I know there are crystal enthusiasts in this forum, so I wanted to see if I could call on their expertise. This stone was all over my childhood property in the early 90’s to early 2000’s. I used to collect it and others because I loved rocks. I’m moving back to that property (handed down) and want to know what it’s sitting on.
The stones are pale blue to deeper dusty blue for the most part and streaked, usually grafted on to a light cream grey base stone. Mostly opaque though you can see glassy fauceted shine in thin places. It cleaves a lot like quartz when it’s broken or chipped, and some samples have holes or strange shapes like they were chipped free or were liquid once.
All guesses are welcome.
Photo below, I wet the stone to better show color.
Have you looked into the mineral and geological history of the area that could give you an answer if it is abundant in that area i havent seen too many rough stones but it kinda looks like lapis luzi to me.
The area historically is known for large deposits of iron ore and monazite, with little threads of silver, lead, tin, etc. I live in an old boom town for 1800’s mining. They even call us The Iron City still though our size makes us more of a large village than a city. Other stones found on the property appear to be cloudy opaque varieties of white and reddish-brown quartz or look-alikes, some tiny matte black stones often grafted on to the non-see-through white quartz-looking stones (I collected one nice 50/50 one that makes me think of yin and yang and balance), and common granite-like large stones. In higher hilly areas of the county, you find tons of mica.
The shapes of some had made me speculate about volcanic glass as well. I collected one once that was nearly black and had a perfect solid dome on the end. Perfectly rounded like it was a semi-liquid run at some point and dried like that.
Mere speculation on my part, but the rock shown is too much a work of art. For nature, anyhow, if it just grew in the ground. It looks too smooth, too round, as if somewhat melted at one point?
I might get one polished or tumbled at some point to see what they look like on the inside for more clues too. Lots of stuff looks extremely different when it’s rough vs polished.
Yeah, the liquid-like shapes. One of my speculations was that they were the result of a smelting operation, but there is no historic evidence that there ever was one near here. Before this was even a town, there was a Cherokee Iron Works, could be a clue, but it was not on the property in question.
I’ve also allowed for ancient volcanos in my speculations because both smelting and volcanoes make enough heat to melt rocks.
There are four small mountains in the area, monadnock remainders of old outer ranges of the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe one of them burped long ago before even The Catawba and The Cherokee/Tsalagi started living here.
That is blue iron ore slag glass. The metallic bits and whorls are impurities. Google some images. If it is near the Iron City I would almost promise you that’s what it is. Before they had laws about it they would throw stuff like that as filler into clean fill dirt when they developed properties or filled in holes and dips. After a couple years it would seem like rocks in the soil.
Thank you guys and gals for all your responses. I am going to look at blue slag glass pictures and for fun share two more samples of the stuff found in the same area of my childhood that aren’t in the common blue color. We have a green bubbly one and an almost black domed-ended one.
I looked at some blue iron slag glass photos and I believe you are right. I also saw that they used to make molded glass artworks out of it that are all vintage antiques now.
Yeah, you can even take nice specimens like the one you showed, clean them up and sell them online for a quick buck. People sell them on Ebay. You literally have money lying around in your dirt, lol. The other ones also look like types of iron slag, especially that bottom pic.
i havent seen too many rough stones but it kinda looks like lapis luzi to me.
