Ferro-silicon alloy Meteor-wrongs

Meteor-wrongs

Rocks that look like meteorites, but are NOT!

by Robert Verish

Gallery of Meteor-wrongs:
the following images were taken by people who were trying to get their specimens identified.
You can "Click" on the images to get more views of the specimen.
They are all meteor-wrongs.

Man-made Material - - "Slag"

Ferro-chrome-manganese

Meteor-wrong - - probably a ferro-manganese alloy - - (man-made)
By clicking on the above image you can seem more views of this meteor-wrong.

Meteor-wrong - - probably a variety Ferro-chrome alloy "slag" - - (man-made)

This latest influx of meteor-wrongs made it even more apparent to me that there were many similarities among them. I noticed that most meteor-wrongs can fit into 3 broad categories:

Artifact iron - - (I've broadened this term to include any malleable iron or alloy that isn't an iron meteorite.)
Iron oxide - - (This is a broad grouping that includes hematite and magnetite, as well as any basalt or jasper that attracts a magnet. Personally, I prefer to exclude any "iron shale" that can be proven that it originated from an iron meteorite.)
Slag - - (I've broadened this term to include any material that is man-made, or the residue from a manufacturing process, such as any ore that only partially melted.)

Since two out of the three above categories are outside the domain of geological sciences, I now refer people to metallurgists. Not only can they analyse metal, but they have a familiarity with ores and slag.

References:

Ferromanganese - one of Ken Newton's "meteorite-identification.com" very informative webpages.

MeteorWrongs - an extensive "photo gallery" of rocks that people thought were meteorites, part of Randy Korotev's very instructional website.

Ferrochromemanganese - this Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory webpage is on the Portland State University website.

My previous articles can be found *HERE*

For more information, please contact me by email: Bolide*chaser