Glass like rock

Lakota

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Found this today. It has slight green but more amber color under the flash light. I see bubble and small object in it. Could it be amber?
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paleomaxx

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Amber is a soft material so you should be able to scratch it with your fingernail. It's also very light having a density similar to water so if it is amber it will feel much lighter than a rock of similar size and will actually float in seawater.

Amber also feels warm to the touch since it's thermal conductivity is much lower than rock and similar to that of plastic. Finally you can use the heat test which is destructive so not recommended on nice samples, but a sufficiently hot needle or other metal object will vaporize some of the amber and the resulting smell should be very pine-like.

If it fails those tests, and based on the conchoidal fracture it could also be a flint nodule.
 

A2coins

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What he said!!!! I agree completely!!!!
 

Benjamin52

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Hey
I cant tell you exactly what they are, but in my humble-non Geologist opinion it is reddish quartz-like rock. Back when I lived in Peru I found some similar rocks in the highlands. Look how red and transparent they are, I posted some pictures below. The ones I have are orange quartz which eroded or was somehow deformed.
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DDancer

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A simple hardness test is all that is needed for the first picture. Does it scratch a knife? It does not appear to be amber. It does appear to be a form of chalcedony and possibly agate as there appears to be some banding in it. Chalcedony is a quartz material. As to the pictures of the Peru rocks they are all chalcedony and pretty nice stuff.
 

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Lakota

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Pretty hard so I don't think it amber. Thanks for the info. Gold is a crazy dream but I'm more interested in history. I'll keep my out although.
 

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