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Man Keeps Rock For Years, Hoping It's Gold. It Turns Out to Be Far More Valuable
Science Alert ^ | 25 Nov 2022 | JACINTA BOWLER

Posted on 11/26/2022 5:59:17 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT

In 2015, David Hole was prospecting in Maryborough Regional Park near Melbourne, Australia.

Armed with a metal detector, he discovered something out of the ordinary – a very heavy, reddish rock resting in some yellow clay.

He took it home and tried everything to open it, sure that there was a gold nugget inside the rock – after all, Maryborough is in the Goldfields region, where the Australian gold rush peaked in the 19th century.

To break open his find, Hole tried a rock saw, an angle grinder, a drill, even dousing the thing in acid. However, not even a sledgehammer could make a crack. That's because what he was trying so hard to open was no gold nugget.

As he found out years later, it was a rare meteorite.

"I've looked at a lot of rocks that people think are meteorites," Henry told Channel 10 News.

In fact, after 37 years of working at the museum and examining thousands of rocks, Henry said only two of the offerings had ever turned out to be real meteorites.

This was one of the two.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Chit/Chat; Hobbies; Humor; Outdoors; Science
KEYWORDS: astronomy; australia; melbourne; meteor; meteorite; meteorites; meteors; rock; science
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To: DUMBGRUNT
At 37.5 lbs it would have been worth just under a $1,000,000 if it was pure gold. As iron, even iron from space, it's not worth its weight in gold.

It's cool though.

21 posted on 11/26/2022 7:38:29 PM PST by dead (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_vFiUUcBkc)
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To: CFW

One of your sisters wanted it, maybe?


22 posted on 11/26/2022 7:53:15 PM PST by goodnesswins (The Chinese are teaching calculus to their 3rd graders while ours are trying to pick a pronoun.)
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To: Alas Babylon!

Good one! I like that version the best because of the favorable treatment of religion.


23 posted on 11/26/2022 8:10:00 PM PST by ealgeone
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To: DUMBGRUNT

There’s a lesson in there.


24 posted on 11/26/2022 8:15:07 PM PST by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Empire_of_Liberty

...and the diamond saw that cut a big friggin’ chunk off the end.


25 posted on 11/26/2022 8:20:58 PM PST by moovova ("The NEXT election is the most important election of our lifetimes!“ LOL...)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

26 posted on 11/26/2022 8:32:45 PM PST by nagant
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To: ealgeone

Meteor s#it!


27 posted on 11/26/2022 8:35:46 PM PST by bigbob (z)
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To: nagant

I was going to reply and suddenly have a terrible case of C.R.S???


28 posted on 11/26/2022 8:40:54 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT ( "The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last messa)
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To: goodnesswins

“One of your sisters wanted it, maybe?”

____

No. They were just as upset as I was. And, there was a lot more things of monetary value in the house they could have taken if they were of that mindset. I suspect the grandson of the neighbors down the road. We had warned him off the property a couple of times over the past year.

There are signs at each door that say “Smile, you are on camera”. Only my sisters are aware that cameras are actually in place (they are hidden very well), and I suspect the neighborhood ner-do-well thought the signs were just a fake message. The rock missing was just discovered over the past few days and with the holidays we haven’t had a chance to pursue it further. I just have to get hubby to take the tall ladder up there to retrieve the camera that points at the front door and deck where the rocks were located.


29 posted on 11/26/2022 8:44:14 PM PST by CFW
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To: ealgeone

Not true. The “andromeda strain” was a microorganism collected in space by a research probe that crashed back to earth in a rural area. The rustics found it, pried it open and released the deadly pathogen. Crichton was a great writer and insightful. He definitely was not woke. He avidly disparaged and mocked the global warming lunatics. If he wrote the story today, he would have the elites secretly funding, collecting the pathogen and then release it on the American population.


30 posted on 11/26/2022 8:52:10 PM PST by allendale
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To: DUMBGRUNT

I have a meteor that weighs something like 80 pounds.


31 posted on 11/26/2022 9:33:40 PM PST by GingisK
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To: allendale; ealgeone
Not true. The “andromeda strain” was a microorganism collected in space by a research probe that crashed back to earth in a rural area. The rustics found it, pried it open and released the deadly pathogen. Crichton was a great writer and insightful. He definitely was not woke. He avidly disparaged and mocked the global warming lunatics. If he wrote the story today, he would have the elites secretly funding, collecting the pathogen and then release it on the American population.

It was, indeed, called "Project Scoop," and its purpose was to collect microorganisms from Outer Space.

But at least in the film, it was a micrometeorite carrying the alien pathogen that penetrated the satellite - that is, the "Wildfire" scientists at least initially regard it as a fleck of paint and/or micrometeorite - it might have been the pathogen, itself.

Sorry that I can't be more specific - it's been literally weeks since I last watched this great film.

Regards,

32 posted on 11/26/2022 11:13:39 PM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: GingisK

Years ago one one of these “meteorite threads” there was a freeper who said his dad had a huge one that he used to mark the end of the driveway iirc. He said it would take a backhoe to move it and they weren’t sure what to do with it when the old man sold the place (or died).

It would take me a backhoe to move 80 lbs, but a younger buck could do it on his own.


33 posted on 11/26/2022 11:26:06 PM PST by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful.)
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To: GingisK

I think meteors become meteorites when the land.


34 posted on 11/27/2022 12:46:39 AM PST by JohnnyP (Thinking is hard work (I stole that from Rush).)
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To: JohnnyP

Size reduction, I presume?


35 posted on 11/27/2022 7:50:15 AM PST by GingisK
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To: CTyank

Beware of the Blob!
It leaps and creeps
And slides and glides
Across the floor.
Right through the door
And all around the room.
A splotch, a blotch.
Be of careful of the Blob!

The only hit song by The Four Blobs


36 posted on 11/27/2022 8:04:53 AM PST by MisterArtery
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To: MisterArtery

The Blob was written by actress Kay Linaker, who starred in several of the old Charlie Chan movies. She used her married name Kay Phillps.


37 posted on 11/27/2022 8:11:52 AM PST by JohnnyP (Thinking is hard work (I stole that from Rush).)
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To: ealgeone

Maybe liberals came from a meteor. Maybe the Andromeda Strain was a documentary!


38 posted on 11/27/2022 11:08:11 AM PST by gr8eman (Abortion! It's just a murderous ghoul thing!)
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To: gr8eman

BOOM!! There it is! Does make one wonder.


39 posted on 11/27/2022 12:02:25 PM PST by ealgeone
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To: JohnnyP

“I think meteors become meteorites when the land.”

That is correct. And I learned something new. Before they become meteors they are meteoroids (so before they enter the planet’s atmosphere).


40 posted on 11/27/2022 12:45:03 PM PST by Mr Information
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