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1C Slag Meteorite Provenance - Slag, impactite, meteorite? It get's confusing out there looking at rocks without any Provenance. 

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Trinitite as pictured on Wiki is slightly radioactive and can be distinguished using Geiger Counter. That's not to say impactites can't be radioactive, just a different radiation signature. 

Provenance etymology - 

Origin

Late 18th century from French, from the verb provenir ‘come or stem from’, from Latin provenire, from pro- ‘forth’ + venire ‘come’.

Provenance geology - is discussed in this wiki article. Notice that no reference whatsoever is given to impact's contribution to earth geology in this article. Geology is stuck in a feedback loop of inbreed ideas. Has always been more of a Junior High School Clique than any kind of real profession. Just stating the obvious. Oh, here's the promised wiki article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism

Oh, sorry that is the one on the loop medicine got stuck in for centuries like geology is now. Here is the one on provenance geology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance_(geology)

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Rare Trinitite Pearl! Too cool. Spheroids are my specialty.  https://www.hillbillyu.com/round-impactite
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Specimen above is a meteorite that fell to earth at Wilmington, NC a coastal city? As you can see it does not match with that local geology but was found at the old railroad depot area. Does that mean it is slag? The hole you see is a space impact mini crater? Ball slag imprints are somewhat common but smaller. Why would slag have rocks in it? 
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The Wilmington, NC meteorite breccia ablative side. Accretion in space is the building model for the material universe and breccia is what that looks like. Breccia is an Italian word for broken. The shinny patterns you see are polished from atmosphere entry. They are a type of particle crystal construction called "constellationing." You can read more about that at: https://www.hillbillyu.com/constellationing
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Moon impact and thrown out in space, land on earth. Unclassified Lunar feldspathic breccia 900 grms. Notice it has an indentation like the above suspect rock. 
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Collecting rocks, well the Japanese sent a probe and landed on an asteroid and it is just a bundle of rocks, LOL. They are bringing back a sample in December, 2020. You can see how a bundle of rocks i.e. breccia collects in space from this picture. 
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My Vinn diagram for specimen identification without provenance, especially proposed meteorites. 

Impactities

Meteorites

Earth metamorphic mechanisms

Slag

Meteorite/impactite? The classic example is the "meteorites" canyon diablo specimens surrounding the "Barringer Crater" in Arizona. They likely hit earth with the larger bolide and blew off. 

The larger the rock the less likely it is a meteorite. Larger size favors impactites and earth metamorphic mechanisms. 

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Specimen left was found in the Moroccan desert. What would slag be doing there but you could have a spent artillery shell. But why would it have the different colors and inclusions? Also as you can see from the Trinitite pictures this is unlikely to be a byproduct of the French Nuclear bomb test in the Algerian desert. 

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And the other side. I think it is a meteorite. 

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White inside, very strange, also blistering. In this light has a blue tone in color. 
At 12:30 a. m. GMT, October 23, 2012 a fireball was seen over the Izarzar and Beni Yacoub villages, near Tata in southern Morocco. The strewnfield was searched and the micrometeorites were found below. One found near the village of Tata shown right. 
So what you often have is unclear but based on where found i.e. provenance, what else would it be looking like that? 
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Beautiful strange agate shown above but has bubbles which are considered a sign of it being "slag" but it certainly is not. 
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Above specimen was found along a river in Ohio that used to have steel mills. Jasper breccia in an iron matrix. Crater wall breccia or slag? I am going with slag. This was some specific industrial process which you could trace back by the waste it made. Ore refining likely. Lots of time they will use sand to combine out some kind of unwanted mineral. 
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This slag is said to be Buchite, a vitreous metamorphic rock produced by the contact action of basalt or by friction metamorphism. The finder says it came from an 1890's furnace. So which is it? I am going with the provenance i.e. slag. 

As the color of meteors burning up identifies their content you should expect meteorites to contain same. 

Colours of meteors depend on the relative influence of the metallic content of the meteoroid versus the superheated air plasma, which its passage engenders:

  • Orange-yellow (sodium)

  • Yellow (iron)

  • Blue-green (magnesium)

  • Violet (calcium)

  • Red (atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen)

Specimen above from Ames Iowa and would likely be an impactite splatterform from the Manson Iowa Impact. But it looks like a meteorite. Manson Iowa relics are kinda rare so provenance is only of limited help. 

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Beyond The Universe

· June 22 · 

 

FALL OF METEORS NEAR THE VILLAGE -BALAJINAGAR
In the morning (6:20) on June 19, 2020, the locals of the village of Balajinagar in India - they saw a light trail in the sky and heard a strong detonation. All of this happened moments before an iron meteorite weighing approximately 2,790 grams fell to earth. They soon found the scene and a rare example of a meteor flying in from distant parts of space. When they found this iron meteor - it was very hot. It took three hours to cool down, and the local laboratory did the first analysis of this facility. The results showed that the surface layer of the meteor contained 85.86% iron, 10.23% nickel and 0.78% cobalt. Other analysis and classification will be done in Delhi.

