# Fun with Rocks and Magnets



## vtcnc (Sep 26, 2022)

Was down at my father's house today dropping off the wife's car for some accident repairs. I had forgotten about this but he had it out on the front stoop, apparently a friend who is into gemstones, minerals, crystals and geology in general was visiting and they were talking about this. 

My father found it on his land while clearing out a build site for his log cabin - several years ago. It's about the size of a volleyball. We didn't weigh it, but I'd place it at no more than 75 lbs. It's heavy! The stones piled behind it more of a sandstone? kind of piece, much lighter, you can grip it with one hand and pick it up if you have large enough hands (I don't)







It's funny as you stick the magnet around different spots, you can predict where the magnet will stay and where it will not. The little  point in the second picture just directly below where the magnet is placed is probably the highest concentration of iron. The magnet really liked that corner. That magnet is for picking up parts, it barely stuck to a trailer frame through the paint - which we guess means that parts of the rock have really high concentrations of iron. 

Totally unscientific guesses, but fun still the same!


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## RJSakowski (Sep 26, 2022)

A meteorite?


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## vtcnc (Sep 26, 2022)

RJSakowski said:


> A meteorite?


We speculate the same. Hard to know for sure.


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## Cadillac (Sep 26, 2022)

How did your father find this out. Is it common?


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## pdentrem (Sep 26, 2022)

Take it to a local scrap metal place that has a XRF and shoot it. Meteorite will be high in Nickel and Iron. If it does, it could be worth a buck or two.
Pierre


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## pdentrem (Sep 26, 2022)

If all the sides have a melted crust and if a file exposes metal …..


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## ddillman (Sep 26, 2022)

I am a mechanic and it always amazes me how many little rocks you pick up with a magnet looking for a bolt or nut I dropped


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## rwm (Sep 26, 2022)

If that turns out to be a meteorite it is worth more than a buck or two. Get it checked out.



			Meteorite Pricing


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## C-Bag (Sep 26, 2022)

It does look different from the other rock in that it looks like it was melted. If that is a meteorite, and 75lbs…….wow!


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## pdentrem (Sep 27, 2022)

Meteorites are sold by the gram. I have three pieces of different meteorites. Here are two of the three. Keys for scale.
Pierre


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## graham-xrf (Sep 27, 2022)

rwm said:


> If that turns out to be a meteorite it is worth more than a buck or two. Get it checked out.
> 
> 
> 
> Meteorite Pricing


Indeed! If that really is a 30kg+ meteorite, it would be like winning the lotto!

Perish a thought that might have been only driven by some movie (e.g. Thor or Close Encounters), but one wonders whether there is any mileage in showing it to a Geiger counter?


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## pdentrem (Sep 27, 2022)

The one that is as found.
Pierre


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## pdentrem (Sep 27, 2022)

Using an XRF will be the way to go. Magnetite is almost made of only Iron with only some trace amounts of other elements while iron meteors are NI and FE. The “stony” meteors are lacking the heavier elements.
Pierre


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## vtcnc (Sep 27, 2022)

pdentrem said:


> Using an XRF will be the way to go. Magnetite is almost made of only Iron with only some trace amounts of other elements while iron meteors are NI and FE. The “stony” meteors are lacking the heavier elements.
> Pierre


What do you mean by "stony"?


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## markba633csi (Sep 27, 2022)

Could it also be a lodestone? Does it attract iron also? 
That's a very cool find
-M


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## pdentrem (Sep 27, 2022)

Lodestone is Magnetite.

There are three major classes of meteorites - iron, stony and the last one is mixed.





						Types of Meteorites: Iron, Stone, Stony-Iron, Lunar, Martian
					

There are several different types of meteorites! Learn about them in this article by Geoffrey Notkin, meteorite hunter.



					geology.com
				



Pierre


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## rwm (Sep 27, 2022)

I just want to know if it will fit in a large flat rate box...


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## pdentrem (Sep 27, 2022)

If it is truly a meteorite, and if it has inclusions like the Peridot in the sample on the right in the photo I put up earlier then the money will go up fast and large. 
Pierre


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## Dhal22 (Sep 27, 2022)

vtcnc said:


> We speculate the same. Hard to know for sure.


Unfortunately a good friend of mine passed away a couple of years ago that would have flown to your house overnight to inspect that rock.   He was possibly the biggest name in meteorite collecting in the world.   His museum inventory is worth millions of dollars.

Anywhere world wide he would chase down reports of meteorites.  Asia,  south America............


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## matthewsx (Sep 27, 2022)

My wedding ring is made from gold and meteorite. 




John


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## great white (Sep 28, 2022)

Run a file over it.

A meteorite will (should) have metallic iron in it. Metallic iron in a meteorite will look shiny, almost like a chrome if you expose it with a file.

Most mineral iron in the earth is iron oxide and does not shine like chrome. Iron that's "native" to earth has been exposed to eons of weathering and oxygen, causing most of it (at least at the surface) to change over to iron oxide.

