Brassy egg

[Maine USA Beachcomber]

Hi,
Please help me identify this. Found it on sand in Maine USA washed up from the ocean with a few thousand other rocks. I comb this beach daily for 5 years picking up trash and never saw anything like it:


Brassy metallic color
Tried it on strong magnet but no magnetic pull
Worn smooth w pitting
Dense, very heavy
Can't scratch it w a knife or scissors
Doesn't scratch a glass bottle
Rubbed it on porcelain and first rubbed dark; then nothing
Gives off odd smell like old fireworks or gun barrel when rubbed with fingers or on porcelain
Egg shaped (*many many other rocks on the beach are egg-shaped)

Have you ever seen anything like it?

 

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[digger460]

That's a head scratcher. No rock expert here, but if it's as heavy and you can't scratch it, I wouldn't think that wave action would cause the roundness and smoothness. Can't wait till the experts chime in to find out what it is. Cool find!

 

[Salvor6]

Looks like a meteorite. Could be nickel.

 

[Jolly Mon]

It looks like a worn river rock. It could have gotten deposited near shore as part of a ship's ballast. Then again it could have gotten there naturally. If I found a rock like that in South Carolina, I would bet ballast. In Maine maybe not so much...isn't Maine's coast Rocky ?

 

[Maine USA Beachcomber]

It looks like a worn river rock. It could have gotten deposited near shore as part of a ship's ballast. Then again it could have gotten there naturally. If I found a rock like that in South Carolina, I would bet ballast. In Maine maybe not so much...isn't Maine's coast Rocky ?

It's very rocky, but not with gold/brass-colored rocks. The color and hardness and odor are puzzling. What kind of ballast?

 

[seekerGH]

Copper sulphide?

Did you run a density calculation?

Edit:

Looks like a meteorite. Could be nickel.

Most meteorites are iron and nickel and would react to the magnet.

 

[Jolly Mon]

Sorry, I missed your statement in the OP about there being many egg shaped rocks on the beach in question. Since this is the case, the rock is probably not ballast. Maybe Salvor6 is correct and it is a meteorite.

 

[Maine USA Beachcomber]

Pretty sure this is it.

 

[seekerGH]

That seems to be valid.

Specific gravity will always get you very close.

 

[digger460]

Unique find no matter what. Congrat's