Gold-Associated Minerals from the Collector's Perspective.

Interestingly, this gold is almost always as tiny inclusions in these and other associated sulfides such as pyrite, and good specimens showing either gold-bornite or gold-chalcopyrite combinations are rare. Somewhat lesser though similar examples of gold on pyrite are known from diverse Colorado localities such as the Ibex, Winnie, Fanny Rawlings, and Adelaide mines, Leadville, Lake County; wires protruding from cubes from the Orphan Boy mine, Boulder County; gold with pyrite crystals from the Krakajack No. 1 mine on Fourmile Creek in the Gold Hill district, also in Boulder County; and gold crystals on pyrite from the Alice mine and gold on pyrite from the Quito mine, Clear Creek County. Interestingly, of the two only Kalgoorlie has produced significant native gold with associated telluride minerals, Cripple Creek boasting only very small, generally unattractive gold specimens, most of which are pseudomorphs after original gold tellurides. In fact, so many gold specimens are essentially gold on and in quartz that one is left wondering what other minerals might be found intimately associated with gold in potentially collectible specimens, both macro (thumbnail through cabinet size) and micro. An example of the widespread association of carbonate minerals with gold deposits, some of which are known to have produced reasonable gold-carbonate association specimens, is given by Pardee and Park ([66]) in their summary work on gold deposits of the southeastern United States. [Extracted from the article]