What purity is natural gold? Is it always or nearly always the same? Natural gold is NEVER pure
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- čas přidán 7. 10. 2022
- What purity is natural gold? Is it always or nearly always the same? Can the color tell you what you want to know? What color is gold? Natural gold is NEVER pure and this why it varies a lot in color - even nuggets of about the same color can vary a good bit in purity. The natural silver rich gold alloy known as electrum occurs when silver is present in the ores in large amounts. Many miners will over estimate the purity of the gold they mine - so lets look at how pure natural gold really is.
For those who want to learn more about Prospecting and finding gold check out my book, Fists full of Gold. It’s an encyclopedia of everything on the topic of prospecting. It’s available on from High Plans Prospectors. (Affiliate) You can find it at:
highplainsprospectors.com/pro...
For even more information on prospecting, minerals, gems and other related information you can also check out my website at:
nevada-outback-gems.com/prospe...
The Prospecting and Mining Journal magazine can be found at:
www.icmj.com - Jak na to + styl
This is an awesome video for young aspiring prospectors like me. I have autism and I look up to you all the time. I get worried that big companies near me have found all the gold in Maine near me.m, but I won't give up my dream. :) You rock. I'm saving up for your book for my birthday. I hope I can get it :)
Glad you enjoyed it! There are not big companies working for gold in Maine.
@@ChrisRalphwow good to know! thanks for replying to me ! :) I really enjoy learning lots of new things from your videos
I held a 913 gram nugget today😮. Found at Nullagine in Western Australia. Not sure of the purity, but it was very heavy for its size. Not really relevant to todays video but I had to tell someone. Lol. 🙃
Nice. Found recently?
A guy found one weighing over 1.3kg right near my property in Queensland not long ago. They're still around.
Sounds great.
I enjoyed this episode of gold is never pure.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hot show! Loved the new energy. Thanks for your ore knowledge and thoughts. Valuable information of the Tellurides and fancy nuggets.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome video Chris in-depth easy to understand content! Your an educator and a super communicator! I found a couple tiny flakes today it’s so relaxing to pan! Dan Brent
Sounds great. Thanks for sharing!
Love your videos Chris! I met you at the gold show in Tucson about 10 years ago, I would guess. I've been watching ever since you told me about them. Take care!
Wow, thanks!
Great video one of your best !!!!!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. 😉
Good video as usual. Very good information for non-geologists prospectors.
Thanks Steve.
Thank you so much for the dissertation Mr. Ralph. Told a certain individual gold out of Boise was 8 something fine. He said, "No, no, all American gold is over 90." I think the USGS is pretty accurate compared to Bob and Joe. Way to stay empirical too. I love the insight from your other video: "Gold is so durable it will make its way through a drainage system multiple times." There's a lot more fine gold than nuggets.
Yep, I agree. Lots more fine sized gold than large.
Great content as always, thanks
Glad you enjoyed it
Great video!!!! ( I'm saving this one!)👍🤠🎧⚒️⛏️....Thank you for doing this!!!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I am impressed with how well you teach. Regardless of the subject you are focusing on, you have a natural ability to make your videos, interesting and easy to understand. Adding in your personal experiences and sharing stories grabs the attention of your audience. You are doing a wonderful job. Thank you for all the information you are teaching me. I feel confident I am not learning from someone that is not educated. Again Thank you
Wow, thank you! Got lots more on the way. A new video on crystal formation drops tomorrow.
I love the nugget with the sep gold and silver with copper! Beautiful!,
Glad you liked it.
Just came over and subd from Stoney Creek sparkchaser's channel. I look forward to checking out your channel
Thanks for coming and welcome aboard.
Good video. I always wondered about purity.
Glad it was helpful!
Nice work sir👍
Thanks 👍
I really enjoy your videos and your book is Awesome.
Glad you like them!
Hi Chris, awesome video. I have a slab of silver that came from a friend of mine in B.C and in the silver, there is a little bit of gold. But it's mostly silver, and it has other things in it too.
I hope you have a awesome blessed day.
Cya! 😺🐟 out!
Sounds great!
Great tutorial!
Keep those videos coming!💯🇺🇲⚒️
Thanks! Will do! Glad it was helpful.
Thanks u so much for this video Chris Ralph. So many people have no idea what natural gold even looks or that it can look many different ways. I showed someone a nice crystalline gold nugget and he got mad at me saying he thought it was fossilized poop.
I have a full video on crystalline gold - take a look at: czcams.com/video/5TOW8NyBGMg/video.html
Went prospecting all day in Northeastern NV. Found a lot of copper. Very pretty blues and greens. Lots of sparkles with gold, silver and iron? Many chrystals and zinc.
I really don't know what I am looking for. Tailings is what I concentrated on. The different colors of rock right next to each other. You gave me new clues. Old mines all over here.. folks say it is only micro gold. I am not sure.
