Prospecting , the art of finding gold and other precious minerals

You are panning for gold, and have been sitting there for hours, with no result. Suddenly - there it is! A large, dirty rock with a metallic sheen! Have you struck it rich? You know that Pyrite (Fool's Gold) looks almost exactly like real gold. How do you know that this is real gold?
You can find out the answer by studying the mineral's hardness, appearance, luster, streak, clevage, and fracture, as well as other properties such as magnetic attraction. Well, is it gold or not?

Begin by taking a look at the mineral's color. If it is, say, purple, and is kind of crystal shaped, then you can be pretty sure that you have a quartz or an amethyest. Unfortunately, many minerals are one shade or another of brown, and it is difficult to figure out which is which without a more indepth invesgation.

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Malachite

Examine the mineral and take note of its surface features. Is it bumpy? Smooth? Layered? Kind of crusty feeling? Also, if the color pattern is interesting, as is the case with malachite, you will want to remember that.

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Get out the materials needed for the hardness test (see Things You'll need). Below is a hardness scale. See what your mineral matches.
The number is the hardness, followed by the characteristics of a mineral of that hardness and an example

• 1 -- Soft, greasy, flakes of fingers (talc)
• 2 -- Can be scratched by a fingernail (gypsum)
• 3 -- Can be cut easily with a knife or a nail, sctratched by a penny (calcite)
• 4 -- Can be scratched easily by a knife (fluorite)
• 5 -- Can be scratched by a knife with difficulty (apatite)
• 6 -- Can be scratched by a steel file (orthoclase)
• 7 -- Scratches a steel file (quartz)
• 8 -- Scratches quartz (topaz)
• 9 -- Scratches anything lower on the scale (corundum)
• 10 -- Scratches anything lower on the scale (diamond)

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Next, find out your mineral's luster. Luster is the way a mineral reflects light. It can be metallic like graphite, or nonmetallic like flourite. Nonmetallic minerals can be further classified as dull, pearly, silky, and glassy, as well as other things. You don't have to be a rock expert to figure this out, just think about it for a minute.

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Now for the streak test. It is prehaps the easiest of the tests. You need an unglazed porcelain tile and your mineral. Rub the mineral on the tile, and see what color it leaves behind. Keep in mind that some minerals have no streak, particularly the harder minerals (as they are harder than the streak plate!).

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You can also identify a mineral by the way it breaks. If it breaks along a smooth, flat surface (such as mica), it has cleavage. If your mineral breaks along rough, jagged surfaces, it has fracture.

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Some minerals have other properties. One of the most common is magnestism or magnetic attraction. See if a magnet will stick to your mineral, and see if it picks up iron filings