Adam:
From your picks I would say one of three possibilities, although remember nothing is for sure from the photos on the web. I really need to view specimens with a hand lens. Poor grade jasper – I have found this everywhere. They can be magnetic if it contains hematite and iron oxides. Although the contraction cracks are not very common in the jasper I have found. A hardness test will verify this – Jasper is hardness 7. I fine grained quartzite with desert varnish – I have found these to. They look igneous to me. Some are gray, reddish or brown- the grains can very fine. I have found some very dark. They are usually not magnetic. If you look with a hand lens you can see very small grains with a darker coating on them. And as always – look for any sign of quartz. I siliceous mudstone – This stuff I have found and been fooled; have even sent samples to UCLA. The color looks very much like a weathered chondrite. They sometimes are weakly magnetic, but tent to be not as dense as a stony meteorite. When cut, they have swirls inside and look very similar to the Jasper or a reddish basalt, but are softer. I friend of mine calls them “siliceous ooze.” I believe they are formed in an ancient mud settled in a shallow ocean. In the Mojave Desert I have found many rocks with all variations of ‘Desert Varnish,’ some coatings on rocks of from bacteria; they can be very tricky, but I keep every one and take it home as you never know. In your specimen the contraction cracks and high density are good and the fact there was nothing similar is a good sign. Looks like you have to cut it to make sure. Greg Stanley Bakersfield --- On Mon, 4/6/09, Adam Hupe <[email protected]> wrote: From: Adam Hupe <[email protected]> Subject: [meteorite-list] Wierd Meteorite Wrong Question? To: "Adam" <[email protected]> Date: Monday, April 6, 2009, 10:14 AM Dear List Members, We went on a Mojave Desert hunt this weekend where I found this weird stone. My questions is, does anybody have a clue to what type of rock this may be? The reason I am asking the list is that several hunters have thousands of hours in the Mojave whereas I only have a couple of hundred and they may have seen something like it before. It is very dense, has surface contraction cracks and is not attracted to a powerful magnet at all. It does look like a crust but not like anything I have ever seen before. I have never observed a gray crust on a meteorite is what is convincing me that it is terrestrial. I have never seen surface contraction cracks on a terrestrial rock that did not penetrate the whole stone. We must have hiked 20 miles and I did not come across anything similar. We thought it was a meteorite when we first saw it in situ but now are not convinced. I do not want to cut it if it is not a meteorite because it would be one of the best wrongs I have ever seen. On the other hand, if there is any chance whatsoever that it could be the first North American Lunar, I would cut it in a heartbeat. Maybe, I am just dreaming but I am convinced that within the next 10 years, some lucky hunter will find one. Images of the stone: Image 1 http://themeteoritesite.com/Achondrite-1.jpg Image 2 http://themeteoritesite.com/Achondrite-2.jpg Any input would be greatly appreciated. Best Regards, Adam ______________________________________________ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
