Tarnish: Most specimens of pyrite, found in nature, will have at least some tarnish on their surface. Nuggets or small flakes of gold are usually bright and untarnished.
B) Color: Pyrite has a brassy color. Gold has a golden to yellow color. Most native gold is alloyed with silver, and if the silver content is high enough, the specimen will have a whitish yellow color.
C) Shape: Pyrite is usually found as angular pieces, and many of them exhibit the faces of a cube, octahedron or pyritohedron. Most gold particles found in streams have slightly rounded edges, but be careful - some crystalline gold specimens can display a crystal habit that is similar to pyrite.
D) Striations: Many crystals of pyrite have fine parallel lines on their faces. Gold crystals do not have striations.
E) Specific Gravity: Gold has a specific gravity of about 19.3. The specific gravity of pyrite is about 5. (All gold found in nature is always alloyed with other metals. These metals have a specific gravity which will reduce the specific gravity of the specimen, but never enough that it approaches the specific gravity of pyrite. Specimens containing a significant amount of gold will always have at least two to three times the specific gravity of pyrite.)
Gold streak
Gold's Streak: A copper penny and a tiny gold nugget on a black streak plate, with a small streak made by the nugget. The copper penny is in the photo to serve as a scale. The tiny nugget weighs 0.0035 troy ounce, and at a gold price of $1200/ozt the nugget, if it were pure gold, would have a gold value of $4.20. The tiny mark left by the streak plate removed about $0.06 worth of gold from the nugget.
Destructive Tests
A) Streak: Gold has a yellow streak. Pyrite has a greenish black streak. Learn how to do the streak test here.
B) Hardness: Gold has a Mohs hardness of 2.5, while pyrite has a Mohs hardness of 6 to 6.5. Gold will not scratch a copper surface (Mohs hardness of 3), but pyrite will easily scratch copper. Gold can be scratched by a sharp piece of copper, but copper will scratch very few other materials. Learn about the Mohs hardness test here.
C) Ductility: Gold is very ductile, and a tiny piece of gold will bend or dent with pressure from a pin or a pointed piece of wood. Tiny pieces of pyrite will break or resist the pressure.
D) Sectility: Small particles of gold can be cut with a sharp pocket knife. Small particles of pyrite cannot be cut.
Chalcopyrite in Dolomite and Quartz
Chalcopyrite in Dolomite and Quartz: Gold-colored minerals can be tested even if they are embedded in a rock. The gold-colored mineral in this rock is chalcopyrite, and a person could determine that it is not gold by poking the gold-colored material with a pin and observing if it dents or breaks. This photograph is by Scott Horvath of the United States Geological Survey. Click to enlarge.
Other Minerals That Can Fool You!
Chalcopyrite and small pieces of biotite mica can fool you. Chalcopyrite (a copper iron sulfide) has very similar properties to pyrite. It has a lower hardness than pyrite (3.5 to 4) and a lower specific gravity than pyrite (4.1 to 4.3), but the same tests can separate chalcopyrite from gold. Chalcopyrite also has a greenish black streak.
Many people are surprised that biotite mica can fool people into thinking that it is gold. This most often occurs when an inexperienced person is panning for gold and sees a bright flash in their gold pan. After chasing the tiny, highly lustrous flake, they think that it might be gold. However, slight pressure with a pin can break the flake of mica, but a tiny flake of gold will bend around the pin.
Explanation:
