rock? fossil charcoal? miscellaneous? stumped

[Crendel]

hello all. finally cooled down enough for me to get back out and do a little wandering. found this with a metal detector. buried in a creek about 6 inches under the bottom. it sets off the metal detector- even the pinpointer- but i tested it with the big magnet and no attraction whatsoever. its about 2x2 inches across and about 1/2" "tall." its just a bit on the light side of what i would expect for the rocks around here (between buffalo and rochester ny). it kind of looked to me like weathered shale but shale is everywhere around here and ive never seen it look like this so im guessing its something else. any opinions on this one greatly appreciated. cheers!

 

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[ToddsPoint]

It's a sedimentary rock, you can tell by the layers. It looks like mudstone to me. Maybe a metal object inside the piece? Just a guess. Gary

 

[old digger]

Your item looks similar to Hematite.

 

[crashbandicoot]

A long way from New York but I find something like that on sandbars sometimes,same color and composition look.Layered and usually wet because of being in the wet sand.All the ones I found were rather soft.Would that be mudstone too?I never saved one but if I find another I,ll try to get a pic.Thanks for indulging me.

 

[Crendel]

thanks for your ideas all! yeah the sediment layers are kind of what have thrown me off. otherwise i might have just assumed it to be a piece of blacktop or the like, though how blacktop would have gotten to this area would have been equally puzzling. ive seen lots of layered shales in my day but never one this dark and that had such fine layers. this has the appearance of being soft but its actually hard enough to put a gouge in a stainless steel shovel. strange. ill look into these suggestions a bit more and follow up if im ever able to come to a definitive conclusion. cheers!