DesertUSA.com/mb3

borax is an intersting mineral
they use it as a flux in a bead test
to help identify metals from
a color code

Ed

Hola amigos,
I was way off on the price for industrial diamonds, shows you how reliable "rumor" is.

I wonder if recovering diamonds from the waste slurry would be possible? It is not that different from what they do in diamond mines, just need a grease-table to catch the diamonds as you wash the stuff over the grease, then scrape off your diamonds. The grease can then be stripped from the diamonds with dishwashing soap + water. Might be a fun, if very dirty 'icky-sticky' experiment to try sometime.
Roy

Thanks Roy!
That's a really cool experiment set-up idea!

Muchas gracias amigo - and I would be interested to know how it works. Before Beth sold her machine I thought of trying that but never did. Laziness has a cost, unfortunately!

test

For anyone interested in the Great Arizona Diamond Hoax, here is the link for the NYT article

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-fr ... 8389669FDE

oroblanco wrote:Hola amigos,

It is not that different from what they do in diamond mines, just need a grease-table to catch the diamonds as you wash the stuff over the grease, then scrape off your diamonds. .
Roy

What's the principle behind the theory, Oro?
That make the diamond cohere to the grease?
Is it the 'specific gravity' of the diamond
over the other minerals?
Thxs in advance
you wise o'goldnuggetU
ed

Whoa Roy !

I just answered my own question
http://www.beadinggem.com/2008/06/legen ... monds.html

Diamonds are lipophillic (whatever that really is)
well diamond attract to grease
I should have an easy time attracting them...
being Italian !

that link is really pretty cool
how did the Greeks know diamonds stuck to meat?
the tale of Alexander the Great
who threw meat into a diamond mine
because it was guarded by snakes
the diamonds stuck to the meat
eagles swooped in :: clawed the meat~flew out~
hence delivering the diamonds!
very peculiar

Hola amigo,

Lipo = from Greek word "lipos" for "fat"
Phillic = from Greek word "philo-" meaning "loving"

...put together is 'fat-loving' or attracted to grease. For your grease table, use lard or another 'hard' grease, not liquid cooking oil though that might work.

I never heard that story on Alexander, thank you! The Greeks most likely learned of how diamonds are extracted (using meat, fat etc) from their entry into India which was the ancient source of most diamonds at that time.
Roy

I'm still trying to figure out how that diamond showed up in CA?
With no kimberlite pipe and if a meteor didn't deliver it
well,,, I suppose it could have been carried by water
from some distant area

But who knows? strange things show up in strange places

In the book “Patterns in the Void" by Sten Odenwald he tell a story that
as a teenager he was turning over rocks to see what was underneath.
Under a large granite rock that apparently sat there immobile for eons,
he found a five krona bill, a piece of Swedish paper money.
Leave no stone unturne !