Wonder how your favorite crystallized gold quartz specimens are made? Hi I’m Dave from Goldbay, in this blog I will explain to you the first step on how to turn a gold-bearing quartz into an exquisite crystallized gold specimen. Also, below this blog is a video that demonstrates in full this first step.

Steps on How To Prep Your Gold-Bearing Quartz

There are few steps on how to turn gold-bearing quartz into a golden quartz specimen. But in this part, we will only concentrate on the first and most important thing in doing prep work which is checking whether the gold is continuous or not. It’s really critical to know the golds continuity because it gives us an idea of the amount of gold inside the piece of quartz. There are few methods in checking the golds continuity. First is to get a specimen and look at it under a microscope. Second is to use a tool called continuity tester which tests whether the gold from the different area of quartz are really connected.

Continuity tester is a tool that is used to determine if an electrical path can be established between two points. Gold is a good conductor of electricity and by linking the golds that are popping out in different parts of the quartz – we will be able to check if the golds are connected. The process gives us a good picture of the amount of gold inside quartz which is an important thing before moving to the next step.

In my experience in preparing a gold quartz specimen, the most exciting part is checking the golds connectivity. It is when the golds that are popping out of the quartz are all connected, given the size of a quartz, once I removed all of the quartz that’s on it then I know that it will be an amazing piece.

The Arsenopyrite Mixed With Gold Quartz

If my gold-bearing quartz happens to have mixed with arsenopyrite, an iron-like metal, I’m going to do my best to keep a fair amount of the pyrite attached to the specimen. It is really rare to find a piece that has arsenopyrite on it.

The Thermal Shock Technique In Removing Quartz

There’s going to be quite a few different techniques that I’m going to use to remove the quartz. The first one is called thermal shock (a variation in temperature which causes tension in materials). Basically, we will be heating the quartz to break. In my next video blog part 2 of this series, I will be demonstrating the entire thermal shock process.

In the video below, I will show you how I prep a fairly large piece of quartz. This piece of crystallized gold-bearing quartz with some arsenopyrite was extracted in the Mocking Bird Mine located in Mariposa County, CA.