Detecting volcanic ash or meteor.

[Paul Wilson]

A friend and I were sitting on this mound of dirt in a deserted work site, and I lifted up a black piece of rock. I know it is not coal, as it does not look like coal, it highly resembles volcanic ash as it is super light, but there's no volcanos here in Northern Ireland, then I thought it looked like a meteor, as it has shiny bits in it (Crystalites I think they're called) which don't really show in black rock, unless it's meteor.

Is there any experiment I can do to find out whether it is any of my suspicions?

 

[stoned]

interesting question. meterorites are sometimes worth lots of money.

 

[Paul Wilson]

interesting question. meterorites are sometimes worth lots of money.

Neato. There was a good bit of it too, but I only collected 3 small samples to test.

 

[Gokul43201]

Might it not just be pumice ? Black pumice is abundant in Iceland, and it floats on water...are you near the sea ?

 

[Paul Wilson]

Might it not just be pumice ? Black pumice is abundant in Iceland, and it floats on water...are you near the sea ?

Already tested it. It sinks alright.

I currently have a very small piece in a shot glass filled with warm water, vinegar and sugar. Over the past hour or so it's definitley began to erode away. When I first added it to just water, bubbles came from the sample. That's probably just air in the holes in the sample.

 

[stoned]

you better stop fooling around with it, what if you release some deadly space virus or something ??

 

[Paul Wilson]

you better stop fooling around with it, what if you release some deadly space virus or something ??

Your idea is feasable, but what are the odds?

 

[infinitetime]

Very interesting...how would you test that-

and how often are samples like that found?

 

[Paul Wilson]

Well infinitetime, if you think how long science has been around, and how much of whatever that science has, we only have some 40,000 meteor samples. That's really quite little concidering the amount of meteorites floating around up there.