intersecting Neumann bands Meteorite like objects specimens from Texas and Maryland

This first piece showing a pattern of lines like X's on polished surface (without etching), like Neumann lines that are the result of an interleaving crystal pattern, telltale of proper cooling or of shock environment. These lines don't grind out. I do believe the heat and rust-dust from the grinding is what brings out this crystal pattern. The only match in certain characteristics on the entire meteorite database was the Fredericksburg/Richland (Texas) meteorite 50 miles away (a hexahedrite).
This one is heavy for its size at 3 lbs. It feels like it would have a specific gravity compared to iron. Not so magnetic as iron, about 10-12% pull on N40 magnet. The exterior has small divots, quarter-teaspoon-sized or less, and one pocket that is larger than an inch. These impressions are what contains the best remnants of crust. The stone likely moved around in a few floods after (recently?) weathering from a fossil bed. It has signs of storage in or impact with Cretaceous caliche limestone. Some very orange-stained limestone is cemented into the big pocket. Maybe this piece was once a more tensile iron meteorite that is now fossilized. There is one very slight but noticeable crack running across the sawn face. It hefts and "feels" awesome. This one should stay basically the way it is, or only ever be sawn the long way to demonstrate this crystal pattern inside. It is a real oddity.

The second one I am looking at for a friend who said it was found years ago in Southern Maryland, in a field, maybe miles from the shore. It has 80% magnetic pull on the protruding spheres (you could nearly hold the stone up with magnet.) The spheres seem differentiated within the matrix, and growing larger as they move to one side. Sawing brought out (however feintly) a chondritic field in a blank matrix. On the outside it seemed maybe like slag at first glance, but then I saw the charcoal briquet shape, and no vesicles, just a few places where the little iron balls popped out. A cool chunk.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• possible
• fossil
• meteorite
• ataxite
• hexahedrite
• nickel
• iron
• polished
• crystal
• pattern
• lattice
• natural
• widmanstatten
• bexar
• II
• texas
• tx
• chondrite
• chesapeake
• bay
• maryland
• md
• magnetic
• field
• test
• solid
• nonmalleable
• heft
• specific
• gravity
• fusion
• crust
• neumann
• bands
• newman
• lines
• relict

[barraccuddaa]

If it is a meteorite, it's definitely a stony-iron. Known to me not so magnet, and the exception to the vessel rule, yours looks very promising.