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So here it is again. With provenance and looks like a prop from a 1950's Science Fiction Movie. So how would you construct a fake? Do you assume it's true till proven wrong or vice versa? 
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Shown above is mystery rock from Afghanistan. It is not slag. The thin white line running around it is typical of a Septarian form and the raised features are harmonized with the white lines. How would that happen? My guess is a shock harmonic or rejection pattern (Turing Pattern). It is small enough to be a meteorite as probably greatly favors small for meteorites. It is more likely an impactite. Impact explosions melt the bolide and if it contained iron they rain down like drops. https://www.hillbillyu.com/round-impactite
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Ablation Flame Patina - This is a phenomena where the ablation flame makes a patina of color on the other side of a meteorite. 

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This is a really good on line article about meteorites. 

https://geology.com/meteorites/stony-iron-meteorites.shtml

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Shown left is the Collection of Manfredo Settala 1600-1680. He was an fine instrument craftsman. His most interesting item was a meteorite that fell from the sky and killed a monk in Milan. The collection was sold upon his death. 

You can obtain meteorite mortality insurance from Hillibillyu for just $50/yr. The meteorite will then be the property of Hillbillyu and we can sell it for 50,000. I mean what are the odds? 

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Specimen above has glass melt directional flow.  Meteorite from Mohamed Bouzelfen of Morocco collection.  
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Shown left is what gets identified as slag because it has a piece of "glass" stuck to it. I save the picture from face book and magnify it on my big computer screen to really get a look at rocks. Lets do that below. 
You can see it was very hot and has two very divergent inclusions. Also found with it is the picture shown right. Impact or volcanic glass does not come in bright colors. 
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Shock storm coming from this direction. The later quartz then finally the iron fractal. 
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Now here is a cool rock well will call it "smoked pork chop." It has been shocked to the point of melt but not quite. It still retains some Septarian border lines shown as crevasses. The glaze on it is consistent with atmosphere entry as it melted the silica as a quartz glass over it but not the iron which melts at a much higher temperature. Meteorite? Yes. Provenance? Itself. 
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Specimen above is an impactite from the Thrace Crater just west of Istanbul, Turkey. It has cobalt and iron so common to large earth impact bolides and has the white particles of calcium and quartz making a directed shock fractal stream. Energy type signature defines it away from any slag type. 
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This beautiful glass shown above has provenance for an industrial furnace in north Michigan. Let's figure they were removing something blue with sand at high temperature. 

Counter argument - Slag tends to be from a process using high heat and sand or some element to remove impurities. So it will be a element unwanted. The specimen could be slag glass and is without provenance. ?

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Specimen above was pulled out of Lake Michigan. I call it "I am Groot." It is shock glass from the big Michigan Impact or slag glass?  You can read about that one on my "New Findings" page. Note it has a surface Constellationing effect. It is also botryoidal meaning grape cluster like. This is from a rapid heat expansion much hotter than any slag would encounter, perhaps. Why clear? I do not see clear impactites. Why would they be? Ever seen a clear meteorite?  

Slag is another systematic issue. In the pyrometamorphic studies, this term is reserved for carbonate rocks that underwent calcination, decarbonization, and so on. The smelter "slags" are totally different, as they do not need the carbonate protolith (or, possibly, flux). The fossil fuel fire slags are very aberrant and unique in their mineral composition: magnesioferrite, srebrodolskite (and other Ca ferrites), fluorellestadite-fluorapatite, melilites, maghemite, sometimes oldhamite, fluorite, ye'elimite and cuspidine are their typical components. Smelter "slags" have different components. There is also a very interesting so-called meteoritic assemblage in the coal-fire heaps: the so-called black blocks (reductive coking/pyrolysis etc.) sometimes bear metallic iron and Fe(Ni) phosphides like barringerite. In other fire-heap rocks I have also found other typically meteoritic minerals, like oldhamite, kushiroite, or machiite.

 mapping or provenance proofs. The specific process will tie in with an overall sequence even a man made one. Just a rock does not provide that. Any man made rock demands to be found in sequence with it's process or story of it's migration. A meteorite is the only rock with license to fall from the sky anywhere it wants.

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I like this photo showing weathering properties. 
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Specimen above found in Ireland. I am going to call it a reverse splatterform slag. Usually a splatterform will be a rock that is hit with hot impact material. This appears to be hot slag dropped onto cherty earth. 

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Slag & batchelor's law - mixing is a pattern and favors a slag like this. You can see it was not very viscous when formed but does show some mixing. 

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And now back to the slag show. I favor impact for this specimen but have never seen anything like it. It is sagging into the banded layer. A sag slag? Found at a thrift store. The constellationing and iron is why I favor impact. But you can have that with slag also. Iron and cobalt are common to impact. With impactites banding is usually the result of a harmonic sequence, but with this specimen it appears to be just melt flow of chemically different phases. Or did the specimen have a banding wave and was still so hot it just sagged? The other side is shown to the left.

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Fell from the sky on houses in Arizona. Cinder Meteorites with provenance. Troy Anderson collected. 
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I collected this slag from an old train watering station along the Elk River at Wheelerton, TN. It is iron from a coal seam that was left as clinker. Although altered it shows indications that the seam of coal was a shock made structure. Iron in context is always suspicious as an impact product. 
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Obsidian like glassy specimen - Slag or impactite or tectonic? This is why this page is about provenance. Rail roads use slag for track base fill. That would be a source of distribution widely. If it was found in a crater you would know something. If it was found near a volcanic source that would be the starting premise. Can a rock type have different forming mechanisms? Yes.
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Here is a great example type. Found in a creek in Michigan. It is a non industrial slag. Landfills used to collect and burn waste. The temperature was higher than a waste burn at home but not as high as an industrial process. And of course it has glass in it that is not melted as they often used bulldozers to move these burning piles around. It has likely migrated downstream in the creek for many years. 

