GLASS ROCK found in woods (photos embedded) Need expert analysis.

Berwick area OP. I'm in Lehigh Valley. I know the dark shiny stone is called obsidian(spelling), if I recall. And was formed from Volcanoes and I think a type of glass.
The other was slag which was a steel by product. It does look like glass. Was it found near any railroad tracks?

reply to post by Explorarent


Interesting info. Thanks for sharing!
It's very nice to hear a Geologist's expert opinion on this thread..
I love rocks and minerals and have always had an interest, but I make no claims of being an expert on anything. lol
I'm only an expert on, being a curious monkey.

My "lamens-opinion" on it still, is that I'm 99% certain it is slag glass.. Not uranium glass or Quartz. Although I would love to be proven wrong.
I would highly recommend the OP to share with his friend the advice of the antiques dealer who commented earlier on the thread. Very, very sound advice

-Cheers

Definitely kryptonite..

reply to post by SixX18


Lightning struck sand and made a glass rock because of the intense heat.

Corruptedstructure
Definitely kryptonite..

No, it isn't.
It's an ice cube.
Whatever it is, I like it! I will try to find one of my own this summer.....

It is an Ice Cube. How much is an ice cube worth?

I could only guess... But it might be possible for a higher quality glass to occur natually if it gets hot enough when formed. If there's some anthracite deposits near the surface adjacent to sand or sandstone, and something like a forest fire is hot enough to light off the anthracite into a burn, it would make sense that sand or sandstone adjacent could become molten and form glass deposits. Whether or not local geology would allow for it is something you might have to dig into. (Perhaps literally?)

reply to post by SixX18


I wish your friend had taken a picture of it in the ground before he pulled it out. I'm curious if it 'landed' there, or was it placed there? How much moss or dirt was on it when they found it? was there impact tracks or small crater? were the trees around it damaged?

Id look at every inch of that surface and see if there's any indication of faceting, like quartz will triangulate small surfaces as it forms (baby triangles) but will also sometimes do that random wavy striations like broken glass and obsidian, when broken or sheared. Those photos make it hard to tell, but still, super fun to speculate about possibilities and ask more questions of your friend if you can!

reply to post by SixX18

reply to post by Ameilia


Nice response...I think we have a winner!

reply to post by SixX18


Hate to jump on the bandwagon, but from what I can see it's slag glass, or man-made glass.

1. I collect quartz as a hobby - First of all, just by looking at the fracture in the pictures, it doesn't have the appearance of any quartz crystals I've seen (and yes, I have seen specimens up close; envy some of the dealers at the rock & mineral shows with their big crystals).

2. If it's got bubbles in it, and it is as clear as the photos show, then it's not quartz. One of the first things I was taught is that while quartz can have air/water bubbles in it, if you find a very clear, large sphere and it contains a lot of bubbles, then chances are it's glass.

3. I've found chunks of slag glass hundreds of feet away from the nearest railroad, in areas that you'd think you were the first person to visit. One of the things I've always liked about nature is that if you leave it alone long enough, then it will eventually reclaim the land. In this case, my suspicion would be that there was a building or area nearby that produced the slag as a by-product (maybe ore refinement). In this case, the ore would have been exported or shipped out, and the glass was dumped near the creek in piles. Over time, the piles were moved or spread-about.

The reason I say this? My bet is that the cave was actually part of a coal/steel refinement plant at one point - Sulfur & slag glass are both a byproduct from the refinement process.

4. Remember, your friend only found something close to the surface; I'd bet that if you dug a little deeper in the surrounding area, you would find more bits & pieces.

For example, I have a park near me that used to have a really old subdivision in it - On the surface, there isn't much to see. In order to find the "dumps" that the people left at the time, you'd need to get down next to the river bed to find the treasure. I've found broken pottery, old marbles, toys, and someday I'd love to find an arrowhead. Back then, the mentality was dig a hole, bury the broken items/disused items, and cover it up. The fun part was that I could actually dig through the layers of stuff, track back through the years.

In short: Slag Glass is my vote

-fossilera

PS: Not that I'm saying he could make a profit, but down in some of the southern states they do sell this for a good sum of money - One the size of a bowling ball would fetch a considerable sum, I'll wager. They also attach a fancy name onto it to trick those that buy it into thinking it's something more than glass - Didn't fool me, but it sure fooled the poor souls next to me.

I like the theory that it's glass slag/aquarium glass as well. I remember when I was young, I'd always make my parents take me into the local pet stores so I could look at the animals (which they hated doing because I always wanted to leave with one!). They always had giant glass rocks for sale, usually aqua blue in color and I always wanted one but my parents never would buy one for me. If they're really that valuable now we should have bought the whole store out!

As for how it got there...maybe someone put it there on purpose? Maybe someone thought it would be amusing to bury it to try to fool someone. :p My friends and I used to go out into the woods a lot and we'd find random junk lying about and go hide it under rock ledges, in holes in trees and other such places.

Another possiblity could be that someone emptied their aquarium into the creek or they had a bunch of rocks and glass decorating their yard and they hauled it to the creek and dumped it. I'd love to find something like that in the woods, though!

check it...

for radiation ..

Interview with a NASA scientist about the Concave Earth Theory.

I'm a little late to the party, but wanted to give the OP props for an original and thought provoking thread.

And, props to the people who responded, offered their opinions, and made a funny here and there.

Regardless of what it is, it's pretty awesome to find something buried out in the woods, like that.
I'm betting it is something from the nearby mine, slag, or some sort of funky quartz.

SixX18
Perhaps this is a place-holder or a "stand" in which to set the Skulls in the British Museum

reply to post by SixX18


I have not read thru all the pages to see if someone mentioned it already, but it may be a marker for something valuable that was underneath it, or nearby. Personally I would probably take a metal detector and search the entire area for 50-100 yards in every direction. You never know....Interesting post. S & F.

I found something similar. I was to curious, so i broken it up. The bubles had glas tubes in it. My theory at the time and still is that my 15kg glass bubble was remelted meteoric glass nothing more. It was extremly hard, but it was allsaw a thick pice of glass. Colors ranged from purple to red. 8 years back nobody sugested it could have any monetary value, so i chuged it in trash. Sorry i cant find any pictures of it. Had i know something like that was worth something....
My location: Slovenia, ljubljana, hill Urh. In the middle of the woods, covered by snow, leaves. At first we thought(me and my ex) that it was just ice, but for the red in it.

Can anyone explain what made tubes made of glass in it.

Excuse my poor english, it's not my native language

reply to post by SixX18


How do we even know this is glass. It looks like melted plastic to me. There even seems to be a hole in the very front of it and you can see the table beneath. At the very least its slag. chip off a sample and have it tested. Is this a joke?

schuyler

SixX18
If that is the case, then how did it get there, and why are there possibly more of these near a sulfur creek bed that originates from a cave? Not saying it is not slag, because they look very much the same. Just can't rule out that it isn't natural, and what else it could be.

You stated earlier that the finder would not say exactly where it was found. Hmmm. First rule of archeology is to document EXACTLY where an artifact was found. If you don't have the "in situ" information, and this has been intentionally withheld, then you have to ask why. What's to be gained from withholding this information? I'm thinking the only reason is because someone sniffs some sort of financial gain here somewhere.

He wouldn't tell exactly, because if it was something like a rare crystal etc, he didn't want the whole bar going out and finding more. but he did tell me more details, which I have posted if you read on. I can't put a gps on it, but the general area is near these places I have mentioned, and someone else said they have seen similar glass while drifting the creek, but didn't stop as they were kayaking (spelling?)