Bone or .. ?

[sharkdoctor]

Looks like a piece of whale bone that has been redeposited as part of a lag bed. We find those a lot in Virginia. The garnet is consistent with a lag deposit as well. In the somewhat younger deposits north of where yours was found, it is not uncommon to find sand grain size garnets in lag beds that also produce black, worn chunks of bone like the one pictured above. 

BTW, your micro photos were amazingly clear! What's your secret?

[daves64]

And I'm pretty sure they weren't formed in the piece, they're too loose & come out way too easily. Most likely ended up in the holes by way of water action. There weren't any inside the piece I cut off or in the new surface I created when I cut it.

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

17 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

I’m pretty sure the green sand is glauconite. There’s a lot of glauconite and garnet sand in the creek.

Ah that makes more sense. I didn’t realize how much Precambrian metamorphics there are out there in NC.

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

2 minutes ago, daves64 said:

And I'm pretty sure they weren't formed in the piece, they're too loose & come out way too easily. Most likely ended up in the holes by way of water action. There weren't any inside the piece I cut off or in the new surface I created when I cut it.

There’s a whole lot of igneous and metamorphic rocks towards the west so that makes sense.

[Wolf89]

Yeah gmr is absolutely full of garnet. I could fill a 5 gallon bucket with the stuff ,but you'd have to pick them of the sand which is no fun, but I've heard a gold pan works well

[daves64]

25 minutes ago, sharkdoctor said:

BTW, your micro photos were amazingly clear! What's your secret?

Ancient Chinese Secret... 

 

 

Actually, Dino-Lite Edge with the auto exposure set at 50% & the item basically mounted in a small hobby vise. And trying my best not to sneeze (seasonal allergies, every season, all year long).

[Al Tahan]

On 2/23/2019 at 11:17 AM, ynot said:

Red pieces are probably garnets.

Clear yellowish are maybe calcite (could be quartz).

No idea on the green.

The green is olivine or diopside........if it’s volcanic that is lol

[FranzBernhard]

This is a remarkable topic: Several months ago a question about a similar object was asked and the opinion was either whale bone or volcanic rock / slag. I voted for slag and was wrong - it was a whale bone. The item of this thread is not a volcanic rock, the tubes are too nicely arranged and their size is too equal.

Franz Bernhard

[sharkdoctor]

+1 for glauconitic sands (green)

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

1 hour ago, Wolf89 said:

Yeah gmr is absolutely full of garnet. I could fill a 5 gallon bucket with the stuff k ber, but you'd have to pick them of the sand which is no fun, but I've heard a gold pan works well

Really? Garnet is not very common out here. That’s crazy!

39 minutes ago, FranzBernhard said:

This is a remarkable topic: Several months ago a question about a similar object was asked and the opinion was either whale bone or volcanic rock / slag. I voted for slag and was wrong - it was a whale bone. The item of this thread is not a volcanic rock, the tubes are too nicely arranged and their size is too equal.

Franz Bernhard

I’d say bone now given that I now know the crystals are not part of the host rock (the bone). But if the crystals were growing inside it than we’d have to take that into consideration as that would mean the rock was grown (or altered) with these crystals and the possibility of a volcanic origin becomes viable. Especially since if the crystals were grown inside it, then it could not be bone, as bone there would be too young to have been buried to a depth where it would be altered and subsequently exhumed in North Carolina (a non tectonically active area). There are vesicular lava fields in North Carolina so it’s not out of the question. See pic

This was my line of thinking. Of course, having all the information makes it easy to deduce now.Let’s compare this topic to that one and see the similarities and differences.

 

[ynot]

55 minutes ago, UtahFossilHunter said:

Really? Garnet is not very common out here. That’s crazy!

That depends on where You go.

There are places out west (even in Utah) that have a lot of garnet.

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

1 hour ago, ynot said:

That depends on where You go.

There are places out west (even in Utah) that have a lot of garnet.

I’ll admit I haven’t collected garnet in Utah yet. I’ve collected it in Nevada but not Utah. I know where to find some, I just haven’t gotten around to it. 

[Al Dente]

32 minutes ago, UtahFossilHunter said:

I’ll admit I haven’t collected garnet in Utah yet. I’ve collected it in Nevada but not Utah. I know where to find some, I just haven’t gotten around to it. 

In North Carolina the beaches are rich in garnet. Here’s a photo I took, the purple is high concentration of garnet and black is magnetite. The waves concentrate the heavy minerals.

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

1 hour ago, Al Dente said:

In North Carolina the beaches are rich in garnet. Here’s a photo I took, the purple is high concentration of garnet and black is magnetite. The waves concentrate the heavy minerals.

That’s impressive! Thanks for sharing