# Mystery of the Micro Spheres



## dev

Starting a new thread on this because I don't want to derail the "Rock Man" thread http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=5588 that discussed this topic a while ago. I was reading that thread (again) and remembered an article I read a long time back. It explained the source of the strange little micro spheres many of us have seen. The article was first published in Mineral News, Vol. 16, No. 3, March, 2000, written by Jack Nelson. 

The spheres are mentioned in the bottom portion of the second paragraph. Nelson describes them as 'clear', but I figure a decade or two in a mineralized setting might be what blackens them. Or maybe there are different types, perhaps some with metallic coatings or cores.

Not saying the article is gospel, but so far it's the best explanation I've come across. Here's a link to a copy:
http://au-prospecting.com/gold1/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=33

I'm curious to know what others think of this - yes, no, maybe so?


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## Richard36

Hello Dev,

This article wouldn't have derailed the discussion, just revived it.

Good try though on what those spheres are. 

The spheres listed in this article are in no way what I found. Mine came out of a Rock that I crushed, and that rock came out of a small steam that was 5 to 7 miles from the nearest paved road, which was far down hill from where I found the rock that contained them. 

The spheres were definitely metallic as well. I found the rock with my metal detector out nugget shooting. The signal was so strong and pronounced that I kept it, and did a few tests in order to try to figure out what it contained. 

No luck either, one of the few samples of material I ran a complete series of tests on, and could not identify what metal it was. I ran every one of my chemical tests, and it was negative for everything I tested for. I quit at that point, and didn't run any fused material tests. Short on supply of the metallic beads to have done so. 

They weren't magnetic either, but definitely were a metallic native element with a black shell that would crush away revealing shiny silvery spheres. That was back in 2007, and I have not been back to that creek with my detector to see if I could find any more of that Gabroic, Dolomitic/Cabonatite type rock (Some sort of Hybrid Skarn Possibly?) with those spheres within it. 

That's a possible trip out for anyone who would like to go do some prospecting together. (Hint, Hint.) lol!

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


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## goldsilverpro

I first found these perfect tiny black spheres, of various sizes, in black sand, using a 100x scope. In some black sands, there are a lot of them. They were fascinating. Once, after sitting for a few days in some solution (don't ask me what it was), a few of the spheres turned a real true gold color. Whether the solution removed a layer and exposed a gold layer or, the solution was contaminated with gold and it cemented onto the sphere, I don't know. I think it was the former because I keep things pretty clean. I do know that they are layered, very heavy, and impervious to any chemical I tried.

I have a theory about why you can't directly dissolve these. Say they are made up of several (or, many - maybe 100s or 1000s) thin layers (remember jawbreakers?) of various metals (or, maybe, metal compounds or alloys). Say these various metals, etc. react only with certain chemicals. If you can find a chemical to dissolve the top layer, it might not do anything to the second layer, etc. If the second layer is the same color as the top layer, you wouldn't notice that you've dissolved anything. I see this as possibly being analogous to the difficulties with refining barrel plating media and plating rack nodules. This was discussed in some detail in this thread:

http://www.goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=1415


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## dev

Rick if I lived anywhere near your state you wouldn't be looking for prospecting company, that's for sure. As for reviving the Rock Man thread, I like the picture/description sequence that it settled into. I do have a question that'll fit so when I get a chance I'll post it there.

In the meantime, I decided to collect some spheres from one of my samples and post a picor two. Not the best quality, I'm smacking my camera snug against the eyepiece of my microscope and shooting with the macro setting. Hope I get'em posted right.

These spheres were collected under a bridge near Dillsburg, PA, from standard stream gravel material. But I've seen these same spheres in every sample that I've taken in various locations and different watershed zones - including the little stream along my yard. The fact they show up everywhere was one of the things that made the road paint theory look good to me. But if they're coming from inside a rock, I'd say that rules out the roads. Unless there's any chance at all that your crushed sample was mixed with other material at some point? Considering the tiny size of these critters, it would be pretty easy for'em to contaminate an otherwise sphere-less sample.

These pictures are the first time I've noticed the 'fish eye' effect, usually they just appear as somewhat irridescent black spheres. But I've never isolated a bunch like this, so I'm guessing the difference is due to them not being surrounded by other material - typically black sand concentrates.