Watch my video on Nevada gold - there is both coarser nuggets and fine micro gold in northern Nevada.
I want to thank you for all your information that you have given me I stated rockhounding about a year ago .and I have been going to Tonopah arizona, (saddle mountain). I have found so many different types of rocks all colors. I I'm cleaning them and as I go along >I now have these beautiful. Gorgeous rocks ,haven't had any luck finding gold or silver yet .but with what I have learned from you I truly belive I will thank you do much .rockhound from Buckeye Az.
You are so welcome
Nice video sir 👍
So nice of you
I think most gold at the formation point is crystalline and after it is eroded out of its' deposit it gets beat up and pounded by its travel down hill into a nugget.
Yep. I agree.
Excellent.
Many thanks!
❤I love your video my home town Sabah have gold I like to share video
I love the book you recommend
Sorry - I get quite a few people every day who want me to ID their rock and mineral photos or videos. I do not offer a mineral ID service, mostly because it’s not as easy as you think. Usually, minerals cannot be identified from just a picture. Please watch my videos on how to Identify minerals for yourself. Part 1 can be found here: czcams.com/video/MpkW58ZeQlc/video.html and Part 2 can be found here: czcams.com/video/zOWo49X90gA/video.html and Part 3 can be found here: czcams.com/video/_ab5NngRlVw/video.html
I just want to say thank you for your video. And your independent Research on different types of gold ore the Different structures ex ex.you don't find that in or on 2 many sites.
Glad it was helpful!
Hi Chris.
Your face pulling reminds me of a female actor Joan Cusack playing the roll as the headmaster in a public school from the movie Shool of Rock.
I'm enjoying watching all your lectures on all these topics.
Just wondering is there a device that can analyse all types of mineral commensurts.
Yes, but it costs about $50,000 USD
Around here the gold is usually around 90% pure, with a silver content of around 10 %. It is a bright yellow gold, when found in nature. However if you go to the mining shops and pan, you will find dull colored gold because they place gold from jewelry in it for you to find, so it's not pure gold but it excites people when they find it.
Got any actual tests to prove it or just someone told you that?
@@ChrisRalph Yes it was tested, 89% gold 11% silver, we also had core sample on the area done by Clemson and they estimated there was 340 billon dollars worth of gold there.
I used to work in a gold mine.
OK.
tell em as the gold washes down the rocks ,sand mash bits off smoothing the nuggets. and pieces in to flour gold ,sanding off from the vein. this is a great video. didnt know about silver leaching out. be in barstow ca oct 22 slash x cafe amra outing minelab will be there. go look for gold. have a good day.
Good luck with your detecting.
@@ChrisRalph yup understanding the land helps too ,and having google earth on the phone type in the coordinates look around. have a good day boss
Talking about rust on gold, I have a new mine I'm starting that has a bunch of that.
The dirt I'm digging is upwards to a third of magnetics, lots of it contains iron.
Gold is often associated with pyrite - which turns to rust on exposure to air and water.
@@ChrisRalphSome chalcopyrite contains around 1% Gold
I'm metal detect for gold out here in Arizona's Gold basin. I had a jeweler check mine with look like a ray gun showing 22 karat gold. How does the carrot compare to purity? I subscribed maybe you've already answered this in other videos. I did not realize Silver would Leach out of gold. Thanks for the information I'll watch some of your other videos.
24 Karat is pure gold. 18 Karat is 75% pure, 12 Karat is 50% pure.
@@ChrisRalph I know 24 karat is pure gold not likely to find it in nature. But 22 karat wouldn't that be somewhere in the high 80s as far as purity? Thank you for responding I sent you another comment on a video you posted you have some excellent information.
In South Dakota, can you find gold that appears silver then? Lots of high volcanic activity here. Just don’t want to throw gold away, thinking that it doesn’t appear “gold”
I dont know the particulars of South Dakota / Black Hills.
Thanks for the timely information Chris I found a lot of white metal in galena that turns out to be gold on my AuRacle AGT1 PLus
electronic Gold and platinum tester that says it is gold and what K and it tells you platinum 2 kinds. what I thought was platinum turns out to br gold with the new pen I had to buy for it because I left the pen cap off it.If it was not for your bookI would be bored and drinking now.
Glad to help
I always wondered what our fineness was in and around the El Paso’s and then also Randsburg. I know those two bodies are two different sources of gold. In one of Straight’s books he had stated he had information that the gold in the El Paso’s around Goler was 775 which led the old timers to believe the gold was sourced from the north in Inyo County…. Potentially Blue Lead?
We think now the gold associated with Rand and it’s schist/Jupiter granite body is different and is approx 70ma old and intruded up. Supposedly the west slope downhill between Rand and Goler was actually from Atolia…. So trippy to think how it moved considering the way the environment looks now.
