Interesting rock i found.

[BillyBones]

Went out for a smoke at work this evening and while kicking around the gravel in the parking lot something caught my eye. This rock seems to have something embedded in it. At first glance i thought it to be iron and that i had found an artifact from an ancient civilization that existed a few million years ago.  Then i thought more logically and said no it is provably a piece of a tool broke off in the quarry the rock came from. Well i took it in thinking i would pry out what ever it is while i was doing nothing at work. So i tried a magnet that did not stick to it. That peaked my curiosity a little more so cleaned it off, which would have also told me it was not iron but hey got to do things the long way. It looks more rock itself on the ends while the middle has a patina that look like old iron. 

Anyway i know some of yall are rock hounds and geology types and if you could tell me what this is or how to go about finding out i would greatly appreciate it. I am oddly obsessed with finding out what the heck it is. I am thinking maybe some kind of fossil but i have no clue. 

[Frazer]

I'm no rock-ologist, but could it be a piece of concrete with another rock embedded in it that was broken up for gravel?

Okay leave the rock spotting to the rock spotters... I see sedimentary rock.

[Randy Griffin]

Prolly a fossil long gone and the void left filled with silt which turned to stone.

IDK. But sounds better than Frazer’s guess. 

[Scott NC]

  My first thought was a weathered off piece of some type of hornblende but that's not right.  Heres a photo I found:

  Perhaps fossil part is right.  Anyway, your topic got me to reading all about inclusions, xenoliths and amphiboles first thing in the morning...... Thanks.  

[gmbobnick]

My best guess is its an odd piece of slag aggregate with an inclusion.  It has a wee bit of iron because of the rusty color in the piece.  Slag agg is common as parking lot gravel, especially near industrialized areas of Ohio.  If the rest of the gravel is pretty uniformly colored, usually grey, possibly with some tiny bug-holes or open pores, that would be strong support for this conclusion.

[JHCC]

A fine sample of leaverite.

[Frazer]

Thank you internet.

Quote

Leaverite is the most common of all stones. Some are even more than four billion years old. It generally cannot be used for much because of its ugly nature. These stones are said to be so ugly that only mother earth could love them. They are truly the lonliest stones in the world. As legend would have it, one day long ago, a little boy and his Grandpa were diggin' for gold. Each time the little boy chipped out a stone he would show it to his Grandpa and ask, "Is this gold?" His Grandpa would reply, "Na, that's just an ugly stone. Leave'er right there." Later that day when the boy showed his Grandpa the stones he had found, he asked, "Is this gold or is this one of them Leav'erite'there's?" From that point on the little boy and his Grandpa called the lonely stones "Leaverites" for short.

Over the years the Leaverites became so lonely that they grew eyes and now they are looking for someone to take them home. This Leaverite of yours will be lonely no more. You've given him a home and a friend to adore. Oh, just one last thing that you must not ignore, he still needs a name he can listen for.......

[Frosty]

Don't forget, one person's leaverite is another's OOOOH!

A mineral containing iron isn't likely to be strongly magnetic enough to feel it with a magnet. Have you tried iron filings on paper laid over it? Give it light taps and see if they align.

Another thought might be iron dissolved in the water that seeped in around it leaving the stain and not the subject oxidizing itself. Unlikely but possible.

I used to drive Dad nuts by tossing random gravel into my little tumbler rather than any of the tons of semi precious stone available in his hoards. Most just came out shiny but some common fill stone polishes up quite pretty, especially granite, diorites and gneisses. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[BillyBones]

The gravel in the lot is not uniform. I have found pieces of basalt, granite, flint and even some semi-precious gem stones. Mostly used in this area is limestone, which i have found some really cool fossils just in driveways. However this is a new layer for the lot and looks completely different from the old. So much so that i am in doubt this gravel originated in this area. But that would not make sense becuase you cannot throw a rock here with out hitting a gravel pit. That does not mean though that rock from other places was not fed through the crusher. 

So i can safely assume that i have not found some sort of rarity that will make me rich beyond my wildest dreams then? I will name it Charlie and put it with the other curiosities i have collected over the years i guess. 

Thanks for all the input. 

[Frazer]

I'm feeling a bit boulder now that he has a name. Perhaps he was a meteorite that fell and was struck by lightning thus fusing it to the surrounding stone? The fact that he has a long history is taken for granite.

Mortar come later.

[Frosty]

Can't tell from here with my piddly bit of mineralogical expertise Billy. Charlie might be a fabulous rarity worth a kings ransom but you'll need to have her evaluated in person. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  Billybones, I used to like picking through the "backup" piles of crushed limestone at the railcar place I worked at for "fools gold".  The big chunks they threw in the ditch along the tracks to prevent erosion had some nice big fossil shells and vertebrea.  Sometimes they had railcars come in loaded with regular ballast we could take home.  I dumped tons of it on my driveway.  I found out later it was from a MOW outfit and had thousands of stick welding rod stubs in it.  They rattled to the bottoms of the cars and were buried under the rock when we dumped them so nobody saw them.  Took a long time with a bumper magnet to clean them out, and a lot of flat tires....

[Frosty]

You buried cars under the rock? Unoccupied I trust!

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

 I did once burry a trailer home in a big hole.  No bodies on it.  It had a mold problem and I sawed it into sections with a sawzawl and pancaked into the hole.  It was a big burnhole that started out as a storm shelter but never got finished.  I tried burning it but all it did was smoulder black smoke that could be seen for miles.  The city fire marshal came out and talked to me.  Fortunately I had a burn permit but trailer homes wasn't covered.  I tried hosing it out but it persisted.  Finally I had to cover it with dirt.  I was pretty young then and would never do such a thing again.  But no bodies involved....

[George N. M.]

Dear Billy,

It is almost certainly an igneous rock from outside Ohio.  I'm going to have to go into a bit of rock genesis to describe the formation of big crystals like that.

Crystals grow VERY slowly.  So, to develop large crystals they have to develop deep enough in the earth where the rock is a liquid or semi-liquid for a very long time to allow for crystal growth.  So, your rock was either in something like a magma chamber where crystals develop and grow and sink to the bottom of the chamber or in a dike where molten rock was intruded into a hot, solid or semi-solid rock and then took a very long time to cool allowing crystals to grow large.  These kinds of intrusions are known as pegmatites.  The crystals in the intrusions are much larger than the crystals in the surrounding rock.

My best guess (and it is pretty much a SWAG) is that the crystal in your specimen may be black tourmaline (aka "schorl").

It could have been transported to Ohio by glacial action or by human action such as gravel or fill from Canada or a state where there are igneous rocks.

That's the best I can do at a distance.

GNM

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[BillyBones]

George, thank you for the insight. Even though you may be just guessing it points me in the direction i need to look. Quite helpful. Now i just need to find my flashlight to go down this rabbit hole. 

Even if i never find out it will have a nice home on the curiosity shelf. 

 

[Frosty]

Pack a magnifying glass or better jewelers loupe when you go down into the rabbit's Crystal Warren. You know you're hooked when you buy a hardness test kit. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

I just happen to have a jewelers loop in my tool box.

[Frosty]

Taking your tool box might be a LITTLE much.  

Dad had a phial of sulfuric acid, hardness test kit, dental pics, touch stone and chart, various magnifiers, compact and dental mirrors, I'm sure I'll remember more as soon as I hit submit. But . . . He'd load what he needed for an area in a folding wallet. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

The tool box has wheels. I could hitch a team of jackalopes up to pull it.  

[Frosty]

Pictures please!

Frosty The Lucky.