Many people who may have difficulty to identify the gold in the rock, because gold is usuallyoften confused with the kind of carrier minerals pyrite , chalcopyrite, pyrhotite, pentlandit and gold-colored mica, because the mineral carrier is very similar to a vein of gold ore. But for people who already have experience not find it difficult to identify the gold unless it is very smooth slippery or micro crystalline. In this situation, gold can not be easily observed and should require examination under a microscope to observe it.
Typical in the nature of gold is:
Color : This mineral is metallic-colored variety, but depends also on the purity of gold. Sometimes gold is also colored a little pale from associating with silver metal content
Hardness: 2.5 to 3. Gold when forged with a hammer is not easily destroyed while the remaining fragile, will break and splinter when struck with a hammer. When both and placed in a pan of water, the gold will sink quickly and refused to move, the rest will sink slowly and mix with ease
Density: 15.6 to 19.3The density varies depending on the dirt - a more pure heavy.
Gold: Usually in irregular, plate or mass scales, would rarely crystallizes. Gold is also found in groups of crystals similar to crystals Family elongated in the direction of octahedral axis. Irregular crystals distorted to the point of passing into the form of filiform, reticulated and dendritic.
Identification and Diagnostics
Easy to melt gold at 2.5 to 3. And do not easily dissolve in common acids but easily dissolved in a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid (aqua regia).
Although gold is a very rare element found widely in the wild but often do so even in small quantities and often in such small particles not visible to the naked eye, or as an aggregate of quartz crystals in the cavity. Phyrite almost always associated with gold and color similar to gold but phyrite easily destroyed if the forging with a hammer. Gold is the only mineral that will easily scratch, leaving the golden-yellow powder residue. Gold also occurs as microscopic and submicroscopic particles in sulfide minerals, mainly pyrite, chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite and pyrhotite. All this often occurs in veins and zones of hydrothermal alteration and replacement. They occur as macroscopic grains and micro crystalline and crystalline.
READ MORE >> How To Identify Minerals In Rocks Of Gold Ore
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