Had something similar up here in Golden bay - turned out to be lead. Think it might be from old shotgun pellets being rolled down tthe creek.
Apparently you can check if its Scheelite as it glows under UV light
They’re definitely not shotgun pellets, though I did get lots of whole and broken bits of shotgun pellets in the clean up too. Were no where near as shiny.
Interesting trick with the UV. All the bits are with Mudwiggle, so I’ll try it out once he’s sent then back 
Antinomy ore is the most likely i suspect
We should get a sweep-stake going! 
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Well the results are fresh in from @Mudwiggle - cheers mate 
I assume the greater the intensity the more of the element, so…
Pb = lead is the most intense, followed by
Hg = mercury
Then there’s small indication of platinum (Pt) and slightly more gold (Au).
Some better photos of the shiny’s Mudwiggle sent through…
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Mmmmm this gets more interesting by the moment. Such a range of metals present detected by the XRF.So i ask was there a quartz goldmine anywhere near the vicinity of where these specimens were found. I ask this as many of the bigger quartz mines did their own smelting and refining. And I am wondering if these are possibly a by product of the refining process. Esp with the presence of mercury,.lead and copper. which are base minerals. Mercury does not occur as a native mineral on the West Coast,SI. It is of course as you all know used in the extraction of gold from stamper mill flour. And although retorted off, some mercury residue may remain with the gold. I have in the past found various slag deposits around some Refining sites on the Coast, and they did contain a metallic compound within. In those days most of the waste eventually ended up in a waterway of some sort.
I’m only aware of old alluvial working in the close vicinity (lots of stacked rocks) and can’t think of any major hard rock workings nearby. There’s the chance the of a small operation on the odd reef in the hills I guess. All the gold I see looks like it’s travelled though.
Most definitely not scheelite. As stated by others Platinum is a dull gray so I highly doubtful that it’s platinum. I think it is most likely gold with Mercury on it. That is known as amalgam. Put it on a steel plate on a camp cooker outside and heat it up and the Mercury should evaporate off leaving the gold…and no doubt then of it’s identity. Let us know the result because we are all just as curious as you are.
In the Arrow in the 1960s I found liquid Mercury and amalgam and the amalgam had so much Mercury that by putting it in a handkerchief and squizzing ( how the fuck do you spell squeezing - hmm the spell check just did it for me, well fuckaduck) a droplet or two would come through the handkerchief.
Strangely enough they almost look like tiny pieces of chrome or.
Bendigo Creek in Otago and some West Coast creeks have pools of mercury on the base clay in the depressions. Not hard to find, never thought about it containing gold thou…
I have often had mercury coated gold from my Dredging Days. Not a lot, but a couple of flakes here and there. All Buller area or Reefton. When I was operating a black sand gold claim on a local beach here near Westport. I worked an area where the old timers had set up black sand tables and were using mercury coated copper plates. I sucked up heaps of gold rich amalgam, in that area. Obviously their copper plates had sickened and they had been losing a lot of the gold impregnated mercury (Amalgam). Their loss, my gain.
Maybe related? Looks similar…
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Hi Gavin.Looks like Os. Some someone told me a student at otago uni was making gold and Os alloys. There was too much Os in the gold and it caught fire during the assay in sydney. Os is also used to debase Au jewelry mainly in India.
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