FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[vic rzonca]

At the Tucson show just past, my friend Fasi, from Matrix India, approached me with a smile in his eyes and asked me if I could identify several hand specimens of a mineral he had purchased. They had been presented as completely natural and found in the field. Location: China. When I finished my identification he said, I could toss them out. I couldn't do it. I knew the exact group that would benefit from an attempt at identifying these fine examples. Good luck and thank you for your time.

[Jamison Brizendine]

These remind me of Pele's Hair...

[kushmeja]

Looks like melted tires with the radials sticking out and rusted, at least to me. Doesn't look natural for sure, although I have seen some similar looking natural specimens that appeared man made but weren't

[Stan Salmon]

Looks like something from Roswell...

[Mike Wood]

Yes, very interesting specimens Vic. I reckon Kushmeja nailed it but I would go one further and suggest (aluminium) alloy wheels from a car fire. The steel wires from the tires have got embedded in the molten alloy.
I wonder if there is a scientific name for this kind of phenomenon...

[kushmeja]

[Ed Huskinson]

Yes. I found similar-looking stuff out in the desert west of Kingman. Took it to the local meteorite guys KD METEORITES when they lived here. Together we realized that this was some sort of slag of indeterminate origin.

Later, after much discussion and showing of the material, a guy who worked for the railroad was able to shed some light on the subject. He pointed out that they sometimes had to scrape similar-looking gunk off the undercarriage of some railroad cars where the brakes had burned the brakeshoes/linings. Asbestiform fibres were often incorporated into the mix, hence the resemblance to Pelee's hair.

So this is one possibility for the origin of this slag.

Just throwing it out there.

Thanks,

Ed in Kingman

[lluis]

Good afternoon (or day, evening ot what it is in your time...)

No ides of what it is. I agree that they look like rusted iron wires in some anything that held them together.
But if there was there aluminum, it would have burnt to the end. At least from what I have been teached (i have been in explosions, fires, troubles and so. Never in an aluminum fire (thanks God!))
I first though in an fired iron sponge brush......

With best wishes

Lluís

[SteveB]

[Reinhardt van Vuuren]

Shame I feel sorry for your friend that wasted money on these pieces of scrap metal, I suppose sometimes we need to pay some money to gain some common sense. Hope this poor dealing doesn't discourage him from perusing minerals, and that he learns a lesson from this ordeal. I think there are a growing number of people who are becoming more and more skeptical about these Chinese minerals that are all surfacing, there is just such a lack of honesty from that side of the world.

[vic rzonca]

[kushmeja]

Lol - we are definitely the Internet's #1 source for slag ID's! At least this one was an unusual set of slag!

[vic rzonca]

They may be the best. We'll wait and see, there are a lot of unknown unknowns out there. Also, "the first thought I had on identification was that is was", Should read, "that it was".