FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[koko_vp]

Hello I found this rock in pile of limestone from one quarry. Usualy i am searching for fosils there but i found this strage metalic rock. I make some test at home. The magnet attach to it very strong and when i scrath it a red powder apear, like the hematite one. But after one or two scrathes the powder disapear and very metalic surface apear When I scrath it again doesnt left any red powder. The color is like silver, its very heavy for its size too. Coud this be a hematite, because i fond some in the area. This stone was probably excavated from quarry, or maybe is just a part from some machine? Sorry for my bad english.

[Goldfinger]

The shape makes me think it's manmade but I have been known the be wrong at least twice in my life..

GF

[Matteo_Chinellato]

probably its a oriented specimen, not sure a hematite seen the magnet not attach on this. Unique its a nichel test in a laboratory for have a confirm is a meteorite, or you have to cut a piece, pass with nitric acid and alccol and look if the cut piece show the widmanstatten patterns

[Peter Megaw]

Meteorwrong I'm afraid. No fusion crust and no ablation surfaces.

I think it is probably a badly worn ball bearing from a piece of heavy quarry equiment or a discard from a ball mill. It is amazing what can happen to bearings once they stop rolling properly. Ball mills are used at mines everywhere to crush ore. They use large iron balls (4-10" in diameter to begin with) that roll around inside a large rotating drum and gradually wear down as they pound pebble sized crushed ore to very fine sand ready for flotation.. In many cases they just become smaller and smaller spheres, but it is very common to see asymmetrical wear including irregular hemispheres like yours. The surfaces tend to be quite smooth when they come out of the mill but because they are typically cast from scrap iron they rust very quickly and deeply over time.

[Matteo_Chinellato]

[GneissWare]

It looks like ball mill media to me also.

[koko_vp]

How did you understand that this is not meteorite, except from the strange form?
(Google it (unclassified australian iron - 277g oriented nose cone individual)) with strange shape too.

[Louis Friend]

If you think it is a Iron meteorite confirm with a test for Nickel. If you want I can direct you to two very good books on meteorites and how to confirm a meteorite from a meteor_wrong.

[Louis Friend]

Hello:

It is always best to be open-minded on matters of science and not reject off-hand anything without proper examination. I am not an expert on meteorites although I have a few Iron/Nickel types in my collection. One of the best texts is “Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites” by Norton and Chitwood. It discusses all types of meteorites and has many photographs with which to compare. Appendix three, gives useful and practical tests one can perform at home to see if they have a genuine “extraterrestrial” or something out of man-made machinery. I hope yours is an ET.

Kind Regards

Louis

[trtlman]

I would agree this is a worn out rusted iron ball. I would suggest cleaning off all the rust to see what you really have here.

[Pierre Joubert]

[Goldfinger]

I never married. So yes, it's true I've only been wrong twice in my life.

GF