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Shown above is fractal slag from Colorado, a 19th century ore mine. Notice the matte finish and color. This picture came from an excellent article: http://www.turnstone.ca/rom176ds.htm

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Volcanic plasma tube folds. Like slag it has sameness of material content. 

Impactite quartz - High shock. Good specimen. While the dark crust resembles meteorite ablation the yellow exterior section shows it's true nature. This is the result of an earth impact explosion. 

Ablation versus Harmonic Isolation - Ablation charring is surface and not generalized. Isolation harmonics separate by resonance. Shock as a wave form has structural harmonics even if chaotic. Notice the separate red to olivine green, the black exterior Fe3O4, these are all separate isolation harmonic resonances but unresolved in a shock chaos. One of Tesla's many genius inspirations is that everything resonates. He once almost destroyed a New York City block by just putting a thumper on a building support.  

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Not slag, specimen has provenance, found an hours drive from Mt. St. Helens.  

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Specimen above was found by ما خفي أعضم "Radwan"

It illustrates Why I study impactites. Impactites are the overarching type meteorites are from. By studying impactites I was able to isolate the circle harmonic as a shock effect. I was further able to determine the circle harmonic degrades into a fractal with loss of energy drop in frequency. And that is just what we see above. Also the circle harmonic tends to make multiple circles as we see. Impact in space is going to make the phenomena seen on earth in impactites so here it is but dropped in from space. Gobi desert type impact agate. 

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Surface Glass Flow - Notice how the patterns are also in a contour and change of direction flow. This specimen could have been tumbling as it came through the atmosphere. Rotation could easily been imparted by hitting the denser air at an oblique angle. Also rotation in space is much easier than in a high friction atmosphere. Another great specimen from the Mohamed Bouzelfen collection of Morocco. 

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Concave Septarian Meteorite

Very hard and non magnetic. The surface is concave septarian. It is a silica iron Fe3O4 oxide meteorite. This composition is often found in impactites but they will not have a concave septarian surface. The crowd says it could be a tektite but a tektite to get the air pocket surface would have to travel a great distance through the atmosphere so what's the difference if you go up and come back down?

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Meteorite Cinder
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So what would a developing stage look like for Widmanstätten patterns? 

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Shown below is a slag specimen I collected at Veto, Alabama on the abandoned RR line near Elk River. This was called RR ballast. As the real study is to identify peculiar identifying features of slag. 

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Unlike modern industrial processes it contains tiny pebbles and even tinier dust particles. Is similar to impactites but different. Usually impactite inclusion particles do not have border shrinkage voids surrounding them. 

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Surface crinkle lines from shrinkage. You see this with impactites also just more in a macro way with them. This is about 30 magnification with detail at 1/1000 inch or .02 mm. 

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Glassy obsidian like slag with fuzzy surface particles and patterns also iron inclusion in lower right in the red form that has not rusted away yet. From same location at Veto, Alabama RR ballast slag circa mid 1800's to early 1900's.  The fuzzy surface features are not anything I have ever seen in an impactite. It must be peculiar to man made process. 

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Raised Turing Pattern Meteorite. This is very very rare $100,000 rare. The entry through the earth's atmosphere has burned away one of the diffusible substances. 

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Surface craters on meteorites are from space hits. 

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The Giant's Thumbprint - NW Morocco meteorite, Hmad Oubani  One big regmaglypt, it is a study in cavitation. 

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Railroad ballast slag. 

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Impact conglomerate meteorite - OH Yea, this is a good one. Perhaps the only one. Large meteor hits earth where rounded pebbles are and launches an impactite into space where it returns as a meteorite.

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This was a good find. Slag glass from Chattanooga, TN, found by April Edine Evans

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Meteorite with Septarian Star Cavitation >>

Also plasma charged conductive separation in the cracks of the septarian borders. I think it is bleeding off charge energy through the borders and how they are made. 

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Impactite found by Jim Kingdon in a stream. This is water cavitation over time. Of course meteorite cavitation is much faster and will fractal. 

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Meteorites and heat flow. Fast at low altitudes will cause the most heat. Up high less air less heat. At some point a meteorite will slow to terminal velocity. The leading edges get the most heat. Take a look at the X-15 a Mach 6 plane.

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This is the only one I have ever seen making an iron crystal! Cubic type. It is pretty much priceless. I will add it to my hall of fame page. So what happened? It has a generalized melt flow small cavitation surface i.e. a rapid tumbler. The iron melted and separated out. But then it reached terminal velocity and commenced making an iron crystal in a slower process while it cooled. Morocco. 

"Botryoidal/Cavitation" theory. As you cannot freeze water in a bubbling boil quick enough to show the surface bubbles you can do that with rock. Now cavitation has the look of that in reverse. It is the impression of bubbled off material. Now there is a big signature difference. The kind of energy that makes botryoidal is generalized through the rock and the cavitation is specific to the surface.

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Rivulet in crevasse is a sure meteorite characteristic identifier. This is a picture from Mars. Cobalt rivulet. But it is different. It has a fade outward and fractal type or iterative perpendicular expansion. You do not see this with meteorites. 

