meteorite?

[geo4472]

hear are a couple pics .it is heavy for its size seems to have the outer crust but is not magnetic and i know 90% of the meteorites are i dont beleive it is slag wasnt found near any rr beds. anyone?

 

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[paseclipse]

Nonmagnetic, then it's not a meteorite. Meteorites have nickel and iron in them which attracts a magnet. Sorry

 

[utah hunter]

I second the motion, not a meteorite. The more you hike the hills the more you find rocks that look like meteorites, most even magnetic, that aren't true meteorites. Here is a cool website I found a few years back on "meteorwrongs". http://meteorites.wustl.edu/meteorwrongs/meteorwrongs.htm
Great info here. Thanks for the pic, still a cool rock...Ryan

 

[trish76642]

I found this that i thought was interesting from http://meteorites.wustl.edu/id/metal.htm
It says..............

(Finally, some meteorites do not contain any appreciable metal and consequently have low concentrations of Ni. Most of the meteorites known as achondrites are poor in metal and nickel (see the table of meteorite types here). In other words, many of the rarest types of meteorites contain little or no metal and have low nickel concentrations, just like Earth rocks.)[/b]

 

[*Molly*]

Not all Meteorites are magnetic either.

 

[paseclipse]

Hi Trish and Molly,

Let me first correct myself and say yes you two are correct that not all meteorites are magnetic. However nonmagnetic meteorites make up a very small percentage of the overall meteorite finds (notice how the euthor says "rare" meteorite). I don't recall the exact percentage amount off the top of my head (I think it may be something like less than 5%). Achondrites are extremely difficult to identify and find and they look very similiar terrestrial rocks so the average person would probably have a very difficult time identifying one. Heck I regularly hunt and successfully find meteorites all the time and I would have difficulty identifying an Achondrite unless it was very obvious.

Another thing that I will say, if you scroll down to the bottom of the link Trish provided, you will see the author points out vesicles (another meteorwrong indicator) and you can clearly see vesicles in the bottom picture in this post. If I was going to take a guess at what kind of rock is in the picture I would say it's some sort of extrusive igneous rock, maybe a piece of basalt or obsidian, something I see all the time out there in California.

You two seem to have taken a genuine interest in meteorites, so I'll take this opportunity and point you in the right direction to learn about them. If you two really want to learn about hunting meteorites buy this book and read it-

http://www.amazon.com/Meteors-Meteo...Astronomy/dp/1848001568/?tag=treasurenet01-20

Do me a favor, after reading this book come back to this post (or most of the posts on the meteorite section in this forum) and tell me if you still think thats a meteorite.

If you want to check out a forum where theres regular meteorite hunters posting go to the Nuggetshooter forum-

http://www.nuggetshooter.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=4

The NS forum is very good for meteorite hunting and it has a lot of good meteorite hunters posting on it.

I'm not trying to be mean or anything so don't take what I have to say in offense. I'm a succesful weekend meteorite hunter just trying to help people out with identification so they can get themselves closer to finding the real deal. You have to realise that meteorite hunting is a very difficult game and the probilities of finding one is very low. However if you learn a few things about them, (identifying, most likely places where they are, and hunting techniques) then you can successfully hunt for them too. The first thing I'll tell you that meteorite hunters do if they have a rock that looks like it might be one (unless it's very obvious), is assume it isn't a meteorite then prove that it is. It's not the other way around, (assume it's a meteorite then prove it isn't).

I wish both of you the best of luck in your future meteorite endeavours.

Del

 

[trish76642]

The percentage of a non-meteorite is 9 % Del. Thanks for posting the websights!

I do realize there are some that are very difficult to determine if it is a meteorite or not. Thats where all the questions come in. Sending a sample to someone to make that determination is another thing. What is it that they actually do to determine if its a meteorite or not other than sticking a magnet to it? Or doing a nickle test?

Theres always that chance that they were wrong unless they take it a step further than the normal routine of testing one. Like doing a mineral analysis, which they probably wouldnt do to begin with because the sample isnt magnetic...see....lots of questions.

We appreciate your help Del

 

[geo4472]

thanks for all the info guys as i did find it near a basalt flow might be what it is