Need help identifying a rock..

Originally posted by TedHodgson
reply to post by woodwytch

 

Ayeee im over near helmsley, nr the white horse bank

edit on 1/12/10 by TedHodgson because: (no reason given)

Small world ... I'm in the winter wonderland that is also known as Kirkbymoorside ... bet that white horse is taking a bit of spotting in this weather ?

Back on topic what do you think about the Tektite option ?

Woody

reply to post by woodwytch

Tektite Hmm seems yet another possibilty, i only said jet becuase its accosiated with lignite which is known to have many different qualities differencing in surface smoothness and can be found practically anywhere as its essentially compact coal minerals, to be honest it would be pretty hard to identify without a detailed analysis

Originally posted by TedHodgson
reply to post by woodwytch

 

Tektite Hmm seems yet another possibilty, i only said jet becuase its accosiated with lignite which is known to have many different qualities differencing in surface smoothness and can be found practically anywhere as its essentially compact coal minerals, to be honest it would be pretty hard to identify without a detailed analysis

Agreed ... I know others have asked but OP is there any chance of a clearer picture ... I love these threads and would love to get to the bottom of it with a little more certainty

Woody

It could also be basalt.
A very fine-grained groundmass, at times it can look black.

I will get my Sisters dig cam tomorrow and take better close up pics. Thank you so much everyone for your suggestions and advise.

reply to post by SKinLaB


petrified rock or bone

Does a very tiny bit of light come through and make an amber color when holding it up to the sun? It kind of looks like these rocks we would find when we were little here in Arizona called Apache Tears, some type of volcanic glass rock. I'm not a geologist or even close, I had a pet rock once but it died. So I may be wrong.

Here is the link to my Picasa web album. The pics are bigger. For some reason Photobucket wouldnt display them in actual size. For now this is the best i can do until i get my Sisters camera. I hope it helps. If not let me know please.
picasaweb.google.com...#

Originally posted by aorAki
It could also be basalt.
A very fine-grained groundmass, at times it can look black.

I agree with you.

Basalt comes in a variety of shades, including black.

Wiki Basalt

After seeing the bigger pictures from the OP I'm definately going with Tektites (see images below for comparison);

>>>LINK ABOUT TEKTITES

Tektites look like obsidian glass.
i have Tektites from AU. Thailand, Philipines and the US and it does not look like a Tektite in anything but color.
www.meteorite-times.com...
i2.ebayimg.com...
meteorites.wustl.edu...
www.thaicosmic.com...
www.atoncer.com...
www.thegemtree.com...

With out knowing the hardness or the crystal structure its almost imposable to tell what it is.

Being a mineral collector and a miner i get shown rocks all the time.
The worst was a chunk of translucent crystalline brown rock one time.
The finder had a photo of where he found it with with some twisted scrap sheet metal.
After asking a few more questions i unidentified it as TNT from a old WW2 bomb that had hit the ground and the bomb casing had broke up.

My guess is Leaverite

reply to post by ANNED
Lucky you didn't whack it with a hammer to check it's cleavage patterns, the explosive, that is!

Wow.

reply to post by SKinLaB


amtarcher suggested fossilised bone, and if that is a known find in the area from which this came I would be inclined to go with that. Pictures 1 and 3 definitely seem to have a bone cross-section shape.

maybe it is this:



Thats coal, polished..

reply to post by MR BOB
Yes, as someone else mentioned 'jet', which is polished coal.

It could be just that. Someone asked me what I thought they had once, it was what looked like a black rock. Turned out to be a hardened lump of roofing tar.

Its crazy how heavy this thing is for its size. Anyway, again thank you all for your help.

I wish I could see the pictures. My office network blocks both Picassa and Photobucket. I might be able to help with the ID. As some have mentioned already, a scratch test is a good place to start. Once the hardness is determined then you can start to rule out what it isn't....

~Good luck!

Keep in mind he said it seems significantly heavy, relative to it's size... doesn't that in itself rule out polished coal as a suspect?

Unless you can take higher quality pictures of the thing, you might want to see about finding someone who can inspect the rock in person... someone suggested a museum?

But be sure to let us know if you find out what it is!

Originally posted by timmhaines
reply to post by SKinLaB

 

petrified rock or bone

Petrified rock? lol.... sorry... but that made me laugh...

What do you mean by scratch test? Sorry but im a nub when it comes to this kind of stuff.