas to push with a dozer/excavator and detect still on top of that, which dollar for dollar actually can be more profitable than a full placer operation. The time for the pay pushes may come back again too, lots of people would love the chance to find 1-6 ounce nuggets again which they will never find on their own. 

Nokta has to have some kind of PI in the wings waiting for the right time to release. Gold can shoot up quick, and the time to prepare for such a move is yesterday, gotta be ready for release when the time is right, same with Minelab and the 8000 and I'm guessing they have some answer to Nokta's PI too if they need it. 

I have to laugh at the PF40 and Accupoint release so close, it's like 2 boxers waiting for one to throw the first punch so the other can look for a weakness and parry. 

Detector speaker making noise and keeping my ears open, plus having a dog, seems to keep everything at a distance from me aside from rattlers which I normally hear first or see later if not rattling.

Can't stand using headphones for this reason - makes me feel completely out of touch with the world around me and unsafe. Feel 100% safe using the speaker though. The only animal that has gotten really aggressive with me so far was an angry bull I somehow really pissed off and had to get up on a rock outcrop with my dog until it lost interest in us. There are some escaped ranch buffalo that have reportedly tried charging people in one area, they jump barbed wire so the rancher just gave up on them and they are more or less wild now, but they stay away from me I guess. 

Definitely a nice find and well formed, but when I first saw the link I thought someone found a 295 carat diamond out there and was truly stunned... 🙂

Agree with Geologyhound, looks like chert with a weathering rind most likely.

Sorta resembles a common opal nodule, these also tend to have outer rinds, but it's softer and will scratch with a knife. This would be the less likely scenario. 

Never want to get stuck way back in the boonies with a flat again? Kenda Bear Claw HTR's. Sidewall is so beefy I can run all 4 tires 100% flat and they still stand up tall and the bead stays on, long as I don't drive crazy anyways. It's an Arctic Cat Wildcat Trail, but I think about the same weight as the RZR 900's and Rangers. I don't even bother with taking a spare anymore, spare area holds 3 detectors and a pick now. 

Did the same with my ATV too after that. Right now I have zero air in my right rear and I've gone on 3 or 4 trips and forgotten to air it up and didn't realize until I got back home, then promptly forgot again next trip. 😁

If I had to take a pure guess, I'd say carborundum (silicon carbide). If so, it should scratch glass if you want to do a test. 

Something about that doesn't look natural to me. Either man made, or maybe it's a pseudomorph of something, probably hematite now, so a streak test would show that (assuming it doesn't scratch glass and isn't carborundum first). 

Interesting sample but you'd need to provide some more information - hardness, streak, density, etc. I'm getting a zeolite mineral feel from that photo - like natrolite, but those aren't exactly common, so it's hard to guess this, but it's my first thought looking at the photo. What area of Nova Scotia? 

An evaporite/carbonate (aragonite, calcite, etc) should react with acid, so that's worth a try. If heavy for it's size, maybe cerussite. And actually, I've seen plain old quartz form similarly and resemble a fibrous habit in really vuggy deposits, but I don't think that's what this is.

Looks like another ironstone type concretion, or something similar.

I've found some very similar before many years ago and I'm racking my brain trying to recall where.

Looks like specular hematite, aka specularite. It looks like a few other things too, but I'd guess that one first since it's commonly sold in rock shops and the others are less common.

Streak test would tell yes/no quick. 

Slag glass

I thought we were over the whole "rehash a 15 year old model" thing that killed of the US manufacturers? 😁The 5000 is like 13 years old now? Too little, too late IMO.

I feel like 10 years ago was the time for a $2000 lightweight PI to take the gold world by storm. If it weren't for relics/coins, I'd say it would be a nonstarter at this point. A 5000 in the flogged goldfields in the hand of a greenhorn is almost a surefire recipe for frustration/failure today, I no longer would recommend one to a new guy, and after them it's mostly just the guys with SDC/35/45/5000's looking to upgrade and that demographic is shrinking monthly. 

I think both the 5000 and 7000 platforms should be discontinued in terms of prospecting models as they are both fundamentally flawed platforms IMO and it's better to build something new instead. If they rehash the 5000, I hope they market it primarily as a coin/relic machine and don't count that one as a prospecting release. 

I can't imagine many 7000's are being sold these days, though I just made some dealer a sale on one to a guy who bought a claim from me, because there is nothing else comparable still. I haven't talked to anyone who bought a new 6000 for about 8 or 10 months now so I have to imagine those sales are declining now too. Seems like the value of both these models will be on a forever downward trend. 

I think Minelab should just release a lightweight 8000 with concentrics and undersell their own existing arguably obsolete product line, make one last machine that appeals to all active users. Price it at $5000 and get the 5000, 6000, 7000, and X Coils customers in on it. They can't be losing many sales on those older machines by doing it. Will it happen? Doubtful. But that's what I want to see, and I'd not shed a tear about the 5, 6, and 7 platforms going away totally. If they want to do a 5000-rehash for anything other than relic/coin customers, I think they'd be better off just using the 6000 platform and adding 5000-functionality in because a rehash is probably going to be chipped anyways so you can't use your old coils and gotta pay the piper in either case and might as well use modern electronics. 

I'm not going to win anyone over with this comment, but: the 5000 is an obsolete platform to me (Old electronics, old packaging), a cheaper, ergonomic 5000 would be a snoozer IMO. I guess there is still a market for the relic crowd though? I think that machine needs to die, everything about it is outdated. The idea that Nokta or Fisher might release a TDI/QED type detector similarly makes me cringe, no thanks, not in 2023.

I'd rather they just go with the 6000 platform instead now that the bugs are known and kill the 5000. Make a 6500 with a true manual mode and the ability to switch to a deeper 5000-like timing with no ultra-small gold sensitivity and where you can use larger coils so the deep nugget and relic crowds have use for it too. Using old coils would be nice, but it won't happen. Sale the 6000 down to $4000 and the 5000 at $2000 to have something to compete with the smaller companies with zero effort.

Similarly, the 7000 platform is IMO obsolete now too. Largely because of the physical package. An 8000 seems required there and not a 7500. And with that one, a ZVT/PI hybrid would be nice - if possible. Since the gold market is shrinking it could be used for the relic crowd too in PI mode for maximum depth. Concentrics would be an easy 20-40% depth gain on the ZVT side for marketing to chew on, and a lightweight package would probably be enough to convince many 7000 owners to switch if it wasn't over $8000, which is a crazy number but probably what it'd be if a 6500 was $6000. 

I just spent like 20 minutes trying to figure out if it was even legal to buy here, it's pretty grey, it appears to be so but hard to tell exactly. I'll pass for now myself until geopolitical issues change after reading this stuff, as there is a bit of an ethical issue as well for me personally even though we are just regular people and detectorists. I still think it looks pretty interesting though, nice job to the developers, and I'll pick one up when things change.

I have to laugh a bit at Garrett though. I know pinpointers tend to be a bit ho-hum, but they were at the top of the pinpointer game for ages and sat on it with no real innovation for a very long time - the same story as every US manufacturer with detectors. And they even have the TRX patents now (presumably?). But it seems small companies in other countries who have a bit of ambition can slowly overtake the behemoths. It's like the "Rabbit and the Hare" fable over and over watching US companies in action. Even Minelab fell asleep at the wheel and got beat in the coil race by X Coils, same fable down under.