Help ID Mineral

[thorrock]

54.04g

Rock hard solid

Appears 'chrome' with blue-ish shade/hue

Not magnetic

[Jim in Idaho]

Ilmenite, maybe? Titanium iron oxide. Not sure if ilmenite is magnetic.

Jim

[thorrock]

Ilmenite is weakly magnetic.

I am a chemist and I've conducted tests available to me at home to eliminate factors; properties like 🧲 . It's very dense, conducts heat and electricity poorly. 

It's shiny and solid through-and-through. I drilled one hole about 1/2 inch, kind of hoping it might just split.

It was given to me with some absurd story it being from the Moon.

The shiny chunk keeps resurfacing so I better have it tested properly.

 

 

 

[jasong]

Do a specific gravity test. Did it smell like sulfur when you drilled it? Hardness? Streak color?

I'd guess galena offhand but it seems to lack the typical cleavage planes, but you know how to do the basic tests to ID it, need those results otherwise it could be a lot of things based off the info/pics here. 

[Geologyhound]

Have you tried a streak test, or is it harder than a porcelain tile?  What color were the cuttings when you drilled it?  Can you grind and polish a small window?  The fact it conducts heat/electricity poorly makes me think it is likely more mineral in composition, and less likely elemental metal.

Galena and massive stibnite would both be relatively soft and would leave a streak.  Hematite would be harder, but will still leave a streak.

[thorrock]

The rock would shatter a porcelain tile and remain whole. Persons that stumble upon the rock often ask 'is that titanium?' 

There was no sulfuric odor or any particular one that I noticed.

Color, composition appear consistent throughout. With a proper machine it took the edge off a 5.5-6 mach reinforced steel drill bit and did not bother the rock. The grounds could not produce a smear. 

Fine grounds from the rock ought to be used to polish a window.

I thought the same, that it's some mineral composition and not a elemental metal. 

I'll do a specific g test.

 

I appreciate all the input. My apologies for providing such limited info in the beginning. My thought was simply to throw the pics on the forum and catch some ideas but there are great insights here that I am grateful for.

 

 

[jasong]

If there is no sulfur smell, no streak, and it can scratch glass then I'd say it's probably synthetic and likely to be silicon, google "silicon metal". It's not a real metal, it's a metalloid.

The fact that you said it conducts electricity "poorly" and was dense made me think galena since galena is a semiconductor. But pure silicon is actually a semiconductor too. And will conduct heat poorly as well. It's not particularly dense, but usually people say a rock/mineral is heavy when it's really about average density. 

 

[Geologyhound]

Of course, if you are really lucky, maybe it is sperrylite.  That would be harder than galena, and with a hardness of 6 to 7 could blunt your drill bit.   However, that would have a fairly high specific gravity.  I think jasong is on to something with the silicon call, though.  But, if your specific gravity comes back over 10…

[thorrock]

With a rough test done twice I could see I'm hitting ~10.5. (Dry / submerged).

I like how it's neatly axe-head shaped.

[jasong]

I suspect an error in one of your tests. Describe your specific gravity testing methodology. Do you mean 10.5g/cc? There is no single mineral that meets the criteria of all your tests that I'm aware of if so. 

Despite being extremely rare, and even rarer yet in that size, it can't be sperrylite because it's streak is black/gray and that's a test that can't really be messed up, yours had no streak. It's also usually disseminated, or displays crystaline structure when not. Someone would almost certainly know what they had and where it came from (or was purchased for big $) if it was something like that too.

54g does seem heavy for the size it appears in the photo though. But I still suspect something, somewhere is wrong. I still think it's silicon. It lacks cleavage and crystalline structure, it's macro amorphous. It appears to lack oxidization. There isn't much else out there that meets the observable properties, at least not stuff that I wouldn't have to look up and figure out, which would be pretty rare and unlikely the original owner didn't know what it was, where it came from, or purchase it to begin with.

I've watched people try the Archimedes method with specific gravity tests and come up with 5x error due to bad measurements, math, or improper method. I would start with verifying that and then redo/verify other tests from there if 10.5g/cc is correct.