An uncommon slabbed and polished specimen of lustrous, metallic, elemental native iron in basalt from Germany. According to Mindat the locality is an "Abandoned basalt quarry on a contact to tertiary lignites….and iron is rare in igneous rocks." In fact, native iron is more commonly and easily found in meteorites than on the earth’s surface. The consignor passes on the following concerning the native iron from Buhl: I found something unusual concerning the native iron from Buhl reported in A Method for Isolating Native Iron from Basalt without Destroying its Form. Max Seebach (Centv. Min., 1 910,641-643) which says native iron occurs in the basalt of Buhl, near Weimar, in the form of a fine network. The basalt may be removed without destroying the form of the iron by heating with Plattner¹s flux in a graphite crucible. A piece of basalt 1 C.C. in size is destroyed in one and a-half hours. The last traces of rock enclosed in the meshes of the iron are removed by fusion with boron trioxide. This is very rich iron and very rare, important scientific material for the collector.
Attribution: Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0
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