613
Rock Identification
(imgs.xkcd.com)
'Is it worth anything?' 'I dunno, is the answer to that question worth another $5?'
Speaking of this, my wife has a dark gray rock about the size of a silver dollar she found many years ago in our front yard, within a mile of the shore of Puget Sound. It's broken, with a reflective crystalline-looking structure inside, and a magnet attracts it. Anybody know how likely it is to be meteoric iron?
Sure as soon as the paypal payment goes through I'll let you know.
Edit: I was wrong, see below! Shouldn't have assumed simulating active galactic nuclei would make me knowledgeable about asteroids.
Astrophysicist, not a geologist here. Maybe if you sent a pic I might recognize it. But it's kind of unlikely, since afaik crystals from under great pressures, which meteorites don't tend to undergo like that.
Not only under pressure but under very slow cooling as what happens in the centers of asteroids
The rhomboid crystal structure of meteor iron was set long before that particular rock entered our atmosphere and is visible in many, MANY museum pieces.