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Hematite
Newbee



Registered: 05/04/07
Posts: 156
Loc: Wisconsin
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: zouden]
#8896941 - 09/08/08 03:47 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
zouden said: Hmmm, okay I'm going back to my original guess of some kind of micro fossil. Like a fossilised algae cell.
Yes, it is a fossil, or rather part of a fossil. But it is not and alga cell, nor a cell of any sort, nor is it a plant of any sort.
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hoodbran
Dosser



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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Hematite]
#8897289 - 09/08/08 04:51 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Fossil hydrocarbon? I have a sample from the Loveland field, CO, USA - from the cretaceous period
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



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Re: Mystery pic [Re: hoodbran]
#8897334 - 09/08/08 04:59 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Renal calculi from drinking water contaminated with depleted uranium? (I'm reaching here...)
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Minstrel
Man of Science



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 1,974
Loc: Hogtown
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Seuss]
#8897810 - 09/08/08 06:28 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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The B&W pic's resolution shows that the ellipses are granular. It kinda resembles a tiny metallic crystal.
Are these metal micro-spheres? Or is it a section of some micro-cylindrical object, maybe a tiny bundle of rods? It's hard to infer the 3-D overall shape.
Edited by Minstrel (09/08/08 06:36 PM)
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Hematite
Newbee



Registered: 05/04/07
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: hoodbran]
#8898213 - 09/08/08 07:37 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
hoodbran said: Fossil hydrocarbon? I have a sample from the Loveland field, CO, USA - from the cretaceous period
It is Cretaceous. No hydrocarbons, though.
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Hematite
Newbee



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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Seuss]
#8898236 - 09/08/08 07:40 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: Renal calculi from drinking water contaminated with depleted uranium? (I'm reaching here...)
Nope. But it is a small part of a larger animal, a vertebrate.
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Hematite
Newbee



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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Minstrel]
#8898267 - 09/08/08 07:43 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Minstrel said: The B&W pic's resolution shows that the ellipses are granular. It kinda resembles a tiny metallic crystal.
Are these metal micro-spheres? Or is it a section of some micro-cylindrical object, maybe a tiny bundle of rods? It's hard to infer the 3-D overall shape.
You are seeing x-sections through spheres. The spheres are composed of small crystals. The crystals are rich in metal (iron) and also sulphur.
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Minstrel
Man of Science



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Posts: 1,974
Loc: Hogtown
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Hematite]
#8898568 - 09/08/08 08:37 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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I think I got it:
It's meteoric.
EDIT: so baked The grain pattern reminded me of the exotic crystals found in meteors. Though it's still plausable, I figure...
Edited by Minstrel (09/08/08 08:44 PM)
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Minstrel
Man of Science



Registered: 03/15/05
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Minstrel]
#8898605 - 09/08/08 08:43 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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In retrospect, it might be terrestrial. Maybe volcanic. Some sort of energetic eruption forced this metal in the liquid phase into the air, where surface tension pulled it into a sphere, and it cooled fast, hence the very small grain size. The U makes me think it might be terrestrial, since it's pretty abundant. Anyways, these spheres became trapped in a matrix (rock, sediment, such), where it effectively became a metallic 'fossil'. A meteoric origin of the spheres could also follow this regime.
Maybe.....?
Edited by Minstrel (09/08/08 08:45 PM)
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Minstrel
Man of Science



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Posts: 1,974
Loc: Hogtown
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Minstrel]
#8898630 - 09/08/08 08:48 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Awww.... I just noticed your hint about it being of biological origin. Disregard those last two posts.
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zouden
Neuroscientist


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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Minstrel]
#8900023 - 09/09/08 01:06 AM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Is it part of a dinosaur's tooth?
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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automan
blasted chipmunk


Registered: 09/18/03
Posts: 8,272
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Hematite]
#8901847 - 09/09/08 12:21 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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i just have one question.
does it come from above the shoulder (head and/or neck) of a mammal?
-------------------- No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr
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Hematite
Newbee



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Re: Mystery pic [Re: zouden]
#8901979 - 09/09/08 12:54 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Not a tooth, but it is from a dinosaur.
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman



Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 11,529
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: zouden]
#8901999 - 09/09/08 01:00 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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I'm gonna guess that it's a fossilized zygote undergoing meiotic cell division that has had a u-series done on it.
That's the best I can come up with. The aberrations at the sides of the circle kind of kill the idea, but I have no idea what happens to an egg after millions of years. I think it's about the right scale at least though.
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Hematite
Newbee



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Re: Mystery pic [Re: automan]
#8902003 - 09/09/08 01:02 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
automan said: i just have one question.
does it come from above the shoulder (head and/or neck) of a mammal?
That's two questions, like the post before it. My last response answers your second question. As for the first, I'm not sure what part of the animal (a Triceratops) it's from.
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Hematite
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Ferris]
#8902015 - 09/09/08 01:04 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Fossil zygotes have been found. This isn't one of them, nor are any known from vertebrates.
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zouden
Neuroscientist


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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Hematite]
#8902732 - 09/09/08 03:38 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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If you're not sure what part it comes from, then it must be something which is present all over the animal. Like a bundle of nerve fibres. But I'm really thrown by the iron-rich spheres! It's not dinosaur blood is it?
-------------------- I know... that just the smallest part of the world belongs to me You know... I'm not a blind man but truth is the hardest thing to see
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman



Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 11,529
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: zouden]
#8902788 - 09/09/08 03:54 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Ya, the iron and silicon are what are throwing me off, since I can't think of any body part/organ/etc would contain those elements. Are they just part of the mineralization process? Are they iron and silicate oxides?
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Hematite
Newbee



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Re: Mystery pic [Re: zouden]
#8914786 - 09/11/08 07:55 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
zouden said: If you're not sure what part it comes from, then it must be something which is present all over the animal. Like a bundle of nerve fibres. But I'm really thrown by the iron-rich spheres! It's not dinosaur blood is it?
It's funny that you should say that, because the spheres have been identified as dinosaur blood, and the reason I took this image is that it disproves this.
The image is of an osteone, one of the tiny channels that run through bones. In life the capillaries in the osteones supply blood to bone cells. osteones also house nerve fibers. This is what osteones look like in a thin section through another dinosaur bone, in this case Miasaurus:

The original image showed a close up of an osteone in a radioactive fragment of Triceratops bone. This osteone has been filed in with minerals deposited by groundwater flowing through it: the yellow material in the colored image is uranium silicate, the white circles are iron sulfide or pyrite. The blue are is the original bone, composed of calcium phosphate.
The interesting thing about this osteone is that it has been cracked and the two sides of it displaced, presumably as the bone was crushed by the weight of sediments deposited on top of it. The pyrite spheres straddle the two sides of the osteone but are not displaced by it, proving that they formed after the osteone craked. Such cracking would have taken place long after the dinosaur died, proving that the pyrite formed late, and could not be remnants of blood cells. It's hard to tell when the uranium silicate was deposited, but as the tiny pyrite crystals are surrounded by it and are growing in it, it either formed at the same time as the pyrite or before it.
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman



Registered: 03/12/06
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Re: Mystery pic [Re: Hematite]
#8914918 - 09/11/08 08:18 PM (15 years, 8 months ago) |
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Hm, I was thinking bones for calcium, iron in blood, so I google-imaged bone marrow. At least I was in the same area on that vein of thought.
So you don't even have an educated guess as to where the pyrite and uranium silicate come from or what they might mean? Mineralogy is something that I know nothing about.
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