The last couple winters we have chased quartz from the rye patch clear up into north west NV. On the geology maps I located a spot at 7000 ft. where there was supposed to be an old alluvia  area and sure enough there it was, a sandy lake bottom with shore line marks and all. The area is not really big and here it is in the middle of volcanic rock outcrops to boot  and a dry wash running in and out of the basin so off my beautiful bride went and soon coming up with a lone piece of quartz on the upper bank. Working our way up to the out crops of volcanic rock she started getting hits as her tessoro lobo kept singing her song the color of the dirt changed. I got out the magnet and no iron at all though the color of the rock changed from brown to black and even red so spent the rest of day searching but not another piece of quartz was to be found or a reason why the detector went nuts over these rocks. We had about fifty lbs. of samples and when I broke them up they were full of the nicest white crystal you ever saw so I crushed them up and over the table they went. Thinking we had found the mystical quartz that geology reports said yet to be discovered I stated getting these white globs of stuff in the traps on the table and had to shove them on down where went into the #1 heavy cons. Further investigation showed that the crystals was a rare form of mercury and the rock was full of micron gold and silver. You never know what your handling some times so be careful when your crushing or just panning and end up with something toxic. Tom