A reasonably recent meteorite "strike" has limited exposure to earths weathering and atmosphere, so the iron usually hasn't been converted to iron oxide.

It's not definitive, but it's a good "quick and dirty" before doing further testing.

Something about it's appearance tends to steer me away from "meteorite" and closer to something terrestrial. Like an extrusive igneous such as a basalt....or possibly a hematite. I think it's the shape that steers me away from "meteorite". It looks more like it was "weathered" to a smooth surface rather than "melted", and meteors tend not to be rounded but rather irregular shapes. It seems counterintuitive that a melted meteor would be an odd shape rather than "aerodynamic", but it's the way they interact with the atmosphere and their varied composition that makes them "melt" in more jagged shapes....


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## zondar (Sep 28, 2022)

In my opinion, this is not a meteorite. Sorry. 

Finding one in the field is very rare, even for rock-hounds who deliberately search for them. To stumble upon one at random is like being hit by lightning. Almost everything that people say "looks like it might be a meteorite," isn't.

Does it have a "fusion crust"? Does not look like it.
Does it have "regmaglypts" (fingerprint-like indentations)? No.
Another sign is "flow lines". That requires a close-up view, but there's no evidence of it.
You say it looks "melted", but I say it looks like it's just a pretty normal rock that's been rounded-off by being dragged around by ancient glaciers for millennia, etc. 

Here's the iron-type one I found:




It's about 1.5-2" across the long end. It's much darker than it looks in this photo - nearly completely black. It has a fusion crust and prominent regmaglypts. It's unusually heavy for such a small rock and a magnet is attracted to it.


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## zondar (Sep 28, 2022)

I forgot to say: It may not be a meteorite, but cool rock!

I first heard about "lodestone" when I was a child, and I wanted one so badly!


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## vtcnc (Sep 28, 2022)

I talked to my father today. Running a file doesn’t produce anything shiny underneath.  

But that’s why I named this thread Fun with rocks and magnets. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## great white (Sep 28, 2022)

A meteorite fragment would also have shavings that are mostly dark/black, a terrestrial rock would be mostly brown.


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## Dhal22 (Sep 28, 2022)

Here's a link to my deceased friends collection. 






						Featured Specimen Collection | Falling Rocks Meteorite Collection
					

Museum quality private meteorite collection.  Some meteorites offered as available for trade or sale.  We purchase meteorite collections and meteorites for sale. Priorities focused on specimen preservation and education, particularly with children.  Historic specimens and scientific journals and...



					www.fallingrocks.com


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## vtcnc (Sep 29, 2022)

great white said:


> A meteorite fragment would also have shavings that are mostly dark/black, a terrestrial rock would be mostly brown.


OK, now I'm confused. He did say that the file shavings were dark. I guess he was expecting to break through a fused crust and get to the "shiny"?

One thing is for sure, when I walked past this thing on Monday, I remembered I had forgotten about it. I also didn't have all of this information four days ago. When I pick up the car this weekend, I'm going to spend some quality time with this specimen and I'll get some good photos and video for our entertainment.


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## brino (Sep 29, 2022)

vtcnc said:


> One thing is for sure, when I walked past this thing on Monday, I remembered I had forgotten about it.


Lol!
I almost choked on my cheerios.
Brian


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## great white (Sep 29, 2022)

vtcnc said:


> OK, now I'm confused. He did say that the file shavings were dark. I guess he was expecting to break through a fused crust and get to the "shiny"?
> 
> One thing is for sure, when I walked past this thing on Monday, I remembered I had forgotten about it. I also didn't have all of this information four days ago. When I pick up the car this weekend, I'm going to spend some quality time with this specimen and I'll get some good photos and video for our entertainment.


My mistake. Stony meteorites usually leave a brown streak/shavings, not black:









						Meteorite Identification
					

Learn about meteorites, the difference between a meteor and a meteorite, and how to test a rock to see if it's a meteorite using our meteorite identification guide.




					www.meteorites-for-sale.com
				




That's what you get when working from very old memory info....advancing years doesn't help that either....LOL!


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## vtcnc (Sep 29, 2022)

brino said:


> Lol!
> I almost choked on my cheerios.
> Brian


LOL. I heard another quote from an old manager once that reminds me about people forgetting and how they need to be reminded - his meaning is that we have an obligation to constantly be communicating with others.

It was something like, "_*Remember this* - _people forget things, and they forget that they forget things."

I remember that. It has served me well over the years.


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## vtcnc (Sep 29, 2022)

great white said:


> That's what you get when working from very old memory info....advancing years doesn't help that either....LOL!


Dang! I'm not even 50 yet!


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## aliva (Sep 29, 2022)

Why not send some hi-res photos and descriptions to your local university, or USGS and get and expert opinion


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## zondar (Sep 30, 2022)

aliva said:


> Why not send some hi-res photos and descriptions to your local university, or USGS and get and expert opinion


Because they are already inundated with "might be a meteorite" inquiries that virtually never are?

