This is some ore I've picked up over the past couple years. The ones with the holes in it I think are unusual. Some of the holes are lined with black and/or a glassy substance. I'm just a hobby rock hound, so I wondered what y'all think. Most of this is from Western Tennessee and some is from Georgia. After breaking some of it apart, it's hard to tell them apart. I took some pieces and heated them with a torch and then I could pick them up with a magnet, so it has some Iron. I may use Lee Sauder's method to check for a percentage.

Some also have some quartz like material in the ore, is that normal? The first picture is the small pockets with glassy lining, the second is the dark ore with the red lining. The last one is a big rock, about the size of a football, with all kinds of different looking stuff.

Hello  Jammer.  That stuff looks a lot like Bog Iron ore.  A very important source of Iron for centuries, and people are using it even to this day.  

It would make sense that it would become magnetic as heating, as that would convert the iron from its non-magnetic hydroxide phase.  (I am not a chemist - strictly an inquisitive amateur)

Wikipedia answers a number of your questions directly.

Here at the mountain on which I make my home, the iron is quite different:

It is free magnetic iron in a granite matrix.  I crush the rocks and extract the iron with a magnet:

This particular sample was test-fired through an air blast in a crude but adequate wooden crucible:

Resulting in a satisfying if not slaggy preliminary bloom.

The Wikipedia article also speaks about quartz crystals forming within bog iron

I thank you for mentioning Lee Sauder - now I have a new resource to learn from.

Robert Taylor 

For some reason the picture of my satisfying if not slaggy preliminary bloom failed to post:

Yes, Lee has a lot of good info on the web. http://leesauder.com/

 

I'm assuming the stuff you got in Georgia was some of the stuff at the edge of Lake Allatoona?  A lot of what I found there was smaller pieces, and seemed to have more inclusions in them than the stuff in the clay banks near Red Top.  Most of those pieces where larger, between fist and cantaloupe size. Some had the reddish insides and some  porosity, although I don't think they had any large holes.

Your bottom pic looks a lot more like mine did after roasting.  Perhaps they were heated at some point in the past? Or if it was Allatoona, even used at the edge of a campfire at some point...

The smaller pieces at the bottom of the last pic is from the lake. The other pieces are from Western Tennessee. I've got it broken down a little to help in the roasting, then we'll see how it looks. About half of what I got from the lake was just stained sand stone but I did get about 30 pounds of good looking stuff. Altogether I have just under 100 pounds unroasted.

 

When I tried the dumpling to test the ore, my refractory failed and fell apart. It got up to white heat but didn't start to melt.

Edited March 30, 201511 yr by Jammer

That black sand from California is what they find with gold dust and along the beach. I had a bunch of it when I live in Washington, I didn't find any gold in it though.

You don't really find gold IN the black sand it just pans out close to the way gold does. Being closer to gold's specific gravity it's a clue to looking for gold because the eddies that allow black sand to fall out of the current will drop gold instantly.

If you pull black sand with a magnet you'll be separating it from the gold, leaving the gold in the creek for other folk who know how to prospect and pan like . . . me. <grin>

Frosty The Lucky.

In, with, under, around... Just remove the gold before you smelt the iron ore.

Edited April 2, 201511 yr by Jammer

Remember NOT to smelt iron sand that was had the gold removed with Mercury!  If in doubt don't risk it!

Roasted the Ore today. Still trying to get this done before cold sets in. It's been too hot for me the last few months so I've just stayed inside and planned.

Here's a couple shots of the test muffin, it got very hot and melted, the ore didn't, but became magnetic.

That's a funky looking muffin. Is it all wheat? Guessing a kind of crucible of some sort.

If you come back around here, most of the good ore isn't at the lake bed, it's fist sized lumps of goethite buried loosely in clay banks nearby, along the trails at red top, etc.

The muffin was fireclay and sand, I haven't gotten any EPK yet. It looked really good for a time. It got white hot and I thought the ore might be melting, then it just collapsed.

I would like to get back down to the lake, but it seems I have a lot going on the next couple months.

If/when you do, pm me. I'll show you where to look if available, or give ya directions if not.

I haven't even checked out the ore pit that's supposed to be about 100 yards from my house. Neighbor told me where it is but says it's full of snakes. He has a big snake phobia, it's all he talks about.