Help with ID?

[LargeCentPeace]

New to rocks and mineral collecting and I am interested in starting a new hobby. Found this in embedded in a large piece of sandstone near a riverbed in the Catskills and having difficulty with identification.

I am interested in the light blue region, which has traces of white quartz, a few pores, and a smooth surface. Closest I have come to an ID is either blue quartzite or soapstone? - no clue though.

 

[giuhalftrack]

looks like some type of quartz sedimetary rock, you find in a sandstone (what kind of sandstone?) it is a nodule.

A simple test with HCL diluited 5% can hel you to see if rock is containing CaCO3 or other carbonate, because from appairance could be a some kind of meta-carbonate.

 

[LargeCentPeace]

THANKS!



Don't think its any form of Talc *calcium carbonate- too hard and negative to acid test. Most likely a blue quartize formed from the sandstone (Arenite? not sure of the exact type even with some searching around).

Thanks for the advice

 

[Boomer1]

That, is Chert.

Chert (/ˈtʃɜrt/) is a fine-grained silica-rich microcrystalline, cryptocrystalline or microfibrous sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. It varies greatly in color (from white to black), but most often manifests as gray, brown, grayish brown and light green to rusty red; its color is an expression of trace elements present in the rock, and both red and green are most often related to traces of iron (in its oxidized and reduced forms respectively).

It's very common here in Alabama, and can come in a wide range of colors.