Post by minerguy on May 30, 2013 20:43:59 GMT -5
Helio everybody, my first time here and first post.
You all have some cool stuff here!
Anyways, Im an amateur gold prospecter and I just came back from a weekloong dig on a claim.
I was digging into an ancient riverbed that was pushed all over the state when california was formed, before the sierra nevadas existed.
So while classifying and sluicing this ancient riverbed, we came across all kinds of weird rocks and stuff.
The material was about 8 feet of "overburden" on top of smooth bedrock, there were distinct layers of different river levels(?).
Some of the granite on the very bottom directly on top the bedrock was so rotten it would turn to sand right in your fingers.
The whole thing was compacted down to like cement, theres a name for that but it escapes me just now, and it would hold even several-ton-boulders in place with all the material removed underneath them.
It was amazing, and we found lots of gold, it made me a little sad to destroy something so timeless, but in the grand scheme of things we did very little damage to anything, and we found lotsa gold!
Back to the point tho.
I collected some very amazing rocks. At least they looked amazing when they were wet, now they all look like gray rocks.
I believe they are mostly granite in its various forms, but there are some other minerals in there like jaspers and colored quartzes and the normal things found in an ancient riverbed/alluvial gravels.
These rocks are all perfectly smoothed and rounded and the colors and designs and patterns when they were wet was amazing.
Thats what I want!
I want the color back.
I have never had any experience in rock polishing, but I have been reading the last few days and heres what I think...
Ill use a rotary polisher
I can skip the course grind steps because my rocks are already round?
I can go directly to prepolish and polish?
My main questions are....
Am I wasting my time trying to polish these types of rocks?
Will the single barrell tumbler from harbor freight meet my needs?
I have about 15lbs of rocks all smaller than 1.5inches.... and whats cool to me is that no human on earth has seen the rocks I collected, the guy that owns the claim told me he had a geologist come in and do his thing and thats how he know how old the bench is.
Awesome site everyone, thanks for any help!
Need pics of the rocks?
You all have some cool stuff here!
Anyways, Im an amateur gold prospecter and I just came back from a weekloong dig on a claim.
I was digging into an ancient riverbed that was pushed all over the state when california was formed, before the sierra nevadas existed.
So while classifying and sluicing this ancient riverbed, we came across all kinds of weird rocks and stuff.
The material was about 8 feet of "overburden" on top of smooth bedrock, there were distinct layers of different river levels(?).
Some of the granite on the very bottom directly on top the bedrock was so rotten it would turn to sand right in your fingers.
The whole thing was compacted down to like cement, theres a name for that but it escapes me just now, and it would hold even several-ton-boulders in place with all the material removed underneath them.
It was amazing, and we found lots of gold, it made me a little sad to destroy something so timeless, but in the grand scheme of things we did very little damage to anything, and we found lotsa gold!
Back to the point tho.
I collected some very amazing rocks. At least they looked amazing when they were wet, now they all look like gray rocks.
I believe they are mostly granite in its various forms, but there are some other minerals in there like jaspers and colored quartzes and the normal things found in an ancient riverbed/alluvial gravels.
These rocks are all perfectly smoothed and rounded and the colors and designs and patterns when they were wet was amazing.
Thats what I want!
I want the color back.
I have never had any experience in rock polishing, but I have been reading the last few days and heres what I think...
Ill use a rotary polisher
I can skip the course grind steps because my rocks are already round?
I can go directly to prepolish and polish?
My main questions are....
Am I wasting my time trying to polish these types of rocks?
Will the single barrell tumbler from harbor freight meet my needs?
I have about 15lbs of rocks all smaller than 1.5inches.... and whats cool to me is that no human on earth has seen the rocks I collected, the guy that owns the claim told me he had a geologist come in and do his thing and thats how he know how old the bench is.
Awesome site everyone, thanks for any help!
Need pics of the rocks?