Fool’s Gold Might Be Better Than the Real Thing

In the pyrite community we refer to gold as "fools pyrite"

My great great grandfather grew up poor. One day he was walking through an alley or back road or something and practically tripped over a rock that he though for sure was gold. He thought he had saved the whole family from poverty. Had a real life willy wonka run home. Turns out it was a 10+ lb chunk of Pyrite. We still have it. It is gorgeous.

Fun fact. Usually in the same areas you find pyrite you find flint. Striking the 2 together gives you sparks as well. Otzi the iceman had a fire making kit on him with flint and pyrite. His corpse and belongings are dated between 3350 to 3105 BC. Making it one of the oldest primitive fire kits ever found.

"Hand me that lighter. Ok, get back under the desk."

I've heard people say "nature does not do (creates) right angles". Well Spanish Pyrite crystals grow as a cube. You can't get anymore natural right angles than a cube.

I live not too far from a town called Coarsegold California, that was once a mining town in the 1800s. On my property I have 2 seasonal streams. Pyrite is everywhere in my streams. If I try to work in them while the streams are running it gets all over me like glitter. I've found plenty of quartz rocks on my property, I have a granite boulder as big as my house in the middle of the property, and up against it I've found a few hunks of raw iron. No gold though! haha

Fun fact: in germany we call it "Katzengold" meaning Catgold. Don't ask me why. [edit: since now 6 persons asked "why?": its a bastardization of an old german word "Kazzūngold" meaning golden yellow cherry resin. Now stop it please... Also one source says it comes from the Word "Ketzer" meaning heretic, but thats a money blog so I don't trust that source, but google says "here, first result, thats what you searched for right?" I should start using the search function of wikipedia, way easier...]

Fools are a much bigger customer base. That's my business model.

Hey! You got the pyrite firestarter wrong! Pyrite was the first material that you could strike with flint (or any of many other easily found rocks) to make fire, not a replacement for flint! Pyrite was likely extremely important to prehistoric people because it could be used to make a fire well before iron smelting was invented.

Platonic Solids, very good friends that will never get romantic.

3:10 first you burn sulfur with oxygen to make SO2, then you burn that with even more oxygen to make SO3 and THEN you mix it with water to make sulfuric acid. You don't go from SO2 straight to H2SO4

Arrr... I'm a pyrite. ☠️ 🏴‍☠️

We used to search for it on our walk home from school when I lived in Quebec. The dirt they spread on the roads in the winter months contained it. It made for very fun walks!

03:13 Then you just add water and you've got sulfuric acid. Not quite. You get sulfurous acid, H₂SO₃. Sulfuric acid is H₂SO₄.

Like in the gold rush days, the big winners sold the shovels. If you want a popular item to sell, use the bioleaching bacteria.

It's good to see that Thing is still getting parts after the Adams Family movies.

"Crystal Sisters" sounds like an educational version of the band Twisted Sister, specializing in STEM fields.

What do you call an old tall ship that holds fools gold? ... A pyrite ship!

I've been a prospector/miner for 12 years, and I can tell you that sulphide ore is among the best types of deposits to find when looking for gold, but generally there is a small part of the ore body which is naturally oxidized and not leeched out, generally close to the surface. As you dig deeper into these deposits, the rock can be made of solid pyrite, but after being dug up, dumped in a waste pile, and left to oxidize in the sun for a number of years, it becomes much easier to work with. Oxidation liberates the gold and allows you to easily crush and separate the values with standard gravity separation. Otherwise, roasting the ore is required, and as the video mentions, this requires a lot of energy. Old timers use to avoid sulphide unless it was incredibly rich, but they sought after sulphide deposits to "high grade" the oxidized materials that were easily available. It's important to note that the presence of sulphide is not an absolute indicator of the presence of gold, but noble and base metals can be precipitated with sulphur and halogen elements such as fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine, and are catalyzed by changes in pressure or pH in a hydrothermal solution.

Love pyrite, its got super cool geometry, and a unique silvery gold color, also found a lot in Lapis Lazuli ore