Post by RocknCritter on Nov 6, 2015 17:23:36 GMT -5
These are pretty darn cool.
A guy was walking his dog along Sand Creek in downtown Colorado Springs, CO and started noticing all these spherical pieces of quartz. He took a few to a jeweler I know there for an evaluation. At first, everyone dismissed them as most likely tumbled concrete balls. On closer examination, there were little sparkles of pyrite. So they cut one open. What the heck. It's only a few minutes on the saw.
Inside was a matrix of pyrite surrounding the quartz. In some ways, it's similar to to the marcasite (pyrite?) in quartz from Nipomo, CA except with a clear to white quartz instead of the smoky quartz from Nipomo.
The next weekend, they all went back and collected as much as they could. A few days later, during a second visit, they got a huge surprise: The city was doing flood plain reclamation work. The collecting site was gone that fast. A search up and down the creek bed in the vicinty did not result in any more material being found.
They had an XRF analysis performed on several pieces and discovered there were even small traces of gold and silver - 1 ounce of silver and 1/10 of an ounce of gold per ton.
A few of the pieces even looked like limb cast replacements.
In the end, they sorted what they had into three grades - fine grain, coarse grain and the limb casts. While I have all three grades, I have only had time to cut the coarse grain. It takes a nice polish with diamond or cerium oxide. Other popular polishing compounds should work as well. There certainly isn't much of the material and I know folks who have just sliced them into specimens, cabbed it and one guy was making a few small spheres.
All of these pieces for sale are coarse grain.
#1 4.2 oz. 1.5"x2" $11
#2 11.2 oz. 2.25"x3" $28
#3 11.8 oz. 2"x3" SOLD
#4 13.5 oz. 1.25" to 2.5"x4.5" $34
#5 14.5 oz. 2.25"x3" $36
#6 18.5 oz. 1.5" to 3"x3.5" $46
#7 20.3 oz. 2.5"x3.25" $100
#8 52.5 oz. 4" to a point x5.5" $131
Shipping for #'s 1-5 is $6.00 and $12 for #'s 6-8.
A guy was walking his dog along Sand Creek in downtown Colorado Springs, CO and started noticing all these spherical pieces of quartz. He took a few to a jeweler I know there for an evaluation. At first, everyone dismissed them as most likely tumbled concrete balls. On closer examination, there were little sparkles of pyrite. So they cut one open. What the heck. It's only a few minutes on the saw.
Inside was a matrix of pyrite surrounding the quartz. In some ways, it's similar to to the marcasite (pyrite?) in quartz from Nipomo, CA except with a clear to white quartz instead of the smoky quartz from Nipomo.
The next weekend, they all went back and collected as much as they could. A few days later, during a second visit, they got a huge surprise: The city was doing flood plain reclamation work. The collecting site was gone that fast. A search up and down the creek bed in the vicinty did not result in any more material being found.
They had an XRF analysis performed on several pieces and discovered there were even small traces of gold and silver - 1 ounce of silver and 1/10 of an ounce of gold per ton.
A few of the pieces even looked like limb cast replacements.
In the end, they sorted what they had into three grades - fine grain, coarse grain and the limb casts. While I have all three grades, I have only had time to cut the coarse grain. It takes a nice polish with diamond or cerium oxide. Other popular polishing compounds should work as well. There certainly isn't much of the material and I know folks who have just sliced them into specimens, cabbed it and one guy was making a few small spheres.
All of these pieces for sale are coarse grain.
#1 4.2 oz. 1.5"x2" $11
#2 11.2 oz. 2.25"x3" $28
#3 11.8 oz. 2"x3" SOLD
#4 13.5 oz. 1.25" to 2.5"x4.5" $34
#5 14.5 oz. 2.25"x3" $36
#6 18.5 oz. 1.5" to 3"x3.5" $46
#7 20.3 oz. 2.5"x3.25" $100
#8 52.5 oz. 4" to a point x5.5" $131
Shipping for #'s 1-5 is $6.00 and $12 for #'s 6-8.
