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Rock whatzit

A

Anonymous

Guest
I found this while digging. It's stone, with no metal content, but it looked so weird that I had to keep it. Some laypeople said it looks like fossilized dung. Any ideas?
 
The item looks like either dense chert or limestone. Put some dilute HCL on the specimen if it reacts with bubbles it is limestone. Rock identification is always difficult looking at weathered surfaces from a photo.
It has not look like a coprolite(fossil dung)- I have quite a few- not usually preserved as limestone or chert.
My guess is a chert(or limestone) nodule.
George
 
Other pics at different angles will help with a scale. The coprolite samples I've seen and the one I had (before being stolen) tend to have a external texture like cauliflower.
 
Here is the grand daddy of them all. Of course Steve probably already knew about this one. <IMG SRC="/metal/html/canada.jpg" BORDER=0 width=34 height=17 ALT="c~">
 
Thanks for your help and interest. Here are some other pictures of the stone, with a standard pocket knife for size comparison. I agree that it doesn't look like a coprolite, but it's still got to be the strangest-looking rock I ever found!
HH, Mark D.
 
The breakage pattern does not look like chert(flint)- no conchoidal fracture.
Where was it found? Was it found with sedimentary rocks?- sandstones, shales or metamorphic rocks- gneiss, schist, slate- foliated rocks?
You need to find out if it is a carbonate. Put some HCL(muriatic acid) on it. If it reacts with the acid it is a carbonate- limestone. Also do a scratch test- does it scratch steel(knife)? Carbonates (calcium carbonates- calcite, limestone) will not scratch a knife unless contain silica impurities.
If this rock was found with other sedimenary rocks such as shales, sandstones, and reacts with muriatic acid- it is a limestone nodule.
George
George
 
There's a quarry near my mom's place... I think it was a dolomite mine, and there were seams of stuff all stacked up that looked very similar to that piece you have... haven't been there in years, but that's what I recall it looking like.
 
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