The big black rod in one of the images is for scale - it's a mechanical pencil lead, 0.5 mm in diameter. Both pics are 40x magnification, white LED light source.

I'm going to see what I can dig up in the way of information about the production of the reflective road spheres. Maybe there's a clue or two there. As for potential natural sources, I think GSP's idea of them having multiple layers is very interesting. Similar to the way a pearl is built up. That would seem to be the one natural way that a very round particle could be constructed. It's hard to imagine natural abrasion producing such symmetry consistently.

Anyway it looks like this is still an unsolved mystery. Anyone with similar pics I hope they'll post'em here. I wanna know what these lil critters are...


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## goldsilverpro

I was the same way. Once I started looking for them, I seemed to find them everywhere. I even found them in floor sweepings from an apartment I lived in. I used those little white dinner dishes about 2-2.5" in dia. that are used to hold one pat of butter to pan the small samples. I don't think they're glass. When panning them, they would stay back with the gold, if present.


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## dtectr

the "nipple" appearance to me suggests the effects of velocity & gravity on a molten element, like teardrop effect on "lava bombs".
There is scientifically verifiable evidence from N & C America of liquified "glass" & other ejecta from the meteor impact that 
formed the Gulf Of Mexico. In these cases, they all appeared within a thin, specific "dark zone" at a specific geologic stratum.
If a metal, could they perhaps be portions of the projectile, liquified upon impact, then distributed along with liquified earth
elements? According to researchers, this material would be shot into the atmosphere & distributed over a wide area. Its
logical that it would then be eroded out to mix with other alluvium (or "elluvium"?).
i think.


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## dev

Got the skinny on road beads, here's the link:
http://www.virginiadot.org/business/resources/Materials/MCS_Study_Guides/bu-mat-PaveMarkCh2.pdf

Everything you ever wanted to know about shiny road lines in a few pages, including history of the tech and manufacturing processes. With pictures that start on page 2-5. I think this clinches it for me, I reckon most of what we're seeing is reflective beads. They've been in use for 70-odd years now, small wonder they're everywhere.

Thing is, one of the processes for making these things is simply atomizing molten glass by blowing it through a nozzle. Seems completely reasonable to me that this could be duplicated in nature with any molten material - either in the way dtectr described, or simply from venting at high pressure into cool, open atmosphere. So even though I think the bulk of what we're seeing is manufactured, there remains the possibility that there are naturally occurring spheres made of all kinds of stuff. If I see gold ones, I'm gonna keep'em. :mrgreen:


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## goldsilverpro

These beads are not glass!!! They are as heavy as gold!!!


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## qst42know

I would be interested to see if these occur on earth directly opposite the gulf of Mexico. The proposed asteroid impact site that supposedly lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The glass spheres that add reflectivity to paint are exactly what you would expect, transparent spheres of glass not black.


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## dev

The images in the pdf link I posted show (in black and white, unfortunately) a wide range of transparency in the beads pictured. Some definitely appear black. As for being as heavy as gold, the spheres I have seem quite light, judging from the way they move. I think they settle in with heavies like black sand due to the minimum resistance from their round shape.

But there's only one way to know for sure how heavy they are. Separate and collect enough to weigh'em. :shock: My eyes get squinty just thinking about it... I wouldn't do that for just anyone, but if you want it, GSP, you got it. I forgot to mention in my last post - the fact that you found them in your kitchen sweepings was interesting. But the fact that you looked to see what was in there at all, now that's really impressive.


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## T3sl4

My vote is for steel slag, crushed for road ballast, etc.

Tim


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## goldsilverpro

T3sl4 said:


> My vote is for steel slag, crushed for road ballast, etc.
> 
> Tim



When I was a kid, the road next to my house was cinders and I remember seeing lots of tiny BBs. The same with the cinder track at the high school - hell on knees when you fell.

dev,

You needn't go through all that trouble. If they're light, maybe T3sl4 is right about the slag - sounds logical to me. The heavy ones I was speaking of were from Oregon, mostly from samples that miners brought in, like black sand from beaches.


