[meteorite-list] Strange Rock Reports

From: MEM <mstreman53_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 17:43:01 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <641730.10981.qm_at_web55207.mail.re4.yahoo.com>

Hello Mike, List, Meteorwrong Collectors,

How many kilos do you want? This is a great meteorwrong specific to Pennsylvania highways and railroads. It makes great target material for testing your meteorite hunting skills with a metal detector. It is not technically a "slag" as it is an intended bulk ore additive made in that form for ease of shipping and charging blast furnaces.

I believe it is what is known as "Giest Eisen" or "Eisen Giest"--Spirit iron*-- a cobalt/molybdenum -enriched, iron-ore stock made in the 80 or 90s for the German steel industry by The New Jersey Zinc Company(?) in Palmerton, PA( EPA Super Fund Top 10 and one of my favorite collecting places for radioactive morsels). The process didn't have as much cobalt as specified(?) or other defect and whist waiting for resolution, NJZC went out of the smelting business in Palmerton.

Bethlehem Steel may also have experimented with the mountains of these which were left in limbo. A lot of it found its way into road bed filler. It is magnetic, makes a metal detector sing soprano, and as I said is a realistic acting meteorwrong.

Palmerton's "claim" to fame was a perpetual toxic-fog inversion overlying the town sited between two high ridges in a narrow valley. This killed the vegetation and left Palmertion looking like a transplanted town from somewhere in Colorado or Utah. It also killed the local residents in particularly persistent fogs.

Elton

* The origin of the name cobalt was attributed to its mysterious nature which made smelting iron difficult or so I thought, but the Wikipedia article gives a different slant.
>From the Wikipedia article on cobalt's name origin:
"The word cobalt is derived from the German "kobalt", from "kobold" meaning "goblin", a term used for the ore of cobalt by miners. The first attempts at smelting the cobalt ores to produce cobalt metal failed, yielding cobalt(II) oxide instead. Also, because the primary ores of cobalt always contain arsenic, smelting the ore oxidized into the highly toxic and volatile oxide As4O6, which was inhaled by workers".
Received on Fri 02 Oct 2009 08:43:01 PM PDT