Hematite?

[Dougie Webb]

Came across this in the woods near my house in Stone Mountain. Nothing remarkable about the location, but have never seen anything like it here. It's very dense/heavy, even a little more so than what I would expect from iron. It attracts a magnet, but not particularly strongly given its size.

Since my detector identified it primarily as iron, and it leaves a brownish streak, my assumption is hematite. But I can't seem to find any images of hematite that look like this. It has inclusions (not sure if this is the right use of that word) of what are obviously other types of rocks. I've put a close up of some of those.

When I discriminate out iron on my detector, I readily get numbers that are associated with iron and aluminum.

The color below is a little lighter than the actual, as I did some editing to bring out the details.

Thanks in advance!





Close-up of one of the "inclusions" - it's significantly lighter than the rest of the rock, just didn't come across well here.



More detail...

 

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[DDancer]

Looks like it could be a mixture of concretion and some hematite. Concretions come in all varieties and many are high in iron minerals. Clean hematite will streak red and has a darker hue~ so some of the darker areas may be more hematite then concretion. Hematite itself is not magnetic but as I said concretions have high levels of iron minerals typically so magnetite may be involved.

 

[Dougie Webb]

Looks like it could be a mixture of concretion and some hematite. Concretions come in all varieties and many are high in iron minerals. Clean hematite will streak red and has a darker hue~ so some of the darker areas may be more hematite then concretion. Hematite itself is not magnetic but as I said concretions have high levels of iron minerals typically so magnetite may be involved.

DDancer, thanks for the help. It turns out that the thing is an old piece of iron, perhaps a primitive tack hammer. I posted it in the "What Is It" forum and someone suggested I knock the hell out of it with a hammer, and sure enough, there was a manmade "something" - I put it in the rock tumbler with some BB's for a few hours and it came out looking like this:



Something very similar on eBay:

 

[DDancer]

Cool Dougie, never would have thought to hit it with a hammer hehh hehh,
I've come across concretions in eastern Georgia and South Carolina in the red clays that look just like the first pictures. Maybe I'll giv'm a wack next time

 

[Dougie Webb]

I owe all the credit to ticndig!