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## turtlesteve

These are definitely not road beads. There are two possibilities: fly ash (a byproduct from burning coal) or micrometeorites (natural, and really cool). Both of these form in a similar fashion (solidification of molten droplets of material) and you'd probably have to do a chemical analysis to tell them apart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash
http://www.stevespangler.com/science-experiments/a-meteorite-hit-my-house/

Both of these would be rich in iron, so would have high density.

Steve


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## dev

I figure the fly ash particles are too small to qualify. But the micrometeorites look like a very likely candidate, and definitely the coolest explanation so far. Good picture in that meteorite article. So there's some proof of natural sphere origin. I'm still betting most are road beads (mine don't dance with magnets). We spray billions of these things on the roads every year, and they gotta end up somewhere...

Micrometeors, that's just cool enough I might hafta collect'em after all. Kinda like mining outer space. Get a bunch together and melt, see what happens.


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## Richard36

If micro meteorites, sell them to Bethany Sciences. 
I bet you could get $5.00 or more per gram. Anything to do with meteorites isn't cheap.
It's all valuable if it comes from space.


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## dev

Now ya did it, Rick. The Micrometeorite Rush of 2010.

Also known as 'cosmic spherules' in scientifical circles. I'm poking around for info on these things. Here's a pdf from a guy who put some serious effort into identifying 'false micrometeorites: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0708/0708.4276.pdf The author is Italian, I think when he says 'soldering' he means welding. He includes lots of pictures of now-familiar little spheres produced from metal work such as grinding. Even the sparks from a lighter can produce these things. There goes my hope that all the magnetic spheres are space rocks. But the ones from mountain tops and other high places would probably be the real thing.

Next meteor shower: The Leonids on Nov 17. Last one, the Orionids just 2 days ago.


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## Richard36

Just for laughs, and envy, here's a photo of a couple Tektites from my collection.


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## dev

No, no, those are road beads! Road beads, I tell ya. Envy is not a factor in this analysis, not one bit. Might as well send those on over to me, Rick, they're just tainting your collection.


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## Richard36

Lol, yeah, sure, uh huh! 
I bought them at a local Rock Shop for $2.50 each around 15yrs ago.
The shop owner had a 3 lb coffee can full of them.

I decided to buy a couple while I had the chance to get a couple cheap.
I had them valued by Bethany Sciences shortly thereafter, and I was told they were worth $5.00 each. I considered buying $20.00 worth, and selling them to Bethany, but never did so. I was young, and let that money making venture slide, not the only time that I have did such a thing.

Around the same time, I had found a Black Sand deposit that had so much gold in it that I could dip my hand in the sand, shake it off, and see gold all over my hand. That was at the beginning of the knowledge that I have now. I didn't have the equipment to go after it, or the crew, and gold was only $250 an oz. I was working a good job, and the gold was only a curiosity to me at the time. Then in "96" we had a major flood, and washed that deposit away.

The deposit was about 3 feet deep and 15ft by 25ft in area.
Yeah, I know, everyone is pulling their hair out at about now, lol!
Live and learn, I was young. Still am by most standards, lol, I'm giving away my age!

I have another area located that would be pretty close to as good, but I need a crew to work my dredge with me, and a longer dredge hose. I haven't did anything with it as of yet either. It isn't as easy to work as the above water placer that I found back in my early 20's.

Anyway, just sharing some interesting stories from my past. 8) 

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


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## dev

I have to post a correction to one of my earlier posts. After isolating a larger sample of the spheres I learned that a lot of them do respond to a magnet. A lot. Which of course blows away my pet road bead explanation - at least for the magnetic spheres. I do see clear ones that are plainly hollow glass and match well against a sample I scraped from the road in front of my house. But I have to concede that a very large portion of the spheres are not road beads - as the voices of experience here have been trying to tell me all along.

I figure that leaves the micrometeorite idea at the top of the list. It explains the shape, weight, color, wide range of sizes, surface texture, and the fact that they seem to show up everywhere. Doesn't explain chemical resistance - especially the lack of rust. I can see how they'd blacken with a slag coating or maybe black iron oxide in the heat of their atmospheric entry, but I'd expect this coating to abrade or crack more often and allow typical orange/red iron oxide to form. So I dunno... still working on it.


