Slate Slab

[LP77]

Hi.

We recently underwent some renovations on our house and after wiping off plaster dust on our fireplace slate slab, the following prints were discovered.  These are depressions and not handprints from oily skin. The slate slab, more than likely, came from Vermont.  My research suggests that slate takes around 300M years to form. Any thoughts on what creature may have created such prints? It is difficult to chalk the prints up to random coincidence, yet the time period for slate to form would suggest early tetrapods. Has anyone found similar prints? Does anyone have any thoughts on what it might be?

Appreciate the feedback.

Luis

 

 

[Misha]

Are you sure this is slate and not manmade material with a human hand print?

The form and size is certainly not consistent with early tetrapods, also slate is metamorphic and usually does not contain any fossils. I also don't believe there is any record of such fossils from VT

[Kane]

This does look like human-made material to me as well. 

[LP77]

Yes it's slate.  Our house clwas built in 1968, so I'm pretty sure it would have come from vermont.  I can't think of any way you can make a hand print depression on  slab of slate.  I agree with metamorphic material and the lack of fossils,  yet, here it is.  It looks to me like two prints supporting weight and what appear to be a left rear  print to the left corner and possibly a tail trail at the far left.  There is also a sweeping drag trace in front of the  left print. 

 

[Ludwigia]

This also doesn't look like natural slate to me, although a couple of photos are often not enough to be able to make a good judgement. Maybe some close-ups of the edges of the slab might help us here. For your information, metamorphic rocks such as slate take anywhere from hundreds of thousand to several million years to form, not as long as 300M as you have stated above, although the stones themselves can be that old or even older, but also much younger. It certainly would also help if you could determine the exact origin of this slab.

[Rockwood]

Slump feature in thin bedded metamorphic rock. I definitely wouldn't call it slate though. 

[Mahnmut]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I can only add my impression: 

As far as I can tell from the fotos its either some kind of artificial stone with human prints, there are some quite convincing fakes around.

Or its a thin bedded sedimentary rock, rather shale than slate, (slate is metamorphic and usually layered in some direction that is not the plane in which the sediment was deposited, but orthogonal to the direction of pressure during metamorphosis)

If natural rock, closer inspection of the tentative prints would indeed be interesting, I think they look to ordered to be random.

So take a close look for anything that can tell you more about how this rock came into being. Bubbles are often a sign of faux rock, consistent layering at the edges could be a point in favour of real stone. Are there other pieces of the same material in the house?

Best Regards,

J

[digit]

Why does this remind me of someone having their kids place their hand prints in a newly poured concrete slab to memorialize how small they were when the construction was done? Decades later the grown-up kids could look back and smile at their tiny impressions. Wonder if this was something like that?

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Rockwood]

Look at the edge. A closer look would help, but that doesn't look like concrete to me. I've seen and collected slabs of rock that look almost exactly like this.

[LP77]

Thank you for your feedback so far.  Attached are a couple of closeups as well as a picture of another slate slab that we have on another fireplace. Also, the entry of our house has slate slabs, so I see no reason to believe that the fireplace slabs are not slate.  I will  ask a stone mason to confirm that it is in fact slate and not a poured man made material,  although the rough edges all around would require a very elaborate mold. 

[Ludwigia]

Thanks for the good photos. I'm still not convinced. When I see those 2 "fingerprints" in the 2nd photo above, I would almost expect to see the thumb prints on the bottom side of the slab as if gripping it. Maybe there was just a top layer of mortar placed in order to level or smooth it out? Now I'm curious to hear what the stone mason has to say.

[Rockwood]

I'm not changing my opinion in the least. This is not slate or concrete. It is stone. Why anyone would expect a stone mason to know anything about geology is more of a mystery to me.

[Mahnmut]

Well, a stone mason may not know much about the geology  and petrology, but he or she may well know what kind of faux stone materials there are, or are common at the place and time.

I am not sure about slate or shale, both are translated into everyday German as "Schiefer", only scientists use more specific terms here.

What I remember from geology lessons is the distinction between a) the sedimentary layers that represent a surface that has been open to air or water at some time and could bear tracks, and b) Layering in metamorphic rocks like slate that are created during metamorphosis and wont show real tracks.

So I agree its not slate, its not concrete. Its either some kind of high-end faux stone with human prints (masons may know)

or a sedimentary rock with fossil prints, or some feature that does a really good impression of prints.

Best Regards,

J

[Mahnmut]

It may be quite far fetched, but it could be that something corrosive was brought into contact with the surface with (gloved?) hands?

Marble for example can be etched even by carbonated water.

[automech]

How about a picture of the other side?

[Rockwood]

If there was any connection to the Bay of Fundy, over in Nova Scotia, I would be inclined to investigate it as an early tetrapod track.