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Meteorite. It has melt rivulets. Citrine melt surface. Melt tube structures. Shock made. High Silica content. Mosaic surface cracking. A really good find. Not splatter, is flow melt. The body matrix has vaporized away whereas the two ends melted. Specimen collected by John Gunderson in Mojave Desert. 

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 It is a meteorite. It has directional melt flow and cavitation as well as some evaporation cindering. The white structures are constellationing oxidation. That is where the common particle granular crystallization fails to react with the ablation, due to it's nickel content.  Nickel is in stainless steel. It also has an iron burn patina. This is a color effect that shifts due to slight differences in heat. Ocean wave action moves things to the shore. It hit in the ocean. Specimen collected by: Nataraju Nizampatnam

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Clayton Black specimen found in Southern Arizona, USA. Fast formed reverse botryoidal plasma cavitation a type of ablation. 

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Etched stitching, this was in the original impactite. It is an attenuating energy signature, a harmonic iteration. 

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Entry cavitation ring. Never seen a meteorite like this one before. It weighs 9 lbs. Found in a hole. I think it made the hole. 

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What a beautiful photograph. It is a study in melt flow cavitation over complex surface. 

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Meteorite or impactite? While it's provenance is clearly impactite as it is sitting on one, the impression is of a burn focus ablation. But looking closer it has those speckles throughout which is not ablative phenomena. It is an impactite "one off" something new you have not seen before. 

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Is just so pretty. 

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Fordite ,also known as detroit agate, is old automobile paint which Has hardened sufficiently to be cute And polished.

It was formed from the built up of layers of enamel paint slag on tracks And skids on which cars were hand spray-painted ,which have been baked numerous tomes.

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This is a really good meteorite transition specimen. It has directional cavitation with rivulets in formation and since the flow is from right to left you see the rivulets not able to find crevasses before it landed.

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Fractal Dendritic Ablation! Meteorite hall of fame. Posted on What's my rock on facebook. It is from Morocco. Let's take a closer look. 

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Elegant ablation with fractals in the melt flow. 

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Curious Cavitation
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Specimen collected by Alex Chealfa
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Progressive cell cavitation meteorite. Specimen collected by: نيازك مولاي عمر

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Sand dune cavitation. Specimen collected by: نيازك مولاي عمر

This is caused by the linear flow going through that crevasse. 

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Collected by نيازك مولاي عمر this specimen has a trailing fin cavitation. Is like making a deep valley topography only made much faster. 

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Gao-Guenie

Gao-Guenie is an H5 ordinary chondrite that fell in the province of Sissili, Burkina Faso in 1960. For many years, this stone was the source of some confusion in the meteorite world!

According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 39MB 57MB 83), approximately 16 stones were seen to fall in the village of Gao, near the border with Ghana, around 5pm on March 5th, 1960.  The largest of the stones weighed 2.5 kg, and the fall was audible from over 100 km away. It was then reported that, one month later, a second shower of stones fell only 10 km from the first.

For almost 40 years, the two falls were referred to as separate meteorites (Gao and Guenie) and additional stones found in the area (with a total mass of hundreds of kilograms) were arbitrarily designated as one or the other. In 1999, however, the Meteorite Nomenclature Committee decided to bestow the collective name of Gao-Guenie on all stones recovered from the area, as it had been shown that the two meteorites, Gao and Guenie, were most likely the result of one fall in March of 1960 (Bourot-Denise, et al., 1998).

Now this is one of those science puzzles. Same fall one month apart. They also ignore the fire ball effects reported like the explosion report and speed of the many meteorites. 

So rather than ignore the reported observations let's construct a thesis. A dual bolide from same origin enters earth, moon gravitation and one is in the release pull to earth the other not in that zone yet. The same gravity release next month. 

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I call this one the interesting equation of cavitation and surface ablation. It certainly has melt flow direction. 

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This is rare. First lets talk about the lines. The lines I study in impactites. I believe them to be an energy signature and in this case a charged energy signature in the conductor mineral probably iron. It even has a Tesla Coil Bridge. But this is a meteorite. It has a surface melt called a "luster glaze" in pottery making. A light diffracting glass like thin surface. Specimen collected by: نيازك مولاي عمر

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This is so weird. A Carol Huges specimen of Dickson, TN. You don't often see chert and metal in a cinder form together as they have such different evaporation temperatures. I think it is slag. 

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This is a good example meteorite. Conventional theory would suggest that only the surface of a meteorite get hot but not true for an object this small. It got hot all over. It has melt rivulets in the crevasses. The cavitation is a type that carves crevasses into the metal. As the earth's atmosphere is a long trip most meteors do not make it to the high density lower atmosphere but this one did and the long heating up made the whole object very hot. Specimen collected by: 

Hmad Oubani

Went to Lycee hassan 2

Lives in Merzouga

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While this could be a meteorite or impactite without knowing the impactite strewn field I will go with meteorite. 

Salvador Bobby Avalos

Lives in Benton City, Washington

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Impactite Linear Cavitation or Flow Cindering - this rare phenomena is made as a large liquid body propelled from the impact. It can be an evaporation hole moving at high speed. You can find a combination of holes and linear cavitation as well. The structure below the surface unlike a meteorite is uniform.  Johnson Top, Madison County, AL the outer ring of the Howell, TN Impact. 

