Creek hunt and what type of stone is this?

rock · Oct 15, 2013

I went back to the creek seeing the water is low now. I found some more of the debitage of the white stone and a core of it. I showed some of the debitage pieces last week to a customer that comes in and he is a retired Geologist. He studied the piece and says well it is not from the local area we live in (north Ga) so it must of been traded in. Which by the way to me is cool to know. Anyway he then guessed it to be "moonstone". Today I went back and found some more of it and one piece that looks to be a small knife. This type of rock looks like slag but it has been worked and I have found plenty of flakes of it. The last piece was found in another creek also today and is missing the tip (darn-it).

painterx7 · Oct 15, 2013

Beautiful material I think I may have some ill look when I get home nice finds!!

hbrown22 · Oct 15, 2013

Neat material! Does it have a pearly like luster to it? I pick lots of stuff up just because I like the color or material

rock · Oct 15, 2013

hbrown22 said:
Neat material! Does it have a pearly like luster to it? I pick lots of stuff up just because I like the color or material

Yes very slick feel to it. Its strange that it looks like slag glass but I have never found slag in a clean white color and it has a cortex skin to it which I dont find on slag either. Its a very strange type of rock. I have never found it any place else. Its been worked and if that small knife is natural it is the best natural one I have ever found. If I hadnt pulled it from the side of the bank myself I might think it was slag.

rock · Oct 15, 2013

This one isnt a artifact but it is the same type of stone. I found it out in the same place. Hopefully this will help in determining the type of stone it is. Any guesses? It would be great to hear some.

painterx7 · Oct 15, 2013

This piece does look like slag glass I mean almost a dead match .....

painterx7 · Oct 15, 2013

And I find quite a bit of this material it is flint or chert of some kind It looks like Dover flint but there are many variations in color and texture ...I'm looking for two examples it may help

Tnmountains · Oct 15, 2013

Rock it has to be a type of quartz don't you think? We have so many local flints. I only can recognize the fort paynes and dovers and stuff like that. The rest is just mountains of local stuff. We have a root beer that looks like krf and it's called chickamauga black locally. Crazy. You have shown many types in your hunts. I am not sure some even have a name other than a geological description.

GatorBoy · Oct 15, 2013

rock... is there a railroad track anywhere near there?

painterx7 · Oct 15, 2013

Here is a pic of same material it has a diff color but I've seen it dead on to yours it breaks diff than regular flint kinda like in cubes and I agree with me Tn mountain the other is a form of quartz

hbrown22 · Oct 15, 2013

Quartz does not have cleavage, so it won't break into cubes. Will have fracture. Try the steel file on it (6.5), quartz is 7.

GatorBoy · Oct 15, 2013

The last piece looks like quartz.
The piece with the rind isn't the same.
All the tiny bubbles in the rind give it away as either slag or volcanic material.

Any silica based material associated with limestone would have cortex like this.

GatorBoy · Oct 15, 2013

Slag can be alot of different colors..
I picked this up out of some railroad track ballast

rock · Oct 15, 2013

There is a track that runs near the creek but it is way down stream. The stream actually runs down hill quite steep in certain areas. Its weight feels lighter than what it should be to me on the last piece I posted and the one GB highlighted does show fractures like glass. I do think that one is probably slag. But the small knife is worked on the blade edge it looks like secondary flaking where they might use it to cut with. How old is slag?
Here is another pic of the translucent piece I found last week and it shows work on the scraping edge and also the flake.

rock · Oct 15, 2013

painterx7 said:
This piece does look like slag glass I mean almost a dead match .....

Yeah I see the fractures in it like glass, now

GatorBoy · Oct 15, 2013

Those last two look like two different types of material.
The first looks like chalcedony the second looks like a flake of quartz but its hard to tell much when you photograph pieces wet.

..... "This has been a test of the material ID. System"..... ;-)

eastTNJoe · Oct 15, 2013

Once we figure out what it is...let us add it to the material thread we were using a few months ago....Rock, I am the last person to tell you what it is, but white rock in this area usually gets the label of quartz...seems like maybe that is the most logical choice...but maybe it is something exotic...what did the fellow tell you "moonstone" was? Can't imagine that is the scientific name...ha!