I tend to think that the El Paso’s (greater Red Rock area was a River delta before it was changed by local volcanism later in geo time.
Interesting video Chris! Lol be the content my dood! Keep up the great work!
There are little quartz veins all through the Randsberg / Atolia area, and that is where I think the gold came from - locally.
@@ChrisRalph Ha, you already gave me a post so don't bother if you see this Dr. Ralph, but what do you mean? Are these just "orogenic" deposits, or something so exotic as the poster is describing? I cannot understand if it's roof pendants or what. A river? Well, gold is where you find it, they say. It sounds as though OP believes the source of hardrock gold is subject to physical controls similar to placer. For all I know that may be, but I think chemistry and time have a lot to do with lode deposition. 70ma puts us well outside the quaternary, which maybe is good and possible for SoCal, who knows? 🤷♂️ Thanks for all you do.
The Randsburg area deposits are orogenic.
Is there any place near to look for placer gold nearby Chicago? The only gold I've found is in rings.
Yes, watch my video on Midwest gold. see: czcams.com/video/lJoRt5Un9SE/video.html
When I panted out that it's it's heavier than the iron and it's very heavy actually and if it doesn't tarnish it sparkles and shines like
Hard to say what it is without seeing it in person.
Federal Judge Wickersham gathered gold tea spoons from mines around Alaska while he was settling gold claims during the Alaska gold rush. Each spoon has its own color. I saw his collection in his home in Juneau, after his death, when his daughter was running home tours.
interesting.
Chris if there is an area that has mercury. Would the silver separate from the gold?
Areas with mercury do not necessarily have any silver or gold.
Wow!
Glad you enjoyed the video.
You know I would be interested in just what goes into an assay ( hope that spelled right ). But how do you do an assay say for yourself , if possible.
Funny you should ask because I have a video coming out in a few weeks on how to do a home assay.
I've watched the E-scrap videos on CZcams and my question for you is when they refine it through chemical processes they end up with brown powder that they smelt into gold, does gold occur as this brown powder in nature?
Yes, but its not something you could see or collect. What you are seeing is just a very finely divided gold powder with particles the size of dust. Dust size particles of gold exist in nature, but you need cyanide to dissolve it and then collect it.
@@ChrisRalph Kinda leaves you with this "is it rust or is it gold dust feeling?" when looking at different ore samples... even with my portable microscope I'm not sure sometimes...
I can't find any gold that's not amalgam these days it seems. I'm in Georgia and as soon as I get rid of all the mercury I'm gonna make a button and test the purity with an XRF but they say it's almost 24k here.
You are saying just what I said - lots of prospectors over estimate the purity of their gold. The "they" who say its 24 k are wrong.
@@ChrisRalph I figured they were exaggerating which is why I'm going to have it assayed. In this case the "they" is the wikipedia page for "Georgia Gold Belt" They claim world's purest gold here and we're gonna find out soon enough. I'll share the results with you.
@@ChrisRalph I just got my assay results back on my Georgia gold. 21.74k. 90.58%AU, 5.6%AG, .905% RH, 1.21%FE, .895%Pb.
Was reading some austrailian circa 1900 papers and the belief at the time that desolved gold atoms in streams may deposit grow around carbon "seeds". Guessing I beleive you but truth is often disappointing. What are your thoughts on gold found with a bit of magnatite or carbon within them? Also read an Alaskan study that would run black sand tailings for 6 or 7 minutes in a rod mill. At about 80 rpm . Idea being the brittle iron magnitite would fracture while gold would be flattened then when saved the waste would fall through and the gold caught.? Lastly I had a speck in the pan not sure if mica or gold so I pushed on it with fingernail and it squished into a foil 1/16 wide by 3/16 inch long. A chat I told this t o doubts gold would be that soft but as I said it seemed to have become a foil and just fluttered away. Am I crazy? Thankyou for your thoughts
Most back sand from placer operations still has fine gold in it because sluice boxes are not 100% efficient. It was Aussie scientists who proved gold grows at high temps, not in streams at ambient normal temps.
I have a nugget that looks melted from heat rather than waterworn, is it possible to have a nugget from an epithermal source that comes out of the vein in a melted looking state rather than jagged?
Some nuggets come out of a vein looking water worn, but never melted. The vein formation temperatures are nowhere near that hot. If its really melted, it must be something else besides a natural nugget.
@@ChrisRalph thats intriguing, i wonder if it was a pour gone wrong from roman times, the way i found it too, just sitting at the side of a waterfall sun baking.
You need to go check out Dave at Gold Bay
And go and check out his gold specimens they are gorgeous nuggets
Dave is a long time friend.
