NJ Find

[artyfacts]

This came out of the ground burying my pet back in 2005 or so. I thought it was a piece of concrete with iron in it until I turned it over and saw the holes and thought it was coral, almost threw it back in the hole. It sat on my back steps all these years. Not sure what it is. I purchased a 200x USB endoscope and found some very neat stuff that is not pictured. The pictures of what I presume is a crust are all very shiny or glassy, looking on an angle. There are many of these small patches on all sides ranging from black to rust, grey and clear, they look worn down by something. I'm not sure of the micro striations going through most of these glassy patches. The only thing I could find on these type of lines was twining but the spacing is irregular and it is only on the surface of these glassy sections. Another possibility is micro glacier striations, dont know. The striations all follow the same direction. The main mass is almost 6 inches long and tubular with a mass of rusty nodes with a bluish clump stuck to it. There are very bright metallic flakes and bright reflective metal that is oozing from the iron nodes. Most of the odd minerals have fracture lines going through them. If this gets any positive feedback I will upload more pics as there are some exciting minerals.

 

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[artyfacts]

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[CreekSide]

Slag?

 

[artyfacts]

Could be, thats why I posted it. Determining if the black glassy stuff is a crust makes its bed I hope. The pic with the multi color is in the 1000ths along with the red clear mineral.

 

[Red-Coat]

Vesicles like that don't occur in meteorites. I vote slag too.

 

[artyfacts]

The black to rust coating is a varnish not a crust. I found the same type of varnish with striations on NWA 2373 that was found in the desserts of Morocco. mindat.org/gm/50269 it would be the 4th picture. I didn't use the picture as its copyrighted, you have to look for yourself. This is a top notch of a read on varnishes, 17 years of work and study. https://www.public.asu.edu/~atrid/GeographyCompass_09.pdf I posted two pictures with a clear silica coating over the varnish on the specimen I found. If you don't have time to read the article, the blacker the varnish the more moisture, rustier the varnish more arid conditions. The thicker the varnish equals more layers and with every layer tens of thousands of years older.

 

[artyfacts]

Here is another good read describing testing at 9700 degrees kelvin and understanding meteoroid ablation including melting and vaporization. It is titled, ICARUS. It can be found at, www.elsevier.com/locate/icarus You have to pay for the PDF it is $25.00. The many who were involved through the years are far beyond my math skills and thinking, but a general understanding of all the variables will definitely have you thinking, and there are so many variables, trajectory, shape, mass, materials, water vapors, gases, heat and how quickly they are cooled and vaporized and the reactions to one another during these processes. From the author, "In the case of a large meteoroid at low altitudes, the heat fluxes (mostly due to radiative heating) will far exceed that simulated in the current work, and those cases, with such extreme heating, the melt layer would conceivably be vaporized before it could be removed by aerodynamic forces" How much melt layer depends on so many variables. These are my thoughts on this specimen. I live on a barrier island where this was found, there are no rocks to speak of, but I did find one. With the report on varnishes my conclusion is this is far from being modern, the island sand ablations on the varnish has opened up a window if you will showing possibly three layers with three distinct colors that are visible it could be up to 10,000 years old, (possibly). Even with the three visible varnish colors lets say the report is way off on this and we make it a 1000 years old. How did it get here? Was it found by travels from who knows where that once used the land and it became a lawn ornament as I did, it was on my steps for close to twenty years. The Indians lived here on this island. There was a large fresh water lake and a natural creek that at one time ran behind my property along with the entire seven mile back bay, or was it natural causes. Slag is the consensuses and that leaves volcanic or meteoric for the super heating. The ironish nodules look like they were shotgunned through this specimen and go from large to small diameter. There are also these bright solo metal flakes mixed throughout and also mixed along with the iron with no oxidization ( I did not say iron nickel). I guess there truly is a sucker born every minute I just have to get it tested, off it goes. Who is the best? Please let me know. Its a win win situation, I will get to know for sure and at the same time I get to support the hard working Americans in the lab. This has truly been a gift tripping over this sucker in the sand pile in my backyard, I almost face planted. I haven't stopped reading and learning and looking at this melted rock for many, many days. No matter the outcome I have a new appreciation for rocks from everywhere now. Its been a great read and a wonderful learning lesson.