Heavy find


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i found this on an Amish farm today, it is very heavy, slightly magnetic, feels and looks like a fusion crust, it took several hits with a large hammer to knock a corner off and it is bright silver and broke off the way a natural substance would not a clean break like metal, there is no history of any mining or smelting in this entire area. Not sure if it is a meteorite fragment or not, he told me he has seen several more when he plows the field. Any thoughts?post-121-0-18924300-1439926316_thumb.jpgpost-121-0-18924300-1439926316_thumb.jpgpost-121-0-16834100-1439926530_thumb.jpg

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I found this in Ohio, I have found lots of galena in Arizona but this is not galena, Rich thinks it might be iron ore, but the area is sedimentary with coal layers, I worked underground here 650 down and 7 miles back in, so lots of coal and deep. But I suppose it is always possible to have an iron ore layer in there.

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"The flat cleavage gives it away"...

As opposed to busty cleavage? :P

Tom H

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Is galena slightly magnetic, that is what keeps throwing me , because I can never remember finding any galena that stuck to my magnet, this can't be picked up with the magnet but it definitely is attracted to it. I have only heard of one report of silver here in Ohio, but I can't verify it as true, most of the gold is from glaciers and not really close to this area.

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That's always a possibility, I will be heading back to arizona in a few weeks so I will bring it along to see if I can get a positive I'd, needless to say I was hoping it was space debris, but not looking good for that idea.

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Hey Glenn,

My first guess from seeing the pictures would be Galena. That being said, I have a huge bag of large galena pieces from out West. None of them are magnetic, not even slightly. That being said, they don't respond to a PI that well, but will blow your ears off with a VLF. I haven't tried them on the GPZ 7000 yet.

That being said, you remember when you and I thought we were onto a small meteorite strewnfield out Bagdad way? That was so funny, I still think about the experience we had until one of us found a chunk that had some type of writing on it, if my memory serves me right.

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Rob, I remember that day, man we were finding all those neat meteorite fragments until we realized they might be exploded ordinance, that was funny as could be. This piece of whatever it is has me puzzled but I was looking at it some more and it has a few spots on it that almost look like rust, so Rich might be right about it being iron ore, he saw a lot of it up in Minnesota and a lot of our surface material here was pushed here from that area by glaciers, it is just funny that there is no accompanying debris at all, usually you see river rock in the glacier deposits. I'll show it to you in a few weeks when I get back out there. Maybe we will get a chance to take that 7000 over to one of my depleted patches and see what it can do.

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Hey Glenn,

Ya, that was a fun day.

Sure, sounds like a plan. I wouldn't mind trying some hammered spots to see what the GPZ can do. It's been over 4 weeks since I was last out. I had a nice run with the GPZ up to that point, then got so busy with work/business and the heat.

I have my fingers crossed on a good, wet winter. I really want to get the dredge back in the water.

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Yeah it is always nice to get into the water for a change of pace, I found a great place to dredge last fall but I don't think you can get a big dredge in there, it is a fairly long pack in, but I was getting color in my scoop so I know there is fine gold along with the nuggets.

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Glenn unless you thought it was a FORD part?, why else would you use a hammer on it? (yes I own a Ford) and yes it leaks a bit but it does keep the floor board from rusting out and gets rid of those obnoxious tail-gaiters.

but anyway back to the mystery stone.The only meteorites that are "slightly" magnetic are stony meteorites. I dont see much stone there. have you ever slapped a magnet on an iron/nickel meteorite,it sticks better than a ford part. :huh:;):)
AzNuggetBob

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When the magnet didn't hit it very good and I could see the silvery metal I didn't really think meteorite anymore, but you never know and there are several more fragments in the field so I figured we can sacrifice one piece to the hammer. When it broke the way it did I knew it wasn't man made but edges that looked like it was poured out kept making me wonder if it could have melted somehow, there are zero volcanics in this area so I can't figure where the heat would have come from or if it is just erosion, but I guess when I get back to az we will get it figured out and if it does have any value I know where it came from.

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