Gold

Van,
Thanks for the tidbits. They will eventually be incorporated into the article.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Rock,

It is possible that the old gold mines at Lykling, Bømlo, Norway ( [www.mindat.org]) should be included in this article. Active mining for gold took place in the period 1882-1910 and some 140kgs of gold where extracted. In the 1980-ties and 90-ties the the mines where worked for specimens.

The best specimen from here is probably a gold in quartz specimen at the Geological museum in Oslo, containing 670g gold (see [www.kjemi.uio.no]), also Bømlo municipality has a nice specimen ( [www.bomlo.net]. )Norwegian museums and private collections undoubtably has some nice specimens from here.

The gold are hydrothermal in origin, and are found in quartz with pyrite and chalkopyrite in a gabbro host rock penetrated by diabase gangues.

Olav

Olav,
Could you arrange to have those images uploaded to mindat? If so, I think they would fit nicely in Best Minerals.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Rock,
I have just had the time to read some of the best minerals articles. You have made a very nice one about gold!
As for your comments on the Emperor mine in Fiji, I can probably present some corrections/additions. I may be one of the very few collectors who have visited this mine 15 years ago and was very friendly received by the mine geologist. I have also seen nice specimens of gold ( in part also as wire-gold) found there in collections in Australia. During a long history of mining local "nests" of very rich tellurides and native gold have been encountered. But I do not believe as you suggest that these may have been highgraded and melted by the local miners. I was told that gold had no place in the local culture and the deposits were not exploited before the mining company arrived. To avoid any highgrading, they had a special team which was called upon when such a rich areas of gold ore was encountered. The ore - including what must have been also very good crystallized gold and tellurides - was sealed in special bags to be brought directly to a special safe before processing. I tried to encourage the company to save some good specimens of gold and tellurides for a future mining museum in Fiji and to keep also some lesser specimens that could be sold to the collectors market to finance such a museum. A few yerrs ago a former mining geologist brought a few nice specimens with crystals of Sylvanite and native Tellurium to the market. Except for that very few speciemsn of gold or tellurides have been available from the Emperor mine.
Knut

Knut,
Would you be willing to write up your experiences at the Emperor mine at Vatacola along with something about your experiences with specimens from there? Any chance you could come up with some better pictures? I know that mine must have produced some great things during its time. The bit about telurides being roasted on the side by miners/merchants was just speculation on my part based on what I have heard and read about mining camps like cripple creek. I did not know about gold having no place in the local culture. At any rate I suspect that if any of this was done that it would have been funneled through the local Indian merchants that see so well entrenched in Fiji. Is the mine still working? Yours is exactly the kind of knowledge that we are trying to capture here in best minerals. The pictures are nice, but the text is what will bring them to life. I want this to be much more than just another picture gallery.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Rock,

I noticed that one gold specimen is listed twice from different locations:

1) Joe Freilich photo: [www.mindat.org]
2) The same specimen on one of your photos: [www.mindat.org]

For direct comparison, I turned one of the photos upside down (turning the eagle into an alien).

Which is the correct locality?

I don't know.

Great job!
I think that Round Mountain should be better represented in this text - I think that this is locality which produced one of the world best (or the best) crystallized golds. Unfortunately there is not a lot of pictures of gold from this locality at MinDat. I just added one from our collection - this is not a really top piece – good ones are too expensive :(




Tom

-------------------------------------
"Spirifer" Geological Society

I found myself reading this article and as i was looking through the photos, i found one which i instantly recognised as one of mine, and it has made me very pleased that you chose my gold from gold crown mine cue australia to appear in your fine article.
It has been a dream to have a photo published, ok so it's not the same as having a photo published in a book, but its probably as near as I will get, so thank you, for the excellent article and for choosing my pic.
I have found out from clicking on the link to that location the mine was opened in 1986 and is now exhausted, well relinquished is the exact word used but I think it means the same!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2010 11:21PM by Jason Evans.

Peter,
Thanks for your eagle eye. But I hate it when that happens. I think I have got it sorted out now. Have for the time being deep sixed the Placer county entry and gone with the older picture, the one I took when Dave Wilber had it before Joe got it. However which is correct is probably lost. Finding the correct locality for gold specimens and gem minerals is like trying to locate moonshiner's stills.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Thomas. Yes that specimen you brought to our attention is worthy of inclusions in our Round Mountain section and I have added it. Thanks.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Jason,
Can you give us some information about the mine, its geology and how many specimens it produced or any other interesting information about the place?

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

I took the liberty of replacing Lavinsky's Barite photo with the intended Au photo and added a Round Mountain photo with a comment on what little I know about that find. I hope that is OK, feel free to edit.

OK Rob, Im sure it was for the best.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Thanks for tweaking it, Rock. I added another sentence to the Round Mtn paragraph that corrects the Min Rec What's New account posted at their site. (Electrum is ~60% Au and not ~80%) and wrote what I know about the Trestia, Romania deposit. Any edits welcome.

Thanks Rob, It all helps.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

Great article on gold specimins around the world. I've attached a 2.2oz sample I found in Washington state this year. It appears to have formed between a contact zone of the darker grey material (black shale?) and something that looks like a sandstone or ash (lighter brown material) with wire gold runing through the black material.

I had a gold claim in The Cherokee National Forest, The Tellico Ranger District in Tellico, TN., on The Tellico River but I did not have time to mine it before the claim expired. Has anyone searched for gold in that area and if so were you successful? I never read any articles about gold found recently in Georgia or Tennessee but I know at one time it was there. Just curious.

Ronald,
I would be best to put such questions as yours in the Collecting forum. There may be people who frequent that forum that can help you.

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.