Help with this one

fuss

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Jul 27, 2018
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Found in a stream full of glacial stones bordering lake Michigan 20 miles north of Milwaukee WI. It has a very smooth surface that has a wax look to it. There is sedimentary looking bands some concentric all over this thing below the the wax surface layer (I know its not wax). Streak is white. It does not scratch with a penny but it does with my steel knife. it is to smooth and rounded to try to scratch glass with. It is grey in color but looked bluish in the sunlight when wet..Im thinking some kind of chert/Chalcedony? or maybe soapstone? I don't know.... Ive tried finding out online but nothing I found confirms what it is. Thx

smooth grey.jpg

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dirtdigginfool

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Neat find...I think it's just a rock with natural markings from being pushed around for centuries. I do like the smooth finish and the "grain" incorporated into it, would be a nice collectible polished up! Ddf.
 

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Plumbata

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May 13, 2012
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I'd bet ya a dollar that it is a piece of banded slate, a metamorphic stone prized by natives for making bannerstones, gorgets, etc. It looks like it has some unusual curved bands, as though that piece came from the point of a metamorphic fold instead of somewhere that had more straight-grain. It is an attractive example of the stone, not really worth anything but a nice find.
 

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fuss

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That's a good call Plumbata it does resemble the color and banding pattern, but I have not seen slate with a surface coating like this, its as if its been dipped in a wax and left to harden.
 

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Plumbata

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The surface could simply be well-worn due to millennia of tumbling in a stream, or perhaps it got coated in something unnatural that was dumped in the stream in the recent past. One of the reasons slate was prized was its property of taking a decent polish so perhaps that is all you are seeing?
 

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fuss

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possibly yes, but I am used to seeing slate around here as flat sheet like pieces with a non waxy surface that break apart easily, this thing is more like oddly shaped chunk.
 

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OZARKS

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Sep 16, 2013
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It's wiggles rabbit from wow wow wubzy! Wiggles.png that's what I see on it, anyways....lol
 

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