FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[mineral]

Hello everyone, I was bike riding and came across a fossil park in Toledo, Ohio. It is located next to a gigantic quarry for mining, and they must just dump their old dirt there for people to play with and dig through. There are lots and lots of small shells and fossils, I assume because we are so close to the great lakes and that the area was once quite wet in general.

Anyway, I picked up a big clod of the loose material and dropped it and out of the center came this little ball of... something. I don't know what. I checked it against iron pellets and copper, but I cant quite find it.

I am hoping for any insight as I am quite curious at this point! Thanks all, I hope I am in the right place.

A bit more about the small ball, it has a dull copper like shine, and it is comprised of fairly flat squares, some of the tiny squares have even smaller thin squares growing upward off of themselves, accumulating towards what I assume would eventually be a larger square of the material? I dont know for sure. The material is quite reflective, extremely hard and compressed, and cannot be scratched. Apologies but I don't know quite how to describe it, what terms you might be looking for. It has a hefty weight for its size, like a solid stone of substantial weight its size. For an idea of the size vs my hand, the ball is about the circumference of a quarter and the diameter of a standard super bouncy ball.

Thank you all!

[chris]

Hi,

Could you post a larger photo of your nodule ? It would help identifying your nodule.

Christophe

[GneissWare]

It looks like a pyrite concretion. Sedimentary pyrite is pretty common in parts of Ohio. Nice piece.

[Ed Huskinson]

Yep. I concur with Gneissware. S'probably a pyrite concretion of some sort. The flat sqares are a dead gveaway. Welcome to the hobby, and to the Forum itself. Now the hook has been set and your interest in all things mineralogical should grow.

Stay active in your endeavors, and post things as you acquire them.

All best wishes,

Ed in Kingman (well, Shafter, Texas at the moment).

[John Medici]

Looks like a pyrite nodule. If the fossil park material is from the quarry at Silica, Ohio, many of the fossils are also pyritized.