what year was rose quartz the mineral discovered and by whom?
its true, so is copper and other ores. It has something to do with the mineral being deposited there when the lava was hot and taking a zillionsyweas to grow the proper crystals Gold does follow the quartz vein
It's more complex than that. A very hot hydrothermal fluid of silica, oxygen and concentrated gold is created during incidences of compressional forces acting on the crust. They precipitate out as quartz-gold veins... this is what happened to create the fabled California gold. Check the link below, it's very informative.
It is a good question. The rivers carry the bedload with them which consists of the rocks and debris already weathered and eroded down the valley flanks. This eroded materials sometimes contain gold particles as fine flakes or coarse grains and rarely nuggets, if source rocks in the river basin are auriferous. During its journey with water this bedload gets differentiated due to density differences, the relatively low density material moves away faster and the relatively high density material stays back so to say. Their is always a hydrodynamic situation (gradient and velocity of flowing water) which can move particles of different sizes, density along with water but, if the flowing water suddenly encounters a hydrodynamic break where the gradient and velocity suddenly retards, the high density particles starts dropping down and the low density particles moves away with water. This is how, quartz, mica etc. gets separated out and high density particles like magnetite, garnet, amphiboles etc. get concentrated at the hydrodynamic breaks like down stream side of boulders or where the river enters a broad valley. Gold has a density 17-19 depending upon its purity thus it has a strong tendency to separate and drop out during movement in water. This is a mechanical separation due to density contrast done naturally by moving water. This is the reason gold concentration is found as placers along river courses particularly at points where the river opens up into a valley front. thnks
