unknown metal

[1rought]

I hope this doesn't double post i tried to put this thread up 6 hours ago but it never got posted..
I found this rock around some lava rock at a central California man made lake..
It weights 7 pounds . I cut off the sides (thinking it was worthless but pretty) and polished it.
the acid test kit i got from Amazon told me its not gold and by the color of the acid after it was nickel.
i don't trust it .. doesn't seem like Nickel too me..
any ideas? could it be a meteorite?
In the video i put a small piece in Nitric acid 25% and 75% muriatic acid.. to see the reaction.
still waiting for more amazon test kits which take over a week to get.
thx

 

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[Johnbrian]

Need to see more of the uncut - unpolished side. But what little glimpse I saw of it didn't look like a meteorite. But I could be wrong!

Meteorites do have nickle in them, up to about 25%, but a meteorite is typically mostly iron. (Best I can recall anyway!)

 

[1rought]

sure here are some early pictures before i destroyed 3 billion years of tarnish..

 

[zombieraccoon]

Do you have a strong magnet ? (not a fridge magnet) if its iron it will stick very strongly, if it is nickel it will just barely pull on the magnet. Unless its a very very strong magnet it would not generally stick to nickel, just have some attraction. Though it is a big piece. and possibly an alloy. The green on it reminds me of a piece i found recently that turned out to be mostly cobalt.View attachment 1565197

 

[1rought]

i have an extremely strong magnet i made out of rare earth magnets and this rock is non magnetic. nothing.
I never considered cobalt . that might be it.. your a genius..
or what about chalcopyrite which is where your cobalt let me.

 

[1rought]

i think this could be it . mine is sure a clean specimen though... its almost perfect...

 

[zombieraccoon]

hard to say, if you call around recycling yards in your area, one of tgem may have a metal analyzer that will tell you the make up of the metal. some charge a fee for this, the ones i have dealt with generally dont.

 

[1rought]

great idea thx. if it was chalcopyrite wouldn't it be magnetic because of the iron mixed with the copper.

 

[zombieraccoon]

some alloys, and some stainless steels are non-ferrous. Hope you saved the scraps you cut off of it. If its white metal, nonferrous, and heavy it likely has some value. How much depends on what it turns out to be once analyzed.

 

[1rought]

its all those things,, very very heavy and soft like gold.. i got my Nickel test kit today from ebay . it came out negative for Nickel..
i can find any chalcopyrite rocks that are even close to being pure like this rock is.. what ever it is its very pure.

 

[1rought]

this is a pic of the rock at 800x



this is the reaction under microscope with nitric and muriatic acid at 600x kind of cool watch it untill the end though

 

[1rought]

I got a gold test today this is the results.. i also tested a gold ring with the same test and it came out the same exact color..what do you guys think gold or no?

 

[1rought]

got the analysis back today,, its Tungsten with some silver in it..

 

[zombieraccoon]

Interesting, sometimes you just never know what you will find, I would probably keep it as a conversation piece. Unless you can go back and get a lot more, I think tungsten is around $2/lb scrap price.

 

[1rought]

Well I figured out it is not Tungsten I think the guy I paid to have it sent in for analysis just keep the money and lied to me..
I sent a sample to Riverside College in California and this is what they told me..
Pentlandite (Fe,Ni)9S8 is my best guess, based these properties plus the non-reaction to muriatic (HCl) and the reaction to nitric that you report