Chris thanks for a very interesting discussion on gold purity as it pertains to gold deposit formation. An interesting 9 gram nugget i have in my collection has a pinkish hue and was found in a high sulfide gold deposit lying adjacent to a magmatic Arizona Copper deposit. Also thanks for debunking the concept that gold nuggets grow in stream gravels. 😄 🤣
Could be that the nugget had some extra copper.
@@ChrisRalph Chris a week or so ago you had a guy from Osisko Gold tell you to check out the info on his website as your discussion pertained to gold tellurides. Please check out that geologic model. Your right the pink is copper!
Hi chris can diamonds or cristals grow like a tree under the ground.....?
Crystals do grow deep in the earth.
Can you please help me identify some crystals I keep finding on this island. I can't figure out if it's citrine or topaz.... Please please help. I'll send pictures
I have about 10 pounds
Please watch my videos on how to identify minerals. It's almost impossible to ID them from just pictures so I don't offer a photo ID service.
Could you show some examples of gold ore in volcanic rock ?
Take a look at my video on Goldfield, Nevada and Tonopah Nevada - those are all hosted in volcanic rocks.
@@ChrisRalph will do , thank you
Hello sir..
I wont ask..in copper nuget have a gold ?
Thx sir
I wont answer. Definitely maybe.
I jus adore you!! I finally got a metal detector
Best of luck to you.
Thank you..u truly inspire me
Does natural gold ever form with more valuable metals?
On rare occasion, gold forms a natural alloy with palladium. Currently palladium is more valuable per ounce than gold.
Does that mean you can leach silver out of gold with artificial oxygenated water?
If you are willing to take 50,000 years to accomplish it and not worrying that the silver removal is only skin deep, then yes.
Lol thanks, I was thinking like bubbler for fish tank with rich medical oxygen
Btw ever been prospecting in WNC? Lots where I live just hard to tell from mica sometimes. Advice for cheapest detector that works affiliate link?
Natural gold is a minimum of 24 kt. Refined gold generally has manmade impurity's added to it.
You don't know what you are talking about.
Sorry you feel that way Chris. How so? Please help me out. thanks . Did I miss a important video of yours?
@@ChrisRalph
You should watch the video you commented on. Natural gold is never pure. 24 KT is the maximum purity of refined gold - it means the gold is 100 percent pure. It is not a mimimum purity of gold. Refined gold products like 14K gold have impurities added for strength so it can be used for jewelry. 24K pure gold is very soft and easily bent.
Thank you very much Chris for elaborating. My comment is vaque and perhaps misleading. Others will say 99.9999 pure, and that gold is never 100% pure as we see embossed on gold bars. Meanwhile some others will go so far as to say this gold is 28 kt or 32 kt. seriously, LOL.. My first geology course was in 1973, So I do have a few clue's as to what I'm talking about, but still i love learning and I have mch more to learn. I love what you do and I love looking at other people's gold photo's and pictures. So I compare other people's gold finds to my gold finds. Metal detecting works the best for me..Super Rare Gold Nuggets is what I focus on the most for comparisons. So what I'm really looking for is rare gold beyond the crystalline structured beautifl gold. Thank You Again Chris. I have a couple of photo's on my face book page, you are welcome to prospect there for them if you are interested. My Fb page is censored and hacked as I'm politcally inclined. But I believe as far as i know my photo section is untouched. Best wishes. @@ChrisRalph
@@ChrisRalph Sorry Chris my first geology class was in 1973 grade A student at that. Did you mention 24 kt in the in this video i commented on? I can find error's in your statements in this video . I'm not that type of person however. My statement was a test. And your comment was uncalled for and incorreect., should i go on? I see you deleted a softer comment I previously made so.
Oh my God I died laughing when u said "I know it does! Old Joe told me it does!"
Hahahahah dude that's so true that's how people are. That's comedy.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Why is Crystalline gold worth more than washed over gold?
Collectors will pay a premium for it. Its not that the bullion value of the gold is greater.
@@ChrisRalph but it's harder to sale, We found one 1 pound nugget, that was said. to be worth a million dollars.
Talk to someone who sells high end mineral specimens. You wont get full retain but you will get a lot more than the bullion price.
Avg 18 to 22 kt natural
Most are in that range.
Isn’t that alchemy?
hi friend, this is personally my favorite channel I learn so so much in 21 with autism. He has so many videos regarding prospecting. He's so great
Not sure what you are saying is alchemy.
Wow!❤😢😅
Glad you enjoyed the video.
I just invented a gold growing machine. How many of you all want to invest ? 😂😂😂 . JUST KIDDING, JUST KIDDING. Or am I. 😂
Gold has to grow from something, most often gold.
Can someone please tell me why there are gold nuggets big and small in Australia, Canada and the United states but here in Vietnam I never heard or see gold nuggets even though there are lots of gold? Thank you.
Vietnam is small in area compared to Australia, Canada and the United states. No where does the right geology occur for nuggets.