what is this?

[Mr_Rosenheim]

I do not think it was concrete based on where i am told it was found and there were two other pieces this was the largest one.

That's rather peculiar if you found it in a sheet like aggregate; were the three pieces originally intact; or were they independent of one another? What type of area was it found in: a previous industrial area where slag/ smelting ore/cinter or concrete would be present, a grassy knoll in the middle of nowhere, beached somewhere on a MN coast etc? Also when it was found was it found in a menagerie of root like veins; if so this would point to it being a probable Fulgurite, A.K.A. Lightning Strike Glass. Funny enough Lightning is known to strike sidewalks as well - hence concrete Fulgurites....lol.

http://www.celestialmonochord.org/2006/05/sidewalk_fulgar.html

Ps. If you feel it may be a Fulgurite you're best bet is to score off a piece of the mass towards the belly of the specimen & look for a coffee/green colored glassy look.

[blakeb]

+ 2 boeing bomb, you didnt eat off of it did you.

easiest way is look for peanuts.

[Scupper]

This has really gotten interesting, especially with Mr_Rosenheim's thought's.

chevota78, just to clarify what I was referring to

Quote:

late 1960's

is when I started forging a long and brutal relationship with concrete.

I believe and am confident in saying that Roman engineer's developed the first known, (although crude by today's standards)concrete products for sound lasting structural integrity.

I'll retract my guess as to what you have there and will continue to monitor this most interesting subject. I'd love to hear that Lightning or some type of nuclear fusion formed this object.

Keep digging for the answer...

[chevota78]

Originally Posted By: chevota78

I do not think it was concrete based on where i am told it was found and there were two other pieces this was the largest one.

That's rather peculiar if you found it in a sheet like aggregate; were the three pieces originally intact; or were they independent of one another? What type of area was it found in: a previous industrial area where slag/ smelting ore/cinter or concrete would be present, a grassy knoll in the middle of nowhere, beached somewhere on a MN coast etc? Also when it was found was it found in a menagerie of root like veins; if so this would point to it being a probable Fulgurite, A.K.A. Lightning Strike Glass. Funny enough Lightning is known to strike sidewalks as well - hence concrete Fulgurites....lol.

http://www.celestialmonochord.org/2006/05/sidewalk_fulgar.html

Ps. If you feel it may be a Fulgurite you're best bet is to score off a piece of the mass towards the belly of the specimen & look for a coffee/green colored glassy look.

The other two pieces were seperate, not all one big mass. I would be happy to send you a piece i broke off for you to look at. I took an ax and eventually broke a couple pieces off the end. From what i was told it was found in the middle of nowhere when my father was younger, and he is not alive now for me to get more detail.

[Mr_Rosenheim]

Do the pieces you flaked off with the axe have a frothy, glass blowers fired look to them; or do they have tiny scoriaceous (lave rock like) pores... about the size of pin holes?

This is the Scoriaceous look I'm speaking of on the inside "this being a piece of lava rock":

And this specimen being an actual Fulgurite:

Fulgurites are commonly a dirtied bottle green color on the inside, but can be a slick silvery grey matte black, as well as a coffee color.

Here's the inside of a tubular Fulgurite with the ascribed silvery grey-black inside, although loamier because it probably formed in sand:

So if it doesn't look similar to any of these on the inside:

Than it probably isn't a Fulgurite: although if it is a lighting struck country stone, it may have little black or green blebs puckering out of it or wring worming through it as so:

Ps. Noticable crustal glass blebs are somewhat rare in "Rock Fulgurites" though; most look like the second above image with a molted skin overlaying the normal stone beneath. If you're mass doesn't have these key features than I'm afraid you're at a dead end street as far as Fulgurites.

Hope this helps.

[PGE-Hound]

By looking at the picture I would take a guess that the rock is a "conglomerate", now depending on the type and size of pebbles or clasts that are seen in the picture you can give it a certain name...example would be granite conglomerate or quartz conglomerate..even limestone conglomerate. Scratch the surface of a pebble and matrix then pour some HCL on it to see if it fizzes... is so it would be sometype of limestone conglomerate... which I would doubt it would be.

Definition of conglomerate: A clastic sedimentary rock that contains large (greater then two millimeters in diameter) rounded particles. The space between the pebbles is generally filled with smaller particles and/or a chemical cement that binds the rock together.

[chevota78]

maybe it is a piece of lava rock it kinda has spots like that on the outside with what looks like granite on the inside. And pieces of rock on the outside also.

