Metallic Rock - Ohio

[leonworkman]

Can someone help identify this? It is not magnetic. It is quite heavy. It does have spots of rust here and there, so I believe there is a bit of iron content, but most of it is definitely not orange and rusty on the outside. It's mostly a dark gray color. Only when it had broken open did I find the metal content on the inside (and I had likely looked at this rock quite a few times before it had broken open when stepped upon).

 

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[Nitric]

Looks like slag....I'm not positive that is what you have there, but it's all over ohio. They used it for fill, on roads, I found it in creeks. Are you anywhere close to any cities?

 

[hvacker]

I see pyrite. Put some heat to it and see if you smell sulfur.
The host rock can be almost black.

 

[leonworkman]

I see pyrite. Put some heat to it and see if you smell sulfur.
The host rock can be almost black.

The luster on the inside is completely reflective and metallic which doesn't come out well in the photos, and it does have a slight gold hue to it. I was thinking needle iron, but then I would've thought that it would be accompanied with a lot more rust. Pyrite could make sense. The streak from the inside metal doesn't leave any red at all. If it were iron pyrite, I would expect it to have some level of magnetism, but it doesn't. Low iron content slag could be a possibility, but then I wonder what all of the reflective material on the inside is composed of if it isn't iron.

Leon

 

[Nitric]

The luster on the inside is completely reflective and metallic which doesn't come out well in the photos, and it does have a slight gold hue to it. I was thinking needle iron, but then I would've thought that it would be accompanied with a lot more rust. Pyrite could make sense. The streak from the inside metal doesn't leave any red at all. If it were iron pyrite, I would expect it to have some level of magnetism, but it doesn't. Low iron content slag could be a possibility, but then I wonder what all of the reflective material on the inside is composed of if it isn't iron.

Leon

I was just taking a guess, I grew up around old strip mines and old coal mines. There were piles of stuff dumped there over the years from who knows where. I know there were steel mills, foundries, and other factories in that area.(Akron,Canton,Youngstown) So, we were told it was some kind slag.Some of it kind of looked like metallic? coal (is the only way I know how to describe it. Like a dull kind of lead color), and chipped apart fairly easy.Some of it looked like volcanic rock or something similar. We would find it in the creeks too.We also found all kinds of metallic looking rocks around railroad tracks. I'm not good At identifying rocks and minerals, I have no clue. Just reminded me of something similar. as kids, we called them space rocks! if all else fails? You could just go with that!