Native Gold in Quartz - McLaughlin Mine, California 10.59 grams

Hold this 10.59-gram cabochon to the light and the gold seems to branch and climb — classic arborescent native gold threading through clear white quartz.

The gold is elemental and entirely natural, cut from rough mined at California's McLaughlin Mine in the 1980s and kept by the mine's geologist among his personal study samples. It grew in a hydrothermal vein, its tree-like form contrasting against dark mudstone in a flow-breccia zone full of mixed minerals. Under longwave UV, some of this material fluoresces a bright yellow to green.

Mineral: Native (elemental) gold in quartz with mudstone
Locality: McLaughlin Mine, California, USA
Color: Bright gold in white quartz with black mudstone
Formation: Arborescent/dendritic gold in a hydrothermal vein deposit

A one-of-a-kind cabochon — the 10.59-gram piece pictured is exactly the one that ships to you.