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## turtlesteve

dev,

Most meteorites are predominantly stony with only some iron - hence, these may not immediately rust. If the meteorites melt on entry to the atmosphere, they probably also oxidize to Fe3O4 and thus would not rust.

Several articles mention you can "collect" micrometeorites by catching water from your house gutters during rainstorms, allowing the water to run into a bucket where the particles could settle out. Or also from melting fresh snow, as the particles sometimes act as nuclei for snowflakes. It would be interesting to try this and compare these particles to the others you have found.

Steve


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## T3sl4

Meteorites have nickel in them, which ought to increase corrosion resistance a bit, but not by too much. It's not like what chromium does to stainless. Meteorites are almost always found with a hearty crust of brown stuff.

What happens when you smack them with a hammer? Does the shell turn to dust and the core smush flat? That's what I would expect from a slaggy ball of metal.

Tim


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## dev

By far the best micrometeorite (MM) article I've found so far is here: http://www2.mnhn.fr/hdt205/leme/doc/2008%20Genge%20et%20al.%20MAPS.pdf

It deals with their classification so goes into great detail on characteristics of all types, including the cosmic spherules. And yep, the ferrous ones do develop a protective skin of magnetite. Crushing them would produce varying results - they take various forms depending on their source. Some are solid, some have irregular voids, some are hollow, and some have metal cores... there's a whole world of these things. All complicated by the many other types of tiny little spheres that are difficult, even for the experts, to distinguish from genuine space dust.

Amazing where a little bit of simple gold panning can take a person...


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## Richard36

The spheres that I found were indeed native element. They had a black crust that could be shattered free by applying pressure to them, revealing shiny silver colored beads that could be flattened by striking them with a hammer while on a steel plate. They were malleable, just not soluble in any liquid chemical that I tried to dissolve them in.

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man"


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## Harold_V

The extinction of the dinosaur was attributed to a meteor that struck the earth. Said meteor was known to contain the platinum group metals. 

What's the chance that's the source of those widespread beads?

Harold


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## Richard36

I suppose that a Meteor Strike could have produced them, I don't see why not.
I sort of question that hypothesis though in regard to the situation in which I found mine. 

They came out of a rock that was magmatic in origin, and those spheres should have been molten and distributed throughout the molten mass, though it would have been possible for those beads to have agglomerated into single masses of native element within the melt, just the same as a slag from an improperly fluxed assay can be shot with metal due to viscosity, and lack of a collector metal to collect them. Just pondering the possibilities.

The KT Boundary Layer of The Geologic Stratum Record is known to contain Iridium, 
which is one of the Platinum Group metals, and was em-placed by molten particles settling to the ground from the aftermath of a huge meteor impact.

What's the chances that these metallic beads are an Iridium alloy of some sort?

Sincerely; Rick."The Rock Man".


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## Harold_V

Richard36 said:


> What's the chances that these metallic beads are an Iridium alloy of some sort?


That's exactly where my thoughts are. You've already made mention they don't dissolve. Doesn't leave too many choices. 

I don't think any of us can begin to understand the results of a huge body slamming in to the earth at such incredible speeds. That certainly could address the tiny spheres. My mind runs to meteor crater, in, what, Arizona? One of many possibilities. 

It was the iridium layer that proved to the Spanish scientist that a meteor was the cause of the demise of the dinosaurs. The deposit was uniformly spread around the globe. Imagine what the atmosphere must have been, and for so long. 

By the way----years ago a guy brought me a sample of sand he claimed was collected from the desert in southern Utah/northern Arizona. While I never had the ability to assay, chemical processing of a small sample yielded positive signs of gold, silver and palladium. Not a lot, but a definite showing. This stuff is very widespread---just not common in recoverable volumes. 

Harold


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## dev

Here's an interesting quote from an article abstract focused on deep sea sediments: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v309/n5970/full/309693a0.html



> "We report here a previously unrecognized property of the spheres. The most common spheres larger than 300 micron do not, in fact, contain FeNi metal cores, but instead contain a micrometre-sized nugget composed almost entirely of platinum group elements."


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## Harold_V

Heh! How cool is that? 8) 
Thanks for the report!

