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What is this rock?

 
 
Reply Fri 26 Dec, 2014 09:00 pm
One year ago I was on the beach at Ocean City, MD. While standing, watching my kids play in the water, I saw a rock being pushed and pulled by the waves. I have no idea what it is. Could someone please shed some light on this for me. Thanks!

http://postimg.org/image/w61d9361z/
http://postimg.org/image/7t74okimz/
http://postimg.org/image/kucf5apa9/
http://postimg.org/image/p2q4lrtn9/
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Type: Question • Score: 3 • Views: 1,175 • Replies: 4
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DNA Thumbs drive
 
  1  
Reply Fri 26 Dec, 2014 09:06 pm
@Jasond501,
Looks like a formaldehyde, jade, quartz, petrified sharks tooth. Other than that, it might be a chip off of a local jetty, not that Ocean City has many jetties.
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FBM
 
  1  
Reply Fri 26 Dec, 2014 09:08 pm
@Jasond501,
Looks a bit like asbestos, but it would help if you broke it open so we could look for internal structure.
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Jasond501
 
  1  
Reply Fri 26 Dec, 2014 09:32 pm
Thank you both! I don't know if I want to crack it open. If I decide to do so I will post pictures.
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farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Sat 27 Dec, 2014 06:42 am
@Jasond501,
Its interesting But I think its a rock that has been dumped as beach ballast nd is not naturl.

Its a form of serpentine called "Pa Jade". There are a number of quarries in SE Pa and Delaware and around havre de Grace Md that mine the rock and the Md Dept of Transportation uses them as rocks for spits, groins, beach ballast and road mixes.
This on isn't "rounded" enough for me to consider it a "Glacial erratic"

There are huge deposits of glacial erratics that occur in the Chesapeake bay and back waters of the Nanticoke. These were rocks that were scoured by the glaciers and, many times, big chunks of ice were calved off the glaciers and picked up "country rocks' As they were carried south by the glacial outwash of the post glacial Susquehanna and Chesapaeake bay. The usual erratics are well rounded, huge chunks and are usually diorites, sandstones, quartzites or rhyolites from along the Susquehannas flood plain.

If you kayak out around some of the islands on the Chesapeake, you can find deposits of these erratics along with caches of the Post Paleo -Transitional encampments and more permanent villages of the Nanticoke People.
You can see the linear piles of these erratics that define the outsides of their plaisades in 20 or 40 feet of water. You can dive to these piles just don't take anything as the clam cops keeps a fairly good eye on archeological sites

FBM was right, these serpentines are 60% or more asbestos of a type called Amosite and it will exfoliate into asbestiform "shards" as it dries. The Pa jade portion is another Mg Silicate that can be polished into tumbed jewelery but its rather soft (hardness <5)

We don't use this kind of rock on Pa hiways because of its nvironmental concerns for asbestos DUST
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