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I need help identifying this Rock/Mineral? ?

so my brother reeled this thing in while out at sea. this is what i've observed;

1. its's shinny when you shine light at it.

2. don't have a scale, but compared to a 10 LB dumbbell... i want to say about 3~4 LB? i've picked up a chunk of metal the same size and it's wayyy heavier.

3. magnet won't attach to it.

4. to me it looks like someone just got a torch and did a bad job at cutting a piece of metal. if you've ever used or seen someone used a torch to cut metals, you'll see those tiny little balls of metal roll around. and i can see those tiny balls stuck to some areas of the "thing". 

5. i can see some spots with color change, like when you heat a metal up and it turns that weird rainbow color.

6. one of the picture is zoomed in and got me puzzled. it shows what appears to be strands/ fibers? looks kind of like fiberglass.   

Update:

.... i guess i can't upload anymore pictures :/....

Attachment image

2 Answers

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  • Anonymous
    4 months ago

    Possibly botryoidal hematite, from your description.

    Although an iron ore, it is only very feebly magnetic and a normal magnet wouldn't be attracted to it strongly enough for you to notice.

    BWMC is probably correct about the off-white "fibers"; tubeworms??.

  • 4 months ago

    It looks like a chunk of iron or steel, or maybe lead, that has had tube organisms use it as a platform to attach to.   It might be natural, and there is some sort of fibrous or acicular (needle-like) crystal structure on the surface, but from here, at this level of detail, I would favor a chunk of metal.

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