Found in friends rock collection

racefanrob · Mar 28, 2011

Hi friends,

I found these in a friends outdoor rock collection. He didn't know what they were, but he found them in the Mojave Desert. I did the magnet test and the scratch on back of tile test and it was grayish black color. I haven't grinded the edge yet, but was wondering if anyone might have an idea of what they are

racefanrob · Mar 28, 2011

Sorry friends forgot a few details...the rare earth magnet stuck to them strong. There are 2 rocks pictured 3 of first and 3 of 2nd. The first one the magnet sticks everywhere except where the white patch of stone is showing. The second one it sticks in many places, but a few parts it doesn't stick. It is very strange they seem like they are iron, but I am not sure if they are magnetite or iron ore, or hoping meteorite!!!

Thanks for looking,
Rob

Slabman · Mar 28, 2011

I believe what you have is a stony meteorite. Check this: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/stony.html
Would explain why your magnet doesnt stick everywhere. Plus, the stony meteorites are the most valuable type
as they are a bit rarer than iron meteorites. Nice find!!

Slab

racefanrob · Mar 29, 2011

Slabman said:
I believe what you have is a stony meteorite. Check this: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/stony.html
Would explain why your magnet doesnt stick everywhere. Plus, the stony meteorites are the most valuable type
as they are a bit rarer than iron meteorites. Nice find!!

Slab

Thanks Slab!
I am not getting my hopes up, but I did find 2 more pieces yesterday. I will post later, but want to figure out how to make the pics a more reasonable size. I also found another very nice piece that looks to be smoothed out by water. Hoping it's not magnetite or hemetite. Thank you for the link.

Rob

desertstar12 · Mar 29, 2011

Are they pretty heavy? I am in the Arizona desert right now and every now and then a piece of meteor
fragments are found. If they were magnetic as you stated you might want to look into it.

racefanrob · Mar 29, 2011

desertstar12 said:
Are they pretty heavy? I am in the Arizona desert right now and every now and then a piece of meteor
fragments are found. If they were magnetic as you stated you might want to look into it.

Yes they are heavy and I just checked them with the mxt and it overloads they system. Hmm

Pretty strange.

HISPAN · Mar 29, 2011

Is a Meteor ?
interesting find...congrats ! :thumbsup:

H

ANTIQUARIAN · Mar 29, 2011

It looks a lot like Black Granite to me. :icon_scratch:

In the Sudbury Region of Northern Ontario we have lots iron rich black rock that look a lot like the piece you have pictured. I have at least 20 pieces of it sitting in my front garden.

The Sudbury structure is located northwest of Sudbury at the erosional boundary between the Archean Superior province and the overlying sequence of early Proterozoic continental margin deposits. The structure consists of the Sudbury Igneous Complex, a differentiated sequence of intrusive volcanic rocks  norite, gabbro and granophyre  overlain by breccias and metasedimenary rocks. The sublayer consists of a mass of basic to ultrabasic inclusions of varying size and frequency of occurrence. Sudbury gabbro varies between a gabbro and a norite, depending upon the local silicates' ratios. The quartz biotite gabbro is medium to coarse-grained, the Climax quartz monzonite is medium-grained.

In the Eastern Sudbury area the rock is highly crystalline hornblendic gneiss, which apparently dips at a rather low angle toward the southeast. See example pictured below.

Seeing as you found it in the Mojave, it's more likely that you have a stony meteorite though! :icon_thumright:

Congrats!
Dave

racefanrob · Mar 30, 2011

Ok I found some more pieces of the same type of rocks. They are not as big as the first 2, but they are nice none the less. The pics are of the same rocks just turned over in the second pic. I am hoping I have meteorites, but I am not sure yet. I have never seen that black granite before. Does black granite get rust stains from having the iron in it? Thanks for the feedback.

Rob