meteorite or meteor-wrong?

[FeralBeryl]

picked up with neodymium magnet, seems to be crusted, weathering cracks, heavy for size, keen to acid etch the filed surface, opinions? cheers

 

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[Al D]

Difficult to tell from the photos alone, but……it looks very promising to me

 

[FeralBeryl]

Difficult to tell from the photos alone, but……it looks very promising to me

cheers, ill get some more pics in better lighting, i go around the property every so often with the magnet, and chuck all the promising looking rocks into a container, once every blue moon ill get them out and wash them etc and have a look, have a few suspects now, but this one in particular looks very close in my opinion

 

[Red-Coat]

Welcome to Tnet @FeralBeryl.

I have some comments. You say that you recovered this using a neodymium magnet. Those are sufficiently powerful that even items with low ferromagnetic properties will be attracted. From the metallic appearance of the area you have windowed with a file, if this were a meteorite it could only be from one of the Main Group nickel-irons, or a (much less common) Ataxite. Any of those would always show very strong attraction to a magnet… even a low-grade one such as a fridge magnet. Is that the case? If the attraction isn’t strong with a low-grade magnet then it isn’t a meteorite.

Cracking as seen on your specimen is a common feature of stony meteorites but not of metallic ones and the features are not from weathering, but from impact shocking. Although that means it’s not possible to say how weathered this specimen might be and how long it has been in the ground, the lack of rusting suggests it’s probably not a meteorite given the obviously metallic appearance.

Although etching will bring out any Widmanstatten figures if they are present, Ataxites don’t have these features. For other nickel-irons they may not be seen on small windows because the overall size of the features may well be larger than the window you have created. So, Widmanstatten figures are diagnostic for some meteorites but their absence isn’t necessarily a red flag.

 

[FeralBeryl]

Welcome to Tnet @FeralBeryl.

I have some comments. You say that you recovered this using a neodymium magnet. Those are sufficiently powerful that even items with low ferromagnetic properties will be attracted. From the metallic appearance of the area you have windowed with a file, if this were a meteorite it could only be from one of the Main Group nickel-irons, or a (much less common) Ataxite. Any of those would always show very strong attraction to a magnet… even a low-grade one such as a fridge magnet. Is that the case? If the attraction isn’t strong with a low-grade magnet then it isn’t a meteorite.

Cracking as seen on your specimen is a common feature of stony meteorites but not of metallic ones and the features are not from weathering, but from impact shocking. Although that means it’s not possible to say how weathered this specimen might be and how long it has been in the ground, the lack of rusting suggests it’s probably not a meteorite given the obviously metallic appearance.

Although etching will bring out any Widmanstatten figures if they are present, Ataxites don’t have these features. For other nickel-irons they may not be seen on small windows because the overall size of the features may well be larger than the window you have created. So, Widmanstatten figures are diagnostic for some meteorites but their absence isn’t necessarily a red flag.

here is some more pics, i was thinking it would make it easier to see the actual features like chondrules, widmanstatten etc if it was a meteorite, it is actually very weathered already i gave it a quick soak in acid to clean with a bunch of other ores etc and a scrub before filing don't have a regular magnet but will get one , could be hematite or some other ore, been trying to etch the filed surface but not sure what im doing wrong, just seems to make it weather more as shown in the pics, its tiny, much smaller than the pics make it look so hard to photograph ill add a few more photos anyway.

 

[Al D]

It sure looks like a specimen from Canyon Diablo