How did this happen?

[incajoe]

I found this blob of metal earlier this season. It was near an old barn foundation and I'm assuming there was probably a house there at one time as well. My guess is that the house burned down and something that was in the house melted as a result of the extreme heat leaving me this blob. It appears to be either brass or maybe copper and is about the size of my thumb. What stumps me though is how it formed this shape? As you can see there are no flat spots on this piece at all. If something melted you would expect it to form a puddle and cool in a pancake type configuration. It couldn't be natural unless it's copper and not brass. The only answer I can come up with is that maybe it melted and dropped in some deep water which would allow it to cool into a random shape with no flat spot. What do you guys think?

 

[aa battery]

Almost looks like crystalline copper

 

[cwdigger]

Yea I can agree with the water idea, think of a candle if you light a candle and let it burn when the wax drips off it can form al sorts of funny shapes as long as it cools quickley. There couls have been snow on the ground and as it melted it dripped forming the shape that you have there! just a thougt

 

[Montana Jim]

Kewl slag... I find crap like that too all the time... I like the water idea!

Any of you reloader types wanna try to drop some lead in water and see what happens?

We can conduct an experiment right here...

It might react like that is very soft sand? I dunno...

 

[MD Dog]

I see that your from new england but I don't know where. I'm from new york and I know that refineries littered the landscape for many years in this area and finds like yours are quite common in my area. I was once told by an old steel mill worker that that was what they called slag. Some of which when pouring melted metals into molds etc, would crackle snap and pop from the moisture in thr air. With the sound effects came splatters and spits which air cooled before hitting the ground. Most of this debri slag was simply shoveled out the back door into a never ending landfill.

 

[incajoe]

Yea I can agree with the water idea, think of a candle if you light a candle and let it burn when the wax drips off it can form al sorts of funny shapes as long as it cools quickley. There couls have been snow on the ground and as it melted it dripped forming the shape that you have there! just a thougt

The snow idea is a good thought but I think this is way too big of a piece of metal to cool by coming in contact with the snow. Not that the snow couldn't cool it off but I think it would have melted through to the ground before becoming solid. It's a pretty good sized and hefty chunk of metal.

 

[incajoe]

I see that your from new england but I don't know where. I'm from new york and I know that refineries littered the landscape for many years in this area and finds like yours are quite common in my area. I was once told by an old steel mill worker that that was what they called slag. Some of which when pouring melted metals into molds etc, would crackle snap and pop from the moisture in thr air. With the sound effects came splatters and spits which air cooled before hitting the ground. Most of this debri slag was simply shoveled out the back door into a never ending landfill.

Again I think this piece is too big to have cooled in the air. I should have included a coin in the photos for size comparison but it is about the same size as my thumb and weighs as much as a big pocket full of change. It's just too much mass to cool that quickly.

 

[Ant]

I find it all the time too and I think it comes from sweating pipes.

 

[stefen]

Might also be the result of a building fire...

 

[wesfrye53]

How about a lightning strike? I've seen some weird reults of strikes over the years.