[Mr_Rosenheim]

I used to be a devout Meteorite enthusiast and scoured the web for Earth rocks that resembled Feldspathic, Olivinite, Anorthositic Lunar, Martian and Achondrites. My point is: this bit of stone looks alot like some sort of Gabbroic Basalt (an Earth equivalent of an Achondrite):

In you're image it looks like the stone contains laths (rods) of Feldspar and white-fire flashes of the sheet mineral Mica.

You're stone looks to have some Tuff like features as well, so it might also be a some sort of Lightly compacted form of Rhyolitic Tuff:

These are my best guesses after having seen these thumbnail pieces.

[chevota78]

I used to be a devout Meteorite enthusiast and scoured the web for Earth rocks that resembled Feldspathic, Olivinite, Anorthositic Lunar, Martian and Achondrites. My point is: this bit of stone looks alot like some sort of Gabbroic Basalt (an Earth equivalent of an Achondrite):

In you're image it looks like the stone contains laths (rods) of Feldspar and white-fire flashes of the sheet mineral Mica.

You're stone looks to have some Tuff like features as well, so it might also be a some sort of Lightly compacted form of Rhyolitic Tuff:

These are my best guesses after having seen these thumbnail pieces.

I was told it was a meteorite, but was not sure hense why i ask what everyone thinks it is.

[Mr_Rosenheim]

Here is a link to a HSOforum I have hot-keyed into my Firefox Browser Speed Dial Add-on thumbnails: (http://www.mr-meteorite.net/)

The domain is run by a reputable Meteorite Hunter named Ruben Garcia: (who's worked with The Meteorite Men: Geoffrey Notkin and Steve Arnold) Ruben does quite alot of travel into xeric places in New Mexico, Texas, and Glorieta Mountain; as well as a trip in Canada after the buzzard coulee meteorite - but mostly he hunts playas (dry lake beds) in California and Arizona.

Here's his Line up of Meteorite Identification Videos to go by "which are near to foolproof in they're accuracy":

This should give you a good acumen on what Space-rocks look like.

Hope this Helps.

[PGE-Hound]

Wait... am I the only one that sees the pebbles and clasts in this rock??? The rocks inside the matrix are rounded, which means they have been rounded by a river or stream. The pictures of the Gabbros have angular grains...No gabbro or basaltic rocks have such... the same with tuffs. If it was a meteorite it would be magnetic. I am almost 100% positive it is not a Feldpathic dunite, gabbro or Anorthosite being that of this planet or another.

[PGE-Hound]

Here, this shows a basaltic pebble conglomerate. Though maybe I am way off?

[Mr_Rosenheim]

I can make out cobbles of similar material almost clayed into the mass as well; PGE-Hound has a point with the Basaltic pebble conglomerate idea. The stone does seem to have gained its girth through some sort of Sedimentary process; maybe it's a type of Igneous Pillow Basalt that's soldered itself onto a shingle in MN and snowballed native stones into it then flattened out and cooled into a pancaking form.

There are outrcrops of Pillow Basalt in Northern Minnesota and place called Ely MN.

For added measure here are a few Pillow Basalt deposits from different areas, with some semblance:

I'm no Geologist, but this mass definitely seems Sedimentary like PGE-Hound added; but it also has the clumped together look of a possible Igneous Pillow Basalt.

Hope this Helps.

[chevota78]

Wait... am I the only one that sees the pebbles and clasts in this rock??? The rocks inside the matrix are rounded, which means they have been rounded by a river or stream. The pictures of the Gabbros have angular grains...No gabbro or basaltic rocks have such... the same with tuffs. If it was a meteorite it would be magnetic. I am almost 100% positive it is not a Feldpathic dunite, gabbro or Anorthosite being that of this planet or another.

Not all stony meteorites are magnetic.

[PGE-Hound]

You are correct. Below are to sites giving meteorite identification. Both indicate meteorites that are not magnetic are so rare (less than 1 in a thousand) that if the rock is not magnetic they will discredit it as a meteorite.

Another thing that might help in identification is where the rock was found, a boulder that size doesn't stray to far away from its source. I would look up Geological units of the county you found it in. No matter what it is, it is an interesting find.

http://www.aerolite.org/found-a-meteorite.htm

http://geology.com/meteorites/meteorite-identification.shtml

Just did a quick search on glacial tills... could be some type of hardened till or clay ball/boulder clay. Figured since MN has been reciently affected by glaciers that it could be that. The rock is grey/bluish grey which is the same color seen in tills on the western side of MN (Des Moines Lobe till).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder_clay