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I need help identifying this one...

 
 
Reply Thu 6 Jun, 2013 09:32 am
Hi guys and gals... I need some help identifying these tiny cubic rods within this rock I found - They are silvery/metallic looking. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks folks. Smile https://plus.google.com/photos/101550761717770137063/albums/5886390653860106897
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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 667 • Replies: 6
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farmerman
 
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Reply Thu 6 Jun, 2013 02:29 pm
@tattoomagoo,
Are you in Virginia? Looks like Actinolite or kyanite because the blue ones are unique.
It isn't tourmaline because you say they are "cubic"
tattoomagoo
 
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Reply Thu 6 Jun, 2013 08:27 pm
@farmerman,
Northern Canada over here - Was thinking maybe Arsenopyrite, but haven't found anything that really matched up online. The blues/iridescent colors you see is possibly just from the light shining on the objects. To the naked eye, these look like rods of silvery metal.
rosborne979
 
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Reply Fri 7 Jun, 2013 04:13 am
@tattoomagoo,
It looks like some type of pyrite embedded in a quartz matrix. Perhaps they were formed by inclusion rather than crystallization which might have resulted in the tetragonal shape? That's just a guess.
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farmerman
 
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Reply Fri 7 Jun, 2013 04:33 am
@tattoomagoo,
prhaps if you took a closer shot at the metallic rods. and put a coin in the picture for some scale.
Its a quartzite mass so the metallic stuff could be n iron mineral that has that habit of long rodas. No pyritic rocks (arseno, cupro, ) take that extreme rod form.
Is it magnetic?
if you take a crystal chunk and hold it in a flame does it have any particular odor?

Theres quite a few of the Nickel iron sulfides (Loellinghite, millwerite) that form long shards like those.
A real find would be if its stibnite (which often forms in qurtz veins as you have there).
Stibnite is the primary ore of antimony so don't go licking it.
tattoomagoo
 
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Reply Fri 7 Jun, 2013 07:58 am
@farmerman,
The average length of these rods are around 2 mm in length. I zoomed into this specimen with my DinoLite - Non-Metallic
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tattoomagoo
 
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Reply Fri 7 Jun, 2013 08:12 am
@farmerman,
Sylvanite?
0 Replies
 
 

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