Harold


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## turtlesteve

dev,

I took the figures from that science article and ran some calculations - micrometeorites of the quality they analyzed might yield 5-10 g of PGM's per ton, about 1.5-3 g Pt per ton. So, they contain value - but not much unless you could concentrate massive quantities of them. This is about the same as the PGM content in terrestrial ores mined in large quantity (Stillwater complex, S. Africa, etc).

Steve


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## dev

Steve - I agree on all points, the quantity doesn't amount to such of a much. I assumed the value was trivial but I'm glad someone crunched the numbers. I just get a kick out of the notion that it's raining platinum, so I had to spread it around when I found out. :mrgreen:


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## newgold

I have justed posted my experience with microspheres of metal under the rockman thread for anyone interested .

Newgold


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## Shecker

One thought comes to mind ( and I am dipping into my pre-frontal cortex from a lot of years ago trying to remember the source for the information) -- gadolinium. Gadolinium ores frequently come in the form of black obsidian-like nodules and spheres. Gadolinium is a rare earth mineral (Gadolinite) and it is valuable, particularly with the Chinese trying to capture the world's supply of rare earth metals.

The pictures look a great deal like Gadolinite. It can even have a golden luster on a freshly exposed surface. For images of Gadolinite check out www.lexic.us/definition-of/gadolinite. 

Randy in Gunnison


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## Steppegold

Great thread folks!

We get microspheres in our sluices and jigs in Mongolia. They are magnetic and they can be partly hollow, and can sometimes look brassy. We assume they are all spat metal/slag from welding. We do a lot of welding at the mines, and use up welding rods like packs of cigarettes. So there must be a lot of welding beads around, all heavy, all waiting for recovery by gravity.

Perhaps someone should do a spot of welding and see what gets scattered?

cheers

Steppe


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## Arrowood

Whats the chance that these spheres could be volcanic in origin?


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## nickvc

Well I'm a complete idiot when it comes to ores and minerals and find all of this fascinating. I did wonder whether volcanic action could explain these spheres, I remember watching a programme on the hunt for the crater that was known to exist by geological samples and rock formations around Yellowstone and it turns out that the whole of Yellowstone was the crater....now that's one big volcano that when it erupts must throw hundreds of millions of tons of material for hundreds and possibly thousands of miles and from deep in the earth, so very hot and molten material will be air cooled as it flies. It sort of reminds me of making shot or better still 4metals vaporising jets......but then again a large meteor impact could also do the same thing, one thing for sure is that given our inquisitive nature we will work it out sooner or later.


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## Harold_V

On that subject, Yellowstone is considered a super volcano. There was a report prepared in the year 2000, if memory serves. It's horrifying.

View attachment Supervolcanoes.doc


Harold


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## nickvc

Agreed Harold...... and man thinks he can devise weapons that cause mass destruction if that baby ever erupts it's goodnight and goodbye :shock:


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## Arrowood

One of the curious things about these spheres that makes me think they are volcanic and not caused by the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, is the fact that they are also found in the oceans. The oceanic tectonic plates recycle much faster than the terrestrial tectonic plates, and the oldest ocean plates are only about 170-180 million years old, but the meteor event that killed the dinosaurs was over 200 million years ago if I remember correctly. Thus the spheres couldn't have been formed from just that one meteor event, and most likely are a product of some ongoing process like volcanism.


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## Harold_V

Arrowood said:


> One of the curious things about these spheres that makes me think they are volcanic and not caused by the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, is the fact that they are also found in the oceans. The oceanic tectonic plates recycle much faster than the terrestrial tectonic plates, and the oldest ocean plates are only about 170-180 million years old, but the meteor event that killed the dinosaurs was over 200 million years ago if I remember correctly. Thus the spheres couldn't have been formed from just that one meteor event, and most likely are a product of some ongoing process like volcanism.


The mass extinction of the dinosauars is generally accepted to have been about 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period. 

While the concept of volcanism can be included in the theory of origin of the spheres, it isn't conclusive, and may not be supported by the evidence in the spheres. Volcanic discharge doesn't necessarily contain the platinum metals, unlike many of the objects from space. 

Harold


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## Arrowood

I stand corrected. I thought the dinosaