James Catmur
Site Admin
Joined: 14 Sep 2006
Posts: 1347
Location: Cambridge
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 Posted: Jan 17, 2024 06:10 Post subject: Re: Need to identify black stone |
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Peter
Sadly on both the English and Spanish forums new users do not seem to read the general guide (even though it is in red in the header of all posts) or the specific advice on helping us identify what mineral is involved (link below). On both sides of FMF, we often have to ask them to do a hardness and streak test, plus work out the density, and even then they expect us to identify the rock/mineral from a poor photo.
Having said that, MinDat seems to suffer from the same issue and we now often see people asking the same question on both FMF and MinDat with no tests, just bad photos (or, recently links to bad photos). At times it feels like they try every forum to get the answer they want. I am not sure what we can do to help people read all the advice we have given about helping us answer their queries:
https://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=19487#19487
As said by the person asking us this, we can only say that it is a black rock that might be low density
| Peter Lemkin wrote: | | I know members are trying to be polite and 'helpful' to the limited extent possible when people post bad pictures and NO OTHER essential information. I think answering them, even marginally does not help anyone. I think they should be sent the url to the information that should be given [size, location, streak, specific gravity, etc., etc.] before the thread goes on. Sadly, people not only do not know how to identify many of the rocks they find, but they do not understand what information is needed to have any reasonable chance at anyone here giving a reasonable answer - but that is all nicely on the website - But noticed by NO novices. Is there not a way it could be made more noticeable [although this would only have a limited effect]? |
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Kevin Schofield
Joined: 05 Jan 2018
Posts: 162
Location: Beacon NY
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| Posted: Jan 17, 2024 09:12 Post subject: Re: Need to identify black stone |
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| James Catmur wrote: | | Could it be charcoal or even coal? |
I agree with you James...the very straight sides and right-angled edges on the larger piece look like cleat breakage, which would be typical of coal. Take that with the black streak, shiny nature and light weight I would say this is the balance of probability. Coal for power generation is imported near Chennai, so likely this is just a lump that escaped from a shipment and washed up on the beach.
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Veni, Vidi, Emi |
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