Fun facts: Iron is common in meteorites (and on earth) because iron is directly in the path of fusion products inside stars. Stars start out fusing hydrogen into helium, then helium into carbon and oxygen, and eventually iron is formed by fusing silicon. Iron is extremely difficult to fuse into anything else, though, so the process mostly stops there.

The stuff the earth and all of us are made of used to be inside an ancient star that went supernovae. Wild thought!


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## great white (Sep 30, 2022)

zondar said:


> Because they are already inundated with "might be a meteorite" inquiries that virtually never are?
> 
> Fun facts: Iron is common in meteorites (and on earth) because iron is directly in the path of fusion products inside stars. Stars start out fusing hydrogen into helium, then helium into carbon and oxygen, and eventually iron is formed by fusing silicon. Iron is extremely difficult to fuse into anything else, though, so the process mostly stops there.
> 
> The stuff the earth and all of us are made of used to be inside an ancient star that went supernovae. Wild thought!


That's because when a star finally gets to the stage where it produces iron, the fusion process essentially stops. When fusion stops, the star no longer has the energy release of fusion to hold it out/up against the force of it's own gravity. Once the energy stops and gravity takes over, the star rapidly collapses in on itself (we're talking seconds to minutes from first producing iron to total collapse) and it's that rapid collapse that causes a supernova explosion. It's not exactly what happens, but the supernova is sort of a "rebound effect" of all the matter being rapidly crushed down to a tiny ball by it's own gravity well. You can sort of think of it in machining terms as "spring back".

The planet and humans/animals are literally made from this "star dust". That iron in your blood that makes it capable to carry O2 to your cells? Every single atom of it was made in the heart of a dying star.....we are literally all children of supernovae.

I remember having a conversation with one of my university profs about whether or not the universe had a consciousness (philosophy). Her contention was it's beyond us and an unknowable thing. I watched her "shoot down" several classmates who advanced contradictory views. I was staring off into the distance at a squirrel or something and she must have felt it was a good time to embarrass me fro not paying attention.

Well, she didn't realize I was taking the course as an elective and my main study was the sciences. So I was ready for her little "jab":

I disagreed with her position. I cited some principles from physics and astronomy about the formation of elements, matter and energy in the universe as the foundation for my opinion. I then cited that we live in the universe and are _literally _made from it. I then cited the fact that humans have consciousness (by human definition). Then connected the dots that we are literally made from the universe and are therefore a part of it. Final point was that since we have consciousness, the universe itself has a consciousness.

She tried to push back, but her points very weak and unsupported by the physics and astronomy principles. I simply used the human body as an example to refute her assertions. I stated that my leg doesn't have consciousness in isolation since human consciousnesses is held in the brain. Since the human brain has a consciousness and is a part of the body, the body has a consciousness as a whole.

She still wasn't quiet following (or didn't want to), so I pointed out that the universe is analogous to the body and humans in the universe are analogous to the "brain". Therefore, since we have consciousness, the universe has consciousness.

At that point she went very quiet and went off somewhere (to think I'm guessing). She just left the entire class sitting on the lawn under the large oak tree she liked to drag us out to on sunny days.

I ended up getting 100% on that part of the course for some reason.........lol!


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## zondar (Sep 30, 2022)

Go far enough down the philosophical rabbit hole, and things get _really_ weird. Like consider various forms of the "anthropic principle" (I'm not a scientist or philosopher, so I may get some of this wrong):

*The (basic) anthropic principle:* Our sheer existence here as observers places certain limits on what we observe in the universe. For example, the universe must be old enough for stars to have produced elements beyond hydrogen, and went supernovae, etc., or we couldn't (yet) be here. Also, the universe must not be too old, since by then "heat death" will set in and we couldn't exist either.

Going further, certain fundamental physical constants must have values such that even hydrogen could form in the first place, or we also wouldn't be here. This point drives people crazy, since so far these "universal constants" seem to have arbitrary values that, if a little off, would mean we couldn't be here. However, we can't be sure they are genuinely constant across an essentially infinite universe that we can only see a definitively finite part of. Indeed, this is the source of the "multiverse" notion - that there is an infinity of universes in which the values of these constants are free to differ at random. This leads into...

*The "weak" anthropic principle:* "Survivorship bias" is partially why we are here and see what we see. In an essentially infinite universe or a multiverse spanning an infinite range of possibilities, then we are - and can only be - in one of the "surviving" random regions (or universes) that, purely by chance, is tuned in such a way that allows observers (e.g., us) to come about.

*The "strong" anthropic principle:* In an extreme version of this take, the universe was actually somehow _forced_ to create an observing entity, perhaps even for the sake of its very existence. Analogous to, or even actually _due_ to quantum mechanics, wherein observation causes the collapse of the wave function, a pre-"wave-function collapse" universe must eventually create an observer in order to collapse into the universe we see. Whereas the weak version has its merits, this version is pretty far out there.

There's a whole bunch of other interpretations, many weirder still!

(And you thought this forum was just about making chips.  )


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