Comments on: Freeing quartz crystals (Herkimer Diamonds) from calcite matrix

By: Bella

Bella — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:15:19 +0000

hello, I am a huge rockhounder, have been most of my life and I am not getting into more of the what is what and looking for certian types, I have some big chunks of white rock, which i then believed to be calcite, now I have to try the vineager!! I am excited! THANKS!!

By: diamonds

diamonds — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:13:39 +0000

It seems indeed a good idea to use vineager or muriatic acid to solve the calcium, as any chemistry course will learn you, you can also add water if you want the process to go slower, good luck with finding diamonds

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:25:51 +0000

Muriatic Acid works super good at dissolving the surrounding rock from matrix pieces and can clean up some of the quartz from higher elevations where it was closer to the soil and subject to staining and streaks through inclusions etc. Just be careful what you put it in and around, as the fumes that are emitted are super nasty, probably toxic, and will nuke your grass if you leave it closer than a few feet to it. If it comes in plastic, leave it in plastic (the acid that is). you can only buy it at pool supply places now in rochester (I buy it at Leslies in Greece). Lowe’s and the Home Freakshow do not stock it anymore. By the way, if you use it to clean stones and it leaves a yellowish residue on your quartz, change the acid out and dilute with water 1:1 and let it sit out of the sun for a day or so, they’ll clear right up (freaked me right out the first time it happened). I had a whole box of them from crystal grove from a few years back (was digging the easy stuff near the soil that trip) that were all crusty and brown and it cleaned ‘em up nice enough to put on my desk @ work (one is hardball sized and is now nice to have all squeaky clean).

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:46:45 +0000

Lots of them!

By: Diamonds

Diamonds — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:51:54 +0000

So did you actually found Herkimer diamonds?

By: Joel Russo

Joel Russo — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:46:00 +0000

I too had Herkimer diamonds underneath calcite. I used muriatic acid to dissolve away the calcite. To my surpise, the muriatic acid reduced a lot of the dolomite rock to sand, exposing more diamonds. Some of the diamonds are attached to the hydrocarbon anthraxolite. This method frees the diamonds without having to pry them off the matrix thus reducing the chance of damaging them. It works great, but extreme caution must be used when handling muriatic acid.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:34:49 +0000

It would have. But generally it disolved around the outside, and also where it attached to the quartz. So we were able to remove the quartz before the calcite was completely disolved.

By: Angie

Angie — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:32:21 +0000

and what happen?? Did the vinegar dissolver the calcite entirely???