quartzing

Noun

quartzing (uncountable)

1. The extraction of quartz from the earth, and moreover the subsequent extraction of gold from quartz.
   • The operations of quartzing, charging, skimming, matte handling, firing and grating are carried out at Garfield about the same as at Anaconda and Cananea.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...
   • […] 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, […]1967, Westways, volume 59, page 56
2. The penetration of another rock or of earth by quartz.
   • 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.1956, Geologisches Jahrbuch: allgemeine und regionale Geologie, volume 71, page 665
   • 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.1968, Tsvetnye Metally, the Soviet Journal of Non-Ferrous Metals, volume 9, number 1, page 74