ID Help an unusual something...

A friend of mine does excavating, and he found this large substance, about the size of a football, he broke a piece off and gave to me to identify it.

At first I thought Fiberglass wad, but the digging was no where near anything man made or industrial.

Looks like strands of petrified wood.
Crumbles real easy if you break it part.
Looks like splinters of wood, but very sand like, and sharp enough and hard enough to scratch things.
Like pennies and quarters...not glass though.

I will try for some better pics under some better lighting soon.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2008 04:14AM by Dennis Cartolano.

A smaller image...

Looks like it could be barite; is it fairly heavy for its size?

If you can scratch it with your fingernail, it is gypsum.

Tremolite?

I would go with tremolite, also. Can you get a cross-sectional shape on one of the crystals? Do the interior angles appear to be about 54 deg and 126 deg? That would make it most probably and amphibole.

After looking at some Tremolite pics, some do sure look very similar...

I will take some macro pics of some smaller fragments of it, maybe someone can see the structure of it better than I can.

This was dug in CT.

I will get the exact location, maybe there is something in that area that will help to confirm.

I used my 16X magnifier and went Afocal to zoom in on some detail.

Maybe someone can recognize the structure of the crystals or whatever it is to get an idea..

One more clear one of the whole thing...

Also, I was reading about Tremolite and it's link to asbestos...

How nervous should I be right now handling this thing??

It is similar to tremolite and anthophyllite both.

It appears that it could be tremolite, but additionally, laumontite is known to easily dehydrate and crumble. However, the fact that you mentioned that it breaks into splinters instead of crumbling into a powder makes me think it is a member of the asbestos-group. What kind of minerals was it associated with? If I know the environment in which this mineral occurred, I can draw more conclusions.

Regarding safety, if it is an asbestos group mineral, it is still safe to have. Don't be too nervous. However, be sure not to handle it too much, the dust produced by it isn't necessarily great for you. It's best just to put it in a box and only look at it occasionally.

Where in CT was the specimen found? I am interested in perhaps visiting the site if it is ok with both you and the construction company. I understand if they can't have me visit due to liability issues. Private message me with details if you have time.

Good luck,
Jeremy Zolan

I wonder if it might be a mass of intergrown scolecite?
Rock

To me it looks very like an amphibole. Some of the crystal ends can be seen in the latest photos. It does not look like Connecticut anthophylite (Nepaug area). If it is tremolite, I think it would have to be from the northwestern corner of the state.

I haven't got the exact location yet..

Was a dig about 6 feet deep..


As far as this splintering apart, it also crumbles into powder as well.
BUt there are many splinters of it too.

It takes a far amount of energy to break it apart.

The piece I have weighs 1.4 ounces, and is about 2.5" X .5"

Another interesting thing I noticed is, that one side looks like it is pressed more flat, as if this was the side it was sitting on...
The top side looks loose, and not compacted.


This pic attached is crappy, but I was trying to get a good pic of one of the splinters.
Looks like it has a flat top, and 2 facets that slope downward to a point.

I'll know more about the location in a day or two..

I agree with Uwe and others, tremolite. I have dug lots of material of a similar morphology in the North-east over the years. It very much looks like material form the dolostone quarry in Canaan, CT. Tremolite with a weak Fe content occurs near Pierrpont in New York associated with calcite and tourmaline that commonly looks similar as well, altyhough pale green incolor. Siliceous layers were metamorphosed to tremolite+dolomite at the Canaan, CT. locality.

If it is an amphibole, tremolite is the best bet due to its white color.

The cross-section would be a diamond (perhaps with truncated points (pinacooids)) at angle os ~124 degrees and 56 degrees.

Cheers.
Ian



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2008 09:07PM by Ian Merkel.

Connecticut + photos + SPLINTERS = tremolite

Very common around the Canaan (northwest CT) area, but can be found anywhere you find the Stockbridge Marble. You occasionally see older marble dimension stones with pieces of tremolite in them in old foundations or gravestones in the area. The "marble" weathers quickly and leaves the tremolite in high relief.

Ok, I finally got the answer to where this was located...

It was new Milford CT. Near the reservoir 3 on Reservoir road.
There are old trails, but also some developments in the area, this was found on one of the home sites, but probably could be found in other areas up there as well.

Looks still accessible on the western side, as well as possibly having a marked trail around the perimeter of the reservoir.

I may go and poke around some to see myself..

I used to work in an asbestos testing lab using PLM. Rarely we saw actinolite and tremolite in products. If I recall (10 years ago), the fibers/splinters must be very small and the length of the splinter must be many times longer than the width in order to do any harm to the lungs. Either way, caution handling it is always wise, and wash hands of any powder.

Thanks for that info..

I guess it would be hard to inhale these splinters, they are big.

I thought the fine particulate was what you has to worry about.

The marble outcrops in the New Milford/Brookfield area, so tremolite makes sense.

I collected powder XRD data for this specimen, and will post plots of the results in this and the next three messages (too bad I can't put more than one image in a message). I'm presenting this for some expert comment and suggestions.

Physical characteristics appear similar to tremolite, and a search/match of the data selected tremolite as a possible hit. I'll post the tremolite data here, and an expanded view of the low d-spacing data (where it's crowded) in the next message. To my eye, it's close in some respects, but not great when looking at the peak heights. The reference shown is card no. 44-1402.

In the third and fourth messages, I'll post the data compared to edenite. The positions and peak heights seem more compatible than tremolite, and are visually a better fit. The reference shown is card no. 23-1405. Search match did not select edenite as a possible fit for some reason (it doesn't care about peak heights, only position).

XRD data continued. This is an expanded view of the low d-spacing data (where it's crowded) in the next message. The reference shown is card no. 44-1402.

XRD data continued. Now for edenite. The reference shown is card no. 23-1405. The next message will expand the low d-spacing data.

XRD data concludes. An expanded view of the low d-spacing data. The reference shown is card no. 23-1405.

Comments? Suggestions?

The pattern is rather poor. If there is an additional sample displacement error you will get shifted peaks, and the "better fit" might be misleading.
In general, distinguishing between closely related amphiboles is not possible by XRD methods.

Thanks, Uwe. I had a feeling that was the situation.

Thank you Fred for doing the analysis, if you hadn't thrown the name Edenite out there for me, I would have stuck with Tremolite as the answer.

And thanks to those who made suggestions to help me in my search to identify.

When I first got this sample from a friend, I had no idea how to even go about identifying it.

Some here suggested Tremolite, and after looking at some pics online, it looked very similar, and I was convinced it was..there was only 1 pic that looked close to it.

[www.geology.neab.net]

Being an amateur, I didn't know exactly how to describe or identify the crystals, but it had the same clumpy look like a wad of wooded splinters.

Then Fred does a test and shoots the name Edenite...another word I never heard before.


Holy smokes, on Mindat here [www.mindat.org]
This sample is the perfect match. The splinters are more loose on my sample, which looks like the Edenite.

The Tremolite looks like a tighter wad of splinters.

Even the spray pattern of the crystals look more like the Edenite...



One thing I noticed is that Tremolite and Edenite as well as many other minerals can have dozens of different looks.
Of the 50 Tremolite pics, not one looked the same, I mean some looked like totally different things....
But it was nice to see the Edenite here on Mindat, and especially nice to have the name offered to me, because there would have been no way for me to even compare this to, if I couldn't google a search for it...

Thanks again Fred and everyone else for the help...

I am visiting this locale this weekend...
Not the exact site of this sample, but withing 100 yards or so.