Stephi's blue rocks please help and thank you....

[Stephi]

Hello, I'm new here and releived to have fount this site. Hopefully you can help me. I've been hunting this creak by and old volcanic site which my town is known for it's granite. Anyway where the creek forks is where I've been finding these beautiful blue colored rocks.

 

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[vpnavy]

1st - I noticed this was your very first post - so, Take a look at Forum: Missouri for information (i.e., clubs, etc.) directly related to your state.

2nd - If no one can identify your find - you might consider posting your pictures on ROCKS/GEMS for more exposure...

 

[HuntinDog]

I don't know rock, but those are cool
I'd hunt the heck out of them if they were in my area.

and ​Welcome to TreasureNet

 

[unclemac]

some of your rocks look like slag glass, some look like opal and the one could be some kind of blue chalcedony, hard to tell.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

In the first pic, the pieces that are kind of black to white layered look just like the slag from the foundry here, my driveway is pretty much paved with it and so is much of the older part of town here. Some of it can be really pretty and I've heard that there are some people who cut and polish it for jewelry.

 

[Reanm8er]

Hi Stephi and welcome! These are pretty samples and I'm going to have to go with furnace slag also. The fact you live in Iron County kind of reinforces that.
When they smelted Iron ore in large stone furnaces just before they released it into the ingot molds they threw in a compound described as flux. It was usually ground silicates of some sort and gathered all the impurities floating on top of the molten iron and cemented them together. That allowed the Iron to flow out of the furnace in a purer form without included impurities. The pieces are colored by the mineral content of the impurities. For instance the bright blue pieces are probably a glassine compound of copper. It would be like a synthetic turquois. The oldest furnace, still standing, in my area was named for Queen Elizabeth 1, as was the State of Virginia. It actually operated in colonial times and there was a huge pile of slag there in the 1950s. So many folks have carried off samples that the pile isn't even visible any more. It can be sliced, cut and polished into jewelry and was once tumble polished and sold in bags in souvenir shops. I've even seen native artifacts made of it.

Best wishes!