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Help ID on Sediment Compaction / Petrified Object


Coach P

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My father found this in the mid 70s in Eastern NM off the side of a road after a rain storm.  He thinks it washed out from the ground.  It is larger than a fist and very dense.   The white is paint my dad accidentally got on it.  Looks like a rope tied around it and cross crossed; 2 areas look knotted. FCC90ACD-7E6F-4D62-8895-F8F28738207F.thumb.jpeg.f6d5daf2794d52becd779bd448a717cd.jpegI wondered if it is a petrified drinking apparatus.  Any ideas?  

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Edited by Coach P
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It almost looks like there could be a fossil in there, but all I get for sure is a craving for a double fudge brownie. :)

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That’s definitely unusual. My initial impression is some kind of ichnofossil. Can we get a picture with a ruler or tape measure to give us some scale?

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Each dot is 50,000,000 years:

Hadean............Archean..............................Proterozoic.......................................Phanerozoic...........

                                                                                                                    Paleo......Meso....Ceno..

                                                                                                           Ꞓ.OSD.C.P.Tr.J.K..Pg.NgQ< You are here

Doesn't time just fly by?

 

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Looks like you have a large Thunderegg, a type of geode. They are known for there bumpy or wart-like surface. I found one in Oregon and had my geology teacher cut mine in half. I just looked at it and it has the same brown bumpy surface. They are also found near Rockhound State Park outside of Deming NM. If you cut it in half with a wet saw it should reveal a beautiful agate center.

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iron geode

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"_ Carl Sagen

No trees were killed in this posting......however, many innocent electrons were diverted from where they originally intended to go.

" I think, therefore I collect fossils." _ Me

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."__S. Holmes

"can't we all just get along?" Jack Nicholson from Mars Attacks

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3 hours ago, Bronzviking said:

Thunderegg, a type of geode.

I agree with the thunderegg ID for the rock @Coach P posted.

But not all thundereggs are geodes, only the hollow thundereggs are called geodes.

Many thundereggs are solid with the cavity either completely filled with minerals (usually agate) or never had a gas bubble form the void inside.

 

Here are some pictures of a cut thunderegg found at the rockhound state park in Deming, New Mexico...

exterior view. (this piece was dug from the formation and still has additional rock on the surface.)DSCF4816.thumb.JPG.0a669a6e30ccccf2caa10c63ee411a5a.JPG

 

interior viewDSCF4815.thumb.JPG.99a0e4d9aa608e2e024cc21090232f13.JPG

 

 

 

 

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Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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10 hours ago, caldigger said:

Looks like a pair of birds!

On the day after Christmas, My true love gave to Me- two birds in a round rock.:rofl:

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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16 hours ago, ynot said:

I agree with the thunderegg ID for the rock @Coach P posted.

But not all thundereggs are geodes, only the hollow thundereggs are called geodes.

Many thundereggs are solid with the cavity either completely filled with minerals (usually agate) or never had a gas bubble form the void inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thundereggs Unrelated to the weather and not affiliated with chickens, thundereggs are an interesting problem. There is some confusion about geodes and thundereggs--they are not the same thing. A thunderegg is a special kind of spherical to egg-shaped nodular mass of rhyolitic material that occurs in perlite or decomposed perlite beds and in the glassy portions of welded tuffs. Perlite is a hydrated, silica-rich volcanic glass. A welded tuff is a rock that forms when volcanic ash remains hot enough for the glass shards to almost melt together. The nodules are approximately spherical in shape and have an exterior shell of rhyolite that is more silicified than the host rock. The term thunderegg refers to this special type of nodule formation including it's interior. Thundereggs may be hollow (geodal thundereggs) or filled with agate, jasper, opal, and other minerals. Reference book: Geodes Nature's Treasures by Brad L. Cross and June Culp Zeitner

 

So now that we're all confused Lol, I guess the only way we can find out if it is a geode or thunderegg is to cut it open if this is an option? @Coach P Also a more specific location, weight and measurement would be helpful. You can do a gentle shake test too to see if there are loose crystals or minerals inside indicating it has a pocket rather than solid.

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I wonder if these are the rhyolitic equivelant of a zenolith that was plucked from the sides of the vent in the upper stages of the eruption ?

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No doubt, the specimen in question is a lithophysa. :)

 

6irx-rhyolite-lithophysae2.jpg.91ea06579cfd98ae82b27c9c27d8d1f5.jpg

comparative picture from here

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" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

Thomas Mann

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