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thumb-prints or regmaglypts hall of fame. Look at the complex types. This is a shock made clast ejected from the Howell Impact and landing some fifty miles SE. 

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You can learn so much from the cusp of events. This shock mega clast was hot and evaporative but has some linear evaporative flow cavitation as well formed at some amount of time apart as a sequence event record. 

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These shock mega clast with flow evaporative cavitation can be remarkably uniform in matrix structure. I had to stop and note the low pressure point shatter cone from some later impact here in the trail as it was so perfect. These are made at or about 6 GPa like a hammer blow. 

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Werner Von Braun and group collecting meteorites in Antartica before moon missions. 

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Scale changing and Turing Cavitation - This is a shock floor. The red is from the large earth hitting bolide iron in a pulverized nano state. This crater bottom strata is pointing toward the center of the impact blast which is coming from the lower right. Cam Muskelly this is in Hamblen county Tennessee. There are actually a few spots around cherokee lake on hillsides where this is visible.

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Brahim Omlil

13h  · 

A new carbonaceous meteorite is added to the list of meteorites that fell in Morocco, most of them fell in the southeast.

Congratulations

to those who have a share in this heavenly treasure

Small meteorites would collect in sand and look like this. 

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Meteorite that broke apart with the backside trailing cavitation. نيازك مولاي عمر specimen. 

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Impactite with the most extreme version of this phenomena. Whites Gap SW Franklin County, TN. 

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Foreword cavitation and high speed collision. Was plastic at time and retained some pieces. Shock chaos storm impactite. Not a meteorite, a tektite. Meteorite Times Magazine Articles - Meteorites & Tektites, Meteorite Dealers, Links & Classifieds (meteorite-times.com)

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Causes and Measures of Fume in Directed Energy Deposition: A Review

Article

Full-text available

  • Jun 2020

Pores and cracks are known as the main defects in metal additive manufacturing (MAM), including directed energy deposition(DED). A gaseous fume is often produced by laser flash (instantaneous high temperature) during laser processing, which may cause various defects such as porosity, lack of fusion, inhomogeneity, low flowability and composition ch...

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Brahim Omlil

The fall of Brazil is exactly similar to the fall of Turuk

Alchondrol explains the development of condensation

Turok meteorite falling is very rare

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So did all this conglomerate material collect at one time from shock compression or did it assemble over time in space? I think both can happen and the former is more likely as it is relatively the same material. This specimen also illustrates the folly of typing meteorites. As with craters all impacts are unique. Space impacts are also all unique and that is what meteorites tend to be space impactites. 

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Magnetic shield for planets is also like the effects of a meteorite through atmosphere. Here we have trailing cavitation upon a planet which would tend to sculpt out the margin along the central plasma like bubble. Planetary Cavitation. 

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Plasma charge figures - These forms are from the plasma energy imparting material to the broke away surface. Specimen was collected by: نيازك مولاي عمر

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Notice how this Meteorite has produced Septarian Patterns. It is a meteorite because it has an ablative crust, heat mosaic crevasses and flow into the crevasses as well as a cavitation dimpling Septarian which is what I want to discuss. The Septarian like Turing Patterns (Rejection Patterns I am sticking with the "Rejection Patterns" concept. It better describes the phenomena. Binary can also be a rejection pattern like space vacuum and a substance i.e. 1 and 0. See how this is more than they realize.) is found in nature and physics. Beyond that the quanta wave is also ever present. A drop of water hitting a surface will make a wave harmonic jet no tidal force is required. The quanta wave principle may underlie both Septarian and Rejection patterns. Specimen collected by: نيازك مولاي عمر

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Impact Sphere/Meteorite - This specimen was produced from an impact that ejected a melt liquid drop of impact matter. It has been cindered/ablated from earth entry. Specimen collected by: Khalid Ouladtamou 

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Thank you for finding and posting this one. It has two unique property phenomena. Color surface melt flow and Staghorn melt flow. Rare meteorite. I would like to add it to my encyclopedia if you don't mind. Take a look at the Staghorn feature.

Posted on Facebook  group What's my rock by نيازك مولاي عمر

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Meteorite - This specimen has an ablative surface. It also has melt fractals with directional flow. It even has flow into the crevasses. The little dot spheres are part of it original composition and are harder than the matrix and that is why they project above the surface.

Specimen submitted to Facebook "What's my rock" on July 31, 2022 by: نيازك مولاي عمر  

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Exotic Cavitation - Very fast, very high pressure splitting which produced the fractal coning as a second order harmonic like how a shock wave is perpendicular. Also a cavitation is in same direction also high energy instant pressure. Specimen collected in Maine by: Cody Pooler

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Lee Isham

Impactite with iron inclusion cavitation, rare. Called thumbprints in meteorites these earth impact type were in a plasma environment and flew long enough to produce cavitation although it is associated with vaporizing iron inclusions. Cavitation direction can also be confusing but that can be true of meteorites as well. Although rare finding one means a high likelihood of finding others. Specimen by: Alice Fleenor Tennessee

The specimen illustrates a high temperature and high silica ceramic as a survivor relic of this impact. It has survived a vapor iron plasma process. 5,000 degrees F. It is however clearly an ablative process. 

