Is It, Or Isn't It?

[Zincoln]

Those of you that go after meteorites will likely have a much better idea than i.  While out metal detecting old west Nevada in the mountain southwest of Caliente, I hit on this target.

It's shape is irregular, and it dose appear to have heat smoothing on the surface, particularly on leading edges.  It is magnetic (when tested on my rare earth magnet), but not as strong as say a steel bar.  Still clings right to the magnet.  When I took a file to the surface, i get a nice silver hue (iron nickel?).  Hits in the foil/nickel range on my detectors.  43g and the penny is for comparison - quite heavy for its size.  Has no appearance of slag or worked metal to me.  I find plenty of that along the old railroad sidings.  Picture 5 may be the clearest.

I do see that there are some meteor strikes North of LV, and not too far from where i was.  

Any other sure fire tests?   

[Gold Seeker]

Need a photo of where you "filed" it?

[Zincoln]

Skip - see if this does you any good.  It is hard.  I hit it w/ the bench grinder, then a Dremel w/ a fine grinding bit, and finally tried to polish it a bit....

 

Appreciate any insight

[Gold Seeker]

Still hard to say from a photo, but if it's a meteorite it would have to be a iron meteorite just looking at the "window" you filed which shows a solid metal, but it should be more highly attracted to your magnet than what you have described,

[Zincoln]

I understand GS.  Hard to get a really high res photo w/ my equipment.  Wish I had lapidary equip to be able to see the fine grain of the specimen.  You can easily pick the item up w/ my magnet - it's not going to fall off with an effort to shake it off, but it doesn't slam onto it like a flat bar of steel.  Suppose that could be the irregular shape and lack of a nice flat surface to flat surface interface.  Or maybe, the reason why it rings up as non-ferrous.  This is the first and only time i 'think' i might have a space rock:-)

The two things that have me scratching my head:

1. It simply is appears to irregular to be man made.  Even if it was the result of an explosion, it still has surfaces that don't add up.  Not a single surface is milled, cast or otherwise smooth.  

2. It doesn't ring up as ferrous on my detectors (White's and Deus).  Rings up just into the non-ferrous range (nickel....gold).  For those that detect these things, do you find that they ring up in the positive range vs. a pure iron signal if you have a composite meteorite (nickel-iron)?

Next time I get to my precious metals contact I'll have him run it through his spectral analysis machine.

Best to all and HH,

Zincoln

[Gold Seeker]

That was going to be my suggestion...XRF spectrometer

[Zincoln]

I also came across the refences provided by Steve and others which is a wealth of information...and illustrates the actual rarity of finding meteorites.  

I'll have it run through a spectrometer at some point in the future and see if the elemental comp is aligned w/ those provided in the links.

I did try a refrigerator magnet and it is attracted (I wouldn't call it strong, but it sticks to my specimen).

Not getting my hopes up....but its an odd duck.

Thx again,
Zincoln

[EL NINO77]

it can really be a meteorite iron meteorite with a high nickel content ..

I'm not an expert in this .. but the percentage of nickel .. quickly determine if this is a piece of extraterrestrial origin ..