What is this iron im finding?

[Holly_squirrel]

This lump sets my iron signal off like crazy. I live in a historic area and am old farm property. I'm finding that my front yard about a foot down, is all charcoal ash , some sort of pumice like rock. It sounds like the ground is almost hollow. As I detect I find clumps of iron like this that smell like rotten eggs. What is this all about? Any guesses?

 

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[ohiowhiteguy]

slag?

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Definitely iron-rich slag.

 

[Holly_squirrel]

Why would I have slag in my yard? It's man made correct? Can it be made without a furnace? Us that why it's mixed With ash and coal?

 

[ohiowhiteguy]

they use it for road construction..nice find...
owg

 

[Trollfish]

Probably used to backfill the property with or the homesite is built near or on the site of a long gone smelter. It can be made without a big furnace, small cupolas were commonly used to refine locally gathered ore....Possibly an old blacksmithing or sand casting operation was there. OR some big company dumped it there and buried it before the land was developed. Stranger things are buried by large industrial companies.

 

[ohiowhiteguy]

you might wanna move...industrial waste is a killer..

 

[Holly_squirrel]

These are more things I found in tbe same area. The flat rock also shows up as iron

 

[Holly_squirrel]

Basically my front yard is iron , if you go by the detector... Also there are 2 large historic furnaces within 3 miles of my home

 

[74deluxe]

meteor $$$ just a thought

 

[taz42o]

Might be iron and slag from a furnace,If it is you will find pieces that are almost pure chunks of iron with no slag on them. usually kinda flat ,called splatter. also the old slag dumps will have fire brick mixed in from changing the liners in the furnace. What type of furnaces were the ones near you?
But it looks more like coal clinkers witch could have come from a industrial furnace/boiler but more likely from a home coal furnace. Clinkers will register as iron.
Both can smell of sulfur.

 

[DCMatt]

My first thought was coal clinkers, too. But these seem too large for clinkers from a home furnace.

If you'll tell me where you are I'll do a little research on your local iron works. During the 19th C, where there was one or two pig iron furnaces, there was problably more.

PM me with info if you don't want to post your location.

DCMatt

 

[Delpirt]

Smells like rotten eggs (hydrogen sulfide), ash, pumice type rock, ground sounds hollow, lots of iron content?

Do you live on top of a volcano?

 

[Holly_squirrel]

We had 2 blast furnaces within a couple miles that ran from tbe 1700's to early 1900's. these also are being picked up as iron.

 

[pippinwhitepaws]

furnace remains. i'd call it slag...we have huge piles of it all over arizona...the older the furnace, the cruder the slag.
start looking for the bricks from the furnace...some coke furnace are built in a beehive shape..