Gold Ore for Prospecting Dummies

Native gold in a hydrothermal quartz vein

One of our staffers spent some time as a substitute teacher specializing in science, and she will tell you that "rocks and minerals" is a subject taught in almost every elementary school; usually in fourth or fifth grade. Which is one reason why we're confused that someone who says she graduated from one of the "Seven Sisters" doesn't know the difference between rocks and minerals. That is, sadly, the case with Claudia Newcorn, who visited "How to Identify Gold Rocks"¹ on Leaf Group's GoneOutdoors.com.

Newcorn opens her post by "informing" her readers that

"The fact is finding gold is (usually) a lot harder than it looks. And there’s plenty of fake gold if you don’t know what to look for."

Our staff geologist allows that she got the "harder" part right; except that it's always harder than it looks, otherwise gold wouldn't be far more than a thousand dollars an ounce. But what caught his eye was this "fake gold" bullpucky: WTF is that supposed to mean?

Well, reading further through Claudia's magnum opus suggests that she believes that minerals that seem to resemble gold when you're panning stream gravels (and only when you're panning) are "fake." Yup, according to Newcorn, once you've found that whoppin' big hunk of "rock," all you need to do is "test" to see if it's pyrite or mica. If the "rock" isn't pyrite or mica, then it must be gold, Claudia suggests (though it might be lead...). The utter stupidity of someone who's "fooled" by the "most prevalent of fool’s gold, pyrite" notwithstanding, Newcorn failed her assignment for a simple reason: she didn't answer the question. Remember, the OQ wanted to know "how to identify gold rocks." Gold isn't a "rock" and, for that matter, neither is pyrite nor mica: they're minerals and in mica's case, a group of minerals. As written, the question means "how do you identify gold-bearing ore"; although plenty of people are as ignorant as Newcorn.

Gold is most commonly found in native form, typically in hydrothermal veins rich in quartz. The rare minerals — and we do mean rare — with gold in their makeup are usually nondescript and, like native gold, found in quartz-rich hydrothermal veins. Newcorn's ignorance, sadly for the OQ, means that this Dumbass of the Day-style answer wasn't really an "answer" at all. [NOTE: Newcorn's "warnings" say that "Mercury is a known carcinogen." This statement is demonstrably false.]

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_4457619_identify-gold-rocks.html

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