Meteorite????

Hello Contrygal,

Thanks for posting more pics. In the 4TH photo in the lower right hand corner I see what looks like vertical lines. They look man made. Slag is a possibility. It is very porous and spongy looking. Take a look at my last post of iron siderite finds here on the forum. You can view them all extremely close and look at the Characteristics of them. Compare them to your find and see if any characteristics match somewhat. This might help a bit.

Can you give a little history of the area your hunting? Was mining done in the area? Is it or was it inhabited? Is it a remote area? Were you finding lots of iron junk in the area?

Here is another link where you can have your find tested. I would contact them and see what the wait is these days.

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Ironman
 


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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16557.msg106749.html#msg106749

Hi Countrygal,

Ironman is right, the stone/metal object you took a photo of does look like iron slag from a foundry or mining operation. Doesn't have to be a commercial operation, could have been an individual miner back in the 1800's.

Don't be discouraged though, like gold, meteorites are rare, even more so, and you're hunting in the right areas. You'll find one if you keep looking!

Eric

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16557.msg109372.html#msg109372

Hi Countrygal,

No need to worry about damage at all. It's everyday practice in the meteorite world to "window" a suspect meteorite to get a look inside at the interior matrix to aid in identification. Windowing is when you file or sand through the exterior of the stone, thereby revealing the interior structure. Simply do it in a less conspicuous place on the stone. This actually increases the value, because now you can usually determine whether it's a meteorite or not by examining it more thoroughly. Verifying authenticity. Besides that, whenever I've cut meteorites, it's almost always increased the value. The only exceptions to this are if you cut an oriented or fully 100% fusion crusted meteorite which could damage the aesthetics.

As for the nickel test. You could use an off-the-shelf nickel allergy test kit. These are cheap and usually can be found online for less than $20. The "AllerTest" kit is ok to use, though it's a 50/50 chance it will work. 99.9% of meteorites have iron in them, (achondrites, Mars, and Lunar meteorites don't have much free iron if any.) Meteorite iron is high in nickel content. A good nickel test kit will verify the presence of nickel. Though this doesn't guarantee it's a metoerite, you'll be a step closer to identifying a stone as a meteorite.

Hope this helps...

Good luck hunting out there! Meteorites are everywhere, you just have to find them.

Eric



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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16557.msg109390.html#msg109390

Still think it's a US quarter.



(Actually, good thinking to put a relative size measure.  So often we just see photos of the object, coin, etc.)

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,16557.msg110265.html#msg110265

       Thanks to Eric....... 

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