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Heat tile or flake off a fireball meteorite - I lean towards the latter. The non ablated side has curvature, iron impalements and some minor melt flow. 

Fossils of Eastern Tn

Eric Ramsey  · Aug. 26, 2022

Very lightweight. Not sure what it may be. Any 8deas?

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Howell, TN Meteor

I really like that cinder. It is unique. It has a center vein and directionality. Unusual color. This is different from a heat cinder is an energy cinder. A high energy current went through that vein. Fulgurites usually don't look like that but can't rule out. Industrial processes use high electrical smelting. Also impactites often display high energy signatures as impact particle storms are generators like volcano lightning. Could it be a volcano cinder? Possible although again not typical. Found in Michigan which narrows it down to slag or impact cinder. 

Kit Lenox

September 7, 2022

Anyone know what this?

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Directional turbulent cavitation/rejection pattern - Meteorite in a physics state of both cavitation and making surface rejection forms. Rejection forms are the designs you see when you see two substances not mixed like two colors of paint before blended together. The most famous rejection pattern is Turning Patterns (Alan Turing 1952). As is it also in a plasma surface it is trying to cavitate. Cavitation takes a physical energy level just above this and it is in a partial cavitation state. Rare, valuable, unique, meteorite.

Sept. 17, 2022 

Andy Doniego

What is this?my friends...

No magnetic intensity..

please identify,

Thank you

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Top fan

Lee Isham

Impact liquification principle - Both the impactor and the impacted will be liquified. This is a type 4 meteorite impact (non explosive). The top dome is all that is affected from this collision. The drop was made in a high energy impact and was elongated due to speed. Also let me point out that the idea that micrometeorites are formed in atmosphere is not represented in this specimen as this would have to have been formed as is.

Project Stardust - Jon Larsen & Jan Braly Kihle

Sept. 22, 2022

Eyecandy Thursday: A glass droplet from Space!

Last week I got access to a large industrial roof to search for stardust, and there I found this beautiful green alien. It is a flawless glass micrometeorite (~0.4 mm), crystal clear green, with a small crystallisation in the front which is up in this new photo by Jan Braly Kihle and me. As you can see, the crystallisation has been triggered by a small nickel-iron bead.

There is a faint oxidation at the surface of the micrometeorite, otherwice it is so clear that you could read a very small newspaper through it. Learn how to search for stardust here: https://www.treasuresfromspace.com/.../how-to-find... - enjoy!

Sign up for my newsletter about micrometeorites here: www.projectstardust.xyz - opening soon!

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Fireball meteorite cinders - Meteorites have a fresh smell of sulfur. The composition does not look manmade. Impactite cinders would have lost sulfur smell from so much time. Not volcanic. At some point there was a fireball which would have been noticed as they explode in the air and make a loud sound. Could have been in the day.

Heidi Mollner  · Sept. 22, 2022 · 

These are very light weight, with almost a feel of concrete. They have lots of pores and while washing them, I noticed they started to turn blue in spots and smelled of rotten eggs.

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Meteorite - Dark surface ablation. Directional surface rejection patterns. End secton - This color tells you more about it's mixed mineral composition as it is less ablated, stony iron color looks like it could have some nickel too. The radial pattern is unique but clearly directional melt pattern. It is bubbling and making chain bubbles.

Fossil raiders of Alabama

Jennifer George Sherrill  · Sept. 23, 2022  · 

Found in Andalusia, Alabama in the Conecuh River. Any ideas?

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This was a liquid surface. See that quartz point in upper right, that is a rare non crystal quartz quick hardening. Specimen collected by: 

نيازك مولاي عمر Oct. 4, 2022

This is a rare meteorite type, a strange composite of many minerals as as a high shock conglomerate. 

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Meteorite fractal flow - From right to left you see this melt river of a high iron oxide but appears to also contain some silica. Since earth entry can make a temperature of 4,500 degrees F this is certainly what happened. Found in Moracco by: Hmad Oubani

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Meteorite. Really interesting. Cavitation is more evident side on. It has faked during entry. Melt surface some flow, some cavitation. Could these two specimens be from the same meteor shower, seems likely. 

What's my rock? Oct. 6, 2022

Hmad Oubani  

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Stars fell over Alabama and you have found one. Weathered, ablated, meteorite sphere. A silica iron, while the iron content is low NASA proved back in the 1960's that shock can realign iron to produce a non magnetic iron. This specimen has been cavitated and pieces have broken off from being carbonized during earth entry (4,500 degrees F). It is a priceless find.

Fossil raiders of Alabama

Norm Holth  ·   ·Oct. 8,2022 

This is interesting. It is not magnetic. Any ideas?

Very old meteorite or impactite. Weathering, can it remove the smooth cavitation surface? Was it made with rough cavitation? Possible, as if it is an impactite the impact gas environment would not be oxygen.

Meteorite Identification

Ken Jackman  ·   · Oct. 9, 2022

I thought I had posted this earlier but don’t see it so if it is a duplicate I apologize. Object is believed to have been retrieved from a field in late 1800’s in Iowa. Weighs 9.5 lbs and magnets are attracted to it. Do I have a meteorite here?

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Ballistic collision, cavitated, not ablated. Simi plasma state when hit. Impactite, likely SiFe3O4.

Mark Talley

  · Oct. 9, 2022

For your edification, A very curious tektite, almost the appearance of a negative button impression, highly symmetric, surly an interesting formation story.

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Carnelian meteorite - Has surface melt flow including melt fractal. Carbonized etched surface. Fe3O4Si. Black/red iron oxide and silica. This face has a lot of entry side etching and melt flow including minor melt fractal effect. 

Jo Henry

Oct. 14, 2022

Had these recently given to me. Any ideas on what they might be. It's magnetic

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Melt lip upper section. 
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The Acorn, Rare directional micrometeorite with ablation chip and slower form crystal sequence.

Micrometeorites

Thomas Stelzmann  ·   · 

Oct. 14, 2022

0.5mm in length, I posted a picture of this big one a few months ago. No I changed light and background. I must take pictures of the other side, the bead isn´t good to see.

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Lee Isham

Iron silica meteorite - High shock orogeny. It has broken apart during earth entry. Weathering versus ablation - Impactites will weather on the surface resembling ablation. Weathering will not be this black, i.e. carbonization. Also you have a progression into the broken space of carbonizing as it still was high enough in the atmosphere to continue carbonizing when it came apart. It also has a layer lip ablation. Cavitation - Turning cavitation looks like this. It will make a slight cavitation surface all over but in this case part was lost. As it broke apart high enough in the atmosphere to separate vectors significantly you will not find the other piece as it is miles away. This was a captured object in our solar system part of the impact debris in the history of our solar system. Meteorites this big are seldom found. It is also relatively recent and must have made a fireball type explosion.

RockHounds

Justin Mcdonald  · Oct. 21, 2022  · 

What am I!?!

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Malachite Meteorite - Cavitation with almost lost ablation. Low hardness 3 to 4 allowed this meteorite to sluff off its ablation over time a weathering phenomena. The surface rejection patterns show energy type geometric circles also indicating meteorite. It still has some slight black carbonizing. But could it be water cavitation? Yes. The almost removed black could be dirt but is very black for that. 

Shawn Lewis  · Oct. 21, 2022· 

I have this large piece of malachite. What is the best way to polish it?

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Rare Nickel cavitation and ablation meteorite. Hmad Oubani

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Silica, some nano iron meteorite with high directionality. Ablation and linear cavitation. This is a wash in. It landed in the ocean. 

Jo Henry shared a post.

Oct. 26, 2022

Any ideas on what this might be. Found along the ocean beach in south Australia

Meteorite cinder with cavitation. 

rock identification group

Reynaldo Ochoa  · 

Dec. 1, 2022  · 

Hi! So 2 days ago my dad noticed this in our backyard. It's never been there before and just appeared out of nowhere. From research on the internet it could be terrestrial ignigeas basalt or Lunar . Pictures I've seen on the internet looked similar. It's pretty heavy.

  • Moira Jane Ellis

    Reynaldo Ochoa was there a mark in the ground as if it hit the ground with force?​

  • Reynaldo Ochoa

    Yes there a mound of dirt surrounding it as if the rock impacted, but it wasn't like a crazy deep crater. I mean where the rock was lying it looked like a small crater on surface with dirt around it. So why is this? Terminal velocity. 

Impactite, opal with cavitation and impact geometric, very, very rare. Few people have ever seen an impactite with cavitation much less an opal one and the hexagon cavitation is over the top. Carnelian surface of the cavitation indicates this cavitation was produced by the plasma bubbles of iron in hypersonic flight as ejected from crater. The opal indicates water was also present at the time of impact or comet with water was the impactor. The hexagonal cavitation is only possible as a connected system event with side pressure form other cavitation bubbles. This could not have been formed by any slow erosion process. 

Jesus Gomez Morales

  Feb. 11, 2023·   · 

Found this rock in an old trailer in Yuma Arizona

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Impactite Shock Agate, with Pentagon Cavitation. 

Chris Wagner

  · Feb. 15, 2023

Lake Superior Agates.

All are in their natural state but have been cleaned and oiled.

All found in Iowa, USA.

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Physics fun

  · 

Check out this adorable Martian meteorite!

This incredible image of space rock was taken by the Mastcam onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3735, and sent all the way to Earth to make a big impression on us!

Sol (from the Latin word for sun) is a solar day on Mars; a Mars day – almost 40 minutes longer than an Earth day. Curiosity has been giving us a captivating glimpse into the mysteries of Mars for 3755 sols

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

First let's consider how thin the Mars atmosphere is. Cavitation is a function of a dense plasma surface bubble which is just not possible in Mar's meteor entry. This is an impactite from a Mars surface impact type 3 explosion. Impact makes its own dense gas cloud and cavitation like this is like on Earth often an iron plasma bubble. 

March 5, 2023

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Impactite with direction. Why not meteorite? This fast melt happened too quickly to be a meteorite which takes much longer and would not have this truncated flow pattern. A really good specimen. A meteorite would take about 2  minutes and this happened much faster i.e. seconds.  Also this is not a  melt flow type but more of a whole body layering push.  Jim Kingdom specimen. 

High heat mosaic meteorite in ablation crust. July 19, 2023. 
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Blistering protrusions and impalement. July 19, 2023. 

허명재

  · 

■ Collapse Cracked Stone Meteorite
 

This is the discovery contraction and fissure meteorite in Korea.

Cracks in meteorites typically have contraction cracks and weathering cracks.

Shrinkage crack is a crack formed by the cold shrinkage of the hot molten shell of a meteorite during its fall. The depth of the contraction crack is too shallow to penetrate even the molten shell of the meteorite (the thickness of the molten shell of the meteorite is typically less than 1 mm).

This is a thinly sliced sample of regular chondrites. The top layer is a molten crust and a partially molten meteorite matrix.

Shrinkage cracks do not damage meteorites, but they are also typical features of meteorites.

Weathering cracks are the result of meteorite weathering in a water- and oxygen-rich global environment and can generally penetrate meteorites from within, causing great damage to meteorites.

Most meteorites contain elemental iron, and iron oxide produced by contact between metal iron and water and oxygen increases its volume, causing the meteorite to expand and crack to form weathering cracks.

general weathering crack

Meteorites are not as destructive as most people think, and on the contrary, they are very weak in a water- and oxygen-rich global environment.

So the transformation is done.

Meteorites that fall in humid climates cannot be recognized within a few years.

Luckily, however, meteorites that humans can collect are also stored around them by drying and rusting them.

This is a typical contraction crack stone found in Korea.

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Meteorite with ablative crust and fractal flow. It is very old could have landed a million years ago it seems to have weathered. Why rock hunters search creeks. Creeks collect the rocks from the surrounding area uncovered by rains and millions of years of erosion where these rocks were buried. Magnetism and iron. While the specimen clearly contains iron as you can see from the red and black oxides these pulverized bits were part of an earlier impact and shock affects magnetic properties positive and negative. Fractal flow in your specimen is clearly directional also a strong indicator of earth atmosphere entry. It is a really good find. Aug. 25, 2023. 
What's my rock?

Matthew Hayes  · 

Found in Southern Ohio creek, Roughly 2 pounds ,Super heavy for its Size,..Non magnetic. Tried a refrigerator magnet, Scratches glass and a Nail won't scratch it..

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Meteorite, ablated with provenance, hollow impact sphere. Oct. 19, 2023. 
Rockhounding For Beginners

Jose Antiques  ·

Now this one I did find in a parking lot I was amazed at it

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Impact nodule, rare. Yes it does contain nano metals but is not slag. The impacting bolide had metal. This was very hot hence the spur. High differential heat - The top and bulge have less heat. Bulge surface - You can see the impact particles on this and they striate as they move to the point spur. Rare. So why not slag? I study slag and a fundamental of it is provenance. It will be found with other slag or next to some industrial site. Meteorite - No surface ablation. Jan. 9, 2024. 
Rock Seeker - Rockhound and Rock Collecting Group

Kris Brahm  ·   · 

Anyone????

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Ford had a big casting operation at Sheffield, AL. I don't know why slag would be in the creek unless it is washing down from larger source. Your specimens seem to be olivine. From Wiki article on slag "The major phases of ferrous slag contain calcium-rich olivine-group silicates and melilite-group silicates." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag
 

Chad Butler

Found in a creek in NW Alabama. The pics are different sides of the same rocks. Dark green color. Any ideas on identification? Thanks in advance.

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Meteorite, what a great example. Feb. 7, 2024. 
Leonel Diarte
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Look how it goes from linear to the fractal flame pattern from the leading edge. It reminds me of those flames people paint on cars. Feb. 11, 2024. Youssef Amkrane

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Notice how the impact glass in figure D looks just like slag glass. May 7, 2024. 
 

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

Volume 636, 15 June 2024, 118714

 

Zircon microstructures record high temperature and pressure conditions during impact melt evolution at the West Clearwater Lake impact structure, Canada

Author links open overlay panelNeeraja S. Chinchalkar a, Gordon R. Osinski a, Timmons M. Erickson b, Cyril Cayron c

Tektites.jpg
Bisar backyard dump truck unloaded specimen, Alabama. Peppered with Tektites. While Alabama certainly has its share of slag from the Birmingham or small north Alabama operations I do not know how round glass spheres would appear in this process and why they would pepper a surface. Favors Impact. This is the hardest type of cusp identification without provenance. May 8, 2024. 
AL backyard dump truck dirt mound find

Slag right? I could so be wrong. But I think it's slag. I do find a ton of it here on the property. Does anyone know a lot of info on Alabama slag and what not? Why the impressions that are left behind? Why do i find shells and so many other beautiful things most of us would prefer to find alone and not attached to some slag metal or glass? Curious as to why they add so many pretty stuff into them But seriously, I am kinda curious and wondering if I'm the only one that loves slag and holds on to the pretty ones that are hard to part with? pictures of it dry and wet. So much to look at with this one.

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Now here is another special case an artifact dug up at the beach. The artifact while deteriorating has picked up shells. May 8, 2024. 
 

Carrie Belcher Rikard  ·   · 

Any clue what this is? My 8 year old dug it up on Mayport beach. It’s not metallic and it weights A TON! I can’t wash anymore shells off and it was surrounded by thick black mud.

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Meteorite. Partial ablation surfaces. Rivulet flow into crevasses is not common for even impactites. The surface heat refines the mineral content to separate in this case what looks like calcite which flows into the contours. June 25, 2024. 
 

Nick James Cartier

 

Sorry meant to add these too to the previous post... Opinion Lee? Magnet attracts and is very hard and dense.

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