Very cool patern flint material, help id please

[chong2]

This chunk was found with two small flakings of the same material in a indian camp site about 1/2 mile radius. It has a smooth surface to it, as flint does. I have never seen this material before untill i saw a fellow TN member post up a picture of a paleo indian knife made out of it "7th pic down in the link " http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,214263.0.html
My material was found in SW New Mexico, his was found in Tennessee .
Can someone help us identify the material, as to what it is and where it originates from. I would be veru appreciated. Thanks Everyone!!!!!!!

 

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[chadrack]

I'll take a stab at this. First, I don't know what to call it, but this is what i think it is. It is an altered piece of beach sand or dune material, altered by the deep formation being saturated by silica ground waters under great gravitational pressure from formations above, and transformed or metamorphosed into a very fine grained quartzite. The dark vein pattern is common in "fossilized" sand dunes and beach formations. What makes yours dark though, are hydrocarbons. I'm going to make a guess and say that it might smell like crude oil if put to a wet grinder. A little too fine grained to be a quartzite, yet a bit too coarse to be called chalcedony, agate, chert or whatever(all the same thing). By the way, true flint does not occur much out here in the west- it is a mid or eastern U.S. thing. It sparks well when one piece is struck against another, I believe. c

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

Gee, it looks like raw Tiger's Eye.

B

 

[chong2]

chad, your explanation sounds good, i know there are some dunes miles away from the site, so possibly.........

 

[chadrack]

That material originated in limestone layers (probably San Andreas) common in that part and my part (SE) NM. Around here it forms in lenses or nodules within limestone. Yours somehow suggests layering though because of orientation of lines as opposed to the concentric formation of the nodules here (geode like, but always solid), hence the beach, dune comment. The limestone formed in one of the numerous episodes of ocean enviros covering this state. I use the stuff in some lapidary I do, and I saw some spectacular points made from it years ago. The formations are good producers of oil and gas. Chalcedony or chert, by whatever name, it's zebra stripe! C

 

[chong2]

so your saying the indians mined this somewhere near by possibly? the there are very very few chunks of rock just lying around.......

 

[chadrack]

The ancient folks were into asthetics just like us in a way. Something special or unusual was gathered and traveled with occasionally. If not "local" it is most likely regional. And if not actually mined from an in-situ layer, then possibly it was gathered from eroded material or conglomerate.