Yellowish Substance Found Inside A Rock

[mark333]

I broke open a piece of what I think is shale, maybe coal...I'm not exactly sure, but inside was a a strange looking yellowish substance. I did some research to try and find out what it is but I couldn't get any useful info on it, so I came here to see if anybody can help me out. Here's a few pictures.

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Guest N.AL.hunter]

I know that around here, we can get pollen that looks like that, specially in areas where there are pine trees, but you found this inside of a rock, so my only other guess would be some sort of sulfur compound. Some coals have high sulfur content. If the rock was in an area where water could flow over it, and there was a small crack in the rock, then pollen might have crept inside the crack. This is what you call guessing.

[Bill]

Natrojarosite?

(Sodium Iron Sulphate Hydroxide) occurs as a dustlike mineral. It is yellow in colour and very transient in nature. Rain will wash it away when it is on an exposed surface. Often forming around carbon deposits or pyrite.

[mark333]

After checking it out in google images (links below) I'm thinking that it is infact natrojarosite. Interesting stuff, never came across anything like this before. Thanks for the fast reply guys.

http://www.mindat.org/photo-36550.html

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~adg/images/minerals...atrojaro_sm.jpg

[MikeD]

If it is sulphur, you should be able to smell it.