Cannot identify

[Tunanator]

The mystery deepend....I have this also on the GPAA forum and so far no agreement....here is what is known though.
When scrapped on ceramic is leaves a silver/gray steak which comes off on the finger like graphite. But, I have an MXT and
at 8 inchs the VDI is 86 or on overload, at 12-14 inchs vdi is at 45....if this helps.
An earthmagnic shows no metal
to soft for meteroite
Not Hermatite
when scrapped with a knife it leaves a shiny area till you run your finger over it and it returns back to normal color.
under loop no cyrstals
weight is right at 100 grams...very heavy
dull silver in color
I can scrap with penny but not with fingernail.

Found out metal detecting in the desert but was sitting on the surface.
So I need one of you rock hounds to help me out....what is it?

 

[Nancy-IL]

Could it be a piece of lead? HH, Nancy

 

[Tunanator]

Nope...to hard and lead will not feel like graghite when ground up....have a real brain teaser on this one. Most certainly made and weathered by nature.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

Meteorite or space debris ?

 

[littlenugget]

MAYBE PLATINUM!!!!!

 

[widebody]

[size=large]are you anywhere near area 51? maybe it's a part what fell off a ufo.

HH

 

[Gunrunner61]

What is the actual color of the piece?

 

[fsa46]

Looks and sounds like it may be melted " silver solder".... but I wouldn't bet the ranch on it.

 

[Tunanator]

What is the actual color of the piece?

A dull silver gray....to soft for silver or anything from space or platinum. To hard for Hermatite even though it goes in that direction...just no red streaks.
Looks like we are going to send it to the university because no one seems to be able to ID it. Acts like graghite but graghite will not set a detector off.

 

[GpSnoopy]

Galena?? It's a type of lead ore, leaves a silver gray streak. High density. Your image shows a lot of flat and/or cubic cleavage planes, and that is also a characteristic of galena.

http://nevada-outback-gems.com/mineral_information/galena_mineral_info.htm

 

[Tunanator]

Galena?? It's a type of lead ore, leaves a silver gray streak. High density. Your image shows a lot of flat and/or cubic cleavage planes, and that is also a characteristic of galena.

http://nevada-outback-gems.com/mineral_information/galena_mineral_info.htm

I think you may have it....only problem is the surface is totally smooth and I could find no crystaline structure under a loop. But it was found in an area that had tailings.
Now this was found in the desert in Calif and I do not see that being found in any areas around here. Not yet totally convinced

 

[GpSnoopy]

Just because a material is considered crystalline, that does not necessarily mean that the crystals are necessarily tiny. The individual layers or plates you see may be the smallest crystals, and each of those are solid. Think of quartz. Quartz crystals can be as small as a grain of sand, to many inches in diameter.

Galena, for example is a cubic crystal, and it's cleavage is parallel to the cubic faces.

 

[Barney II]

Graphite will set off your detector---have seen others find graphite in Alaska with their detector

 

[Gila Marc]

Hmmmmm...depending on how heavy "real heavy" is, and the fact that it was found with tailings, could mean that it's the remains of a bad smelt. I mined and smelted gold and silver most of my life and the description sounds so much like the metal sometimes found in the bottom of a crucible when broken out for replacement. If there was broken debris below the crucible conbined with an overflow or a thin crucible developed a hole, the metal would have collected in the bottom. The lines that appear crystalline might merely be mold artifacts from broken debris as the molten metal solidified around the junk in the bottom of the furnace. I've seen this happen occasionally.

I saw one piece of similar metal found out in the hills at a smelter site that looked just like old burned slag but contained over fifty ounces of pure gold. If metal dor

 

[jimmy]

I found many peices of graphite in alaska in the manley hot springs area near rampart (along with some nice nuggets) with my Mxt, every piece of graphite would read a 0 vdi number, so I suspect your item with those high vdi's still make me think silver or a mixture thereof. Jimmy