First of all I live in a small town just East of Ft. Smith, AR. We are right on the Arkansas River. The sands of the river is loaded with black sand. Any of you that have ever tried to recover Gold from a stream knows what black sand is.
Several years ago I panned some of the black sand out of the river. I dried the black sand and then ran a drop magnet over it and separated everything the magnet would pick up.
When I finished I had some stuff left over that is not your everyday black sand. It is fine grains but is a grey in color. It is some kind of metal. I have looked at it with a 600X microscope and you can't see anything that even looks like Gold.
I finally found a Chemical Gold test kit that works so a couple of days ago I tested some of the grey grain stuff for Gold. To my surprise it showed to be fairly rich in Gold. But, when I finished the test I still had the grey grain stuff that looked untouched. This means the Gold in it has to be in Micron form.
Everything I have read and all the tests I have done on the grey stuff says it's Platinum. As soon as possible I will be doing a test on it for Platinum. At any rate even if there is no Platinum there is enough Gold in it to pay to process it. The black sand as it comes out of the river runs about 90% regular black sand and about 10% this grey grain stuff. I have never tested the regular black sand for Gold with chemicals but I will. It may also contain Gold.
Here is why I posted this message. If you are dealing with black sand no matter where you are be absolutely certain you know exactly what is in it before you toss it out. This is especially important if you work the Arkansas river or any of the streams that run into it all the way from it's beginning in Colorado to Easter Arkansas when it runs into the Mississippi River.
Also if you are on the Arkansas River or any of the streams that run into it in Colorado, Kansas or Oklahoma keep an eye out for a deposit of greyish brown sandstone. I picked up a piece about the size of your fist on the bank of the Arkansas River in the Ft Smith area a while back that is super rich in Micron Gold. Someone, somewhere up stream from Ft Smith, AR has a deposit of this sandstone on their land that could be worth millions. And, they don't know it.
