Any idea what this metal/mineral is?


Basically inseparable from the black sands by panning and weakly magnetic. Metal or mineral? Any ideas would be appreciated.

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Only a guessing tin maybe :person_shrugging:

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Looks a bit like chromite, common in gold and osmiridium creeks in the West.

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Think you’re right Dave,
The silver colour and weak magnetism would suggest chromite

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+1 for chromite.

Were you in a serpentine area? (Adamsfield, Heazlewood River area, Huskisson, Wilson, Melba Flats…)

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Thank you for your responses! Chromite seems quite likely. I do not believe I was in a serpentine area: I was panning a creek west of Hobart on an old newspaper report. It does give a weak signal on the detector but maybe that is just the magnetite that is mix up with it (I believe magnetite can give a signal?).

If the creek was draining dolerite, then you probably have a mix of magnetite, haematite and ilmenite, I reckon.

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That sounds about right, I was wondering if it was ilmenite/rutile. Thanks for the help