quartzing

English

Etymology

From quartz +‎ -ing.

Noun

quartzing (uncountable)

1. The extraction of quartz from the earth, and moreover the subsequent extraction of gold from quartz.
   • 1910, R. R. Moore, Recent Reverberatory Smelting Practice, in the Engineering and Mining Journal, volume 89, reprinted in Chemical Abstracts, published by the American Chemical Society, volume 4, number 13, page 1860:

     The operations of quartzing, charging, skimming, matte handling, firing and grating are carried out at Garfield about the same as at Anaconda and Cananea.

   • 1967, Westways, volume 59, page 56:

     […] the loss of gold was still as high as 25 percent. This is one of the reasons why most early quartzing operations soon failed. There were thirty-nine mills in 1854 […] . By 1858, there were 279 quartzing mills operating. Although quartzing was practiced in each of the Mother Lode counties, […]

   • 1996, Historic Preservation, volume 48, issues 1–3, page 64:

     In 1857, Hutchings’ California magazine bragged that the Suite / Creek Foundry and another at Grass Valley, fifty miles north, were "the only works in the mining district where all kinds of machinery in brass and iron are cast for quartzing, and without the […] "

2. The penetration of another rock or of earth by quartz.
   • 1956, Geologisches Jahrbuch: allgemeine und regionale Geologie, volume 71, page 665:

     The wedging away (thinning out), breaking and quartzing of the vein matter in tectonically critical zones does by no means indicate the end of the workability.

   • 1968, Tsvetnye Metally, the Soviet Journal of Non-Ferrous Metals, volume 9, number 1, page 74:

     The mercury deposit studied is located among sedimentary rocks (limestones, jasperoids, and slates) which have been subjected to extensive quartzing and to other hydro thermal changes.

   • 1999, Russian Geology and Geophysics, volume 40, issues 9–12, page 1594:

     Fig. 2. A schematic geological map (a) and section of ore zone (b) of the Sukhol Log deposit. […] 5 — zone of intense veinlet quartzing and mylonitization ("Radostnaya");