How to tell if u have small platinum group nuggets

Had some nuggets in a acid bath and one of the nuggets broke apart and all the small gold nuggets and grit and dirt seperated from it as usual. With this one particular nugget i had a silvery grey nugget weighing about 6.2grams. Thought it may be platinum or a platinum group metal.
First test i did was try to scratch it with a very sharp knife. ( It did very slightly scratch it) but i could not cut it in any way at all. This nugget was tough.
Next test put it in a small cup with Hydrogen Peroxide and see if it started to bubble. Well low and behold it slowly did start to bubble and form oxygen. ( The hydrogen Peroxide with the Platinum nugget starts a catylst and forms oxygen).
Well there u have it my first small Platinum group nugget found in Australia.

If anyone else thinks i could be something else get back to me!!!!! ( if i knew how to put a pic up i would put it up but that is a bit beyond me being brought up in the pre internet era.)

I dont understand from your post - the suspected platinum nugget, was it put in an acid bath? If so what acid - it makes a difference.

It needs to be tested in nitric acid.

I had some gold nuggets in a mild acid bath and one nugget fell to bits on me and inside the core was this platinum nugget of about 6.2 grams.

they say to test platinum metal group nuggets u use a Hydrogen Peroxide solution and if it bubbles it is Platinum.

Have a look on U tube re platinum nuggets tested in Hydrogen peroxide.

Hope that helps.

It does make a difference what acid we are talking about. Nitric dissolves most metals including silver. It does not dissolve platinum or gold.

Other acids like muratic (AKA hydrochloric) or sulfuric do very little to a lot of metals - they only reacts with the more active metals.

The test in Hydrogen peroxide is not a real good test as hydrogen peroxide reacts with lots of things - platinum, yes but also with manganese oxides (common in lots of rocks and mineral deposits), silver minerals and many others. It will foam on your skin if you have a cut, and your skin is not made of platinum.

It could be platinum, but it could be other things as well.

try putting a bit of hydrochloric with ur nitric, put it in the sun for a bit and if it dissolves........It could have been anything!

When i find bits like that, I try and keep them in the bottom of the pile when i sell them. I found a 14? grammer at darlot once and it was flat, chunky and was very silvery gold on one side and normal on the other?

G'day Lucky.

The combining of Hydrochloric acid with Nitric acid, forms an acid called Aqua Regia.It is the only mixture of acids known,which when combined together,will dissolve both gold and platinum.

Cheers kon61.

Hi fellows do not want to dissolve the nugget thanks.


It is in the Hydrogen Peroxide mix and still slowly bubbling away. I had it in a Hydrochloric acid bath for three weeks and it is clean as. Should i try the nitric on it or just leave it as is. Its a heavy and hard little sucker.

platinum is even heavier than gold i have been told. It very resistant to heat as well as i put a small blow torch on it and no change at all.

I have even given it a nickname PLATTY and i talk to it as i watch it bubble.

"given it a name AND talk to it" ..... WHOA ..... nah its your rock, call it what you want and if it talks back, lay off the heavy stuff man
seriously tho, it would be nice to find out, how about a local lapidary club?

LOL love that Explorer, If it is plat it would be worth more than gold. Good find. keep talking to her/him.

Panther

just had a look at little PLATTY its still blowing bubbles sitting by the window.

wonder if i can claim some sort of Carbon rebate on it now it is producing pure oxygen for the Planet????????

G'day, I would follow Reno chris's instructions, I have just started reading his book and he covers exactly what you are wanting to know.....do the nitric if you want to know a definate result!!!!

Cheers

Your test is correct.Hydrogen peroxide is fine,nitric is better.OK now platinum is harder than gold{much} as we all know,I have found platinum nuggets from FNQ to the WA Goldfields.A rare occurence sure but not as rare as you may think.Nuggets of nickel and aluminium are also not totally unusual,but these are easily scratched.Many Aluminium nuggets are lightening formed in bauxite beds.Platinum is slightly less dense than gold and in the instances I`ve found it it has accumulated a black ferruginous material{it rubs like a black ochre} around the nugget,not entirely surrounding it but clinging to parts of it.Especially if the piece is found on an old terrace.If it`s in a stream, it will be clean.They find them the same in South america and South Africa.

Platinum less dense than gold? Density of pure gold=19.3 Density of platinum in its purest form 21.4 g/cm cubed (+or-0.2) The only way platinum can be found to be less dense than gold is when it is found to be porous in nature(pockets of air or gasses trapped within the platinum) or it is mixed to some degree within the same ore body,with other lighter metals such as that of eg,Rhodium or Palladium.

Cheers kon61.

Anyone out there who can help me, now I have a nugget around 20mm x 10mm x 6mm screams with the detector non metalic and so I broke in half to see what it was, very shiny clevage plates when broken, placed in hydrocloric for 15 second to clean ironstone coating and it fizzed out of control and removed a lot of coating before I removed it and washed the nugget. what is it ??????

Reasty

any response I keen to know.

G'day reasty have you got a pic of it may help to identify it... Sounds like it could be a meteorite...

Cheers.

Mike.

well to start off you don';t have a nugget you have a rock!

By the sounds of it, it will be a nice slug of pyrite, you can have some good gold after crushen said rock but will generally be gold dust as an end result!

Pyrite's a good indicator for all sorts of minerals, best you do some home work on the location!!

Good luck

Cheers
Chris.

How hard is it to upload a photo?

Not hard at all

Just run through the line of options above your post, click on host an image, select your pic, press add! Press host an image, takes a while to download, copy an past the middle link when done

reasty wrote:How hard is it to upload a photo?

G'day reasty Stoppsy has a vid on how to post a pic I had a bit of a look I couldn't find it... Have you got a pic on you PC you need to have it on your hard drive...

Cheers.

Mike.

Finally have the photo's, camera's battery was flat (sorry not sure how many photos have uploaded)


looks like none??

url=http://www.servimg.com/image_preview.php?i=3&u=18061660][/url]ey be there

very shiny where broken, has some weight not as much as gold but close, non metalic, what is it???

reasty wrote:very shiny where broken, has some weight not as much as gold but close, non metalic, what is it???

Looks like pyrites to me does it flake and crush to a powder??

Cheers.

Mike.

Mike54 wrote:

reasty wrote:very shiny where broken, has some weight not as much as gold but close, non metalic, what is it???

Looks like pyrites to me does it flake and crush to a powder??

Cheers.

Mike.

And me as well

"...has some weight not as much as gold"

Pt is about a SG of 23, Au is about SG 19.

Crush 'em to resolve the pyrite question and to take it out of contention.

Joe

Mike54

What will be indicated if it powerises?


Reasty

reasty wrote:Mike54

What will be indicated if it powerises?


Reasty

Would mean it is only pyrite... Gold would flatten and not crumble...

Cheers.

Mike.

Hi,

This is an old topic but can anyone tell me if platinum or silver will dissolve in dilute hydrochloric acid solution ~30% hydrochloric acid. I have unearthed an unusual specimen. It feels heavier than gold. It is a naturally occurring metallic nugget of some sort encased in a coating of rock possibly lead. After soaking in Hydrochloric acid overnight I can see some brilliant silver encased in a lot of dull grey metal. No gold unfortunately.

Nuggets

Hi Nuggets..
Gee I am really sorry no one answered your post..

The way you describe it, could it be a meteorite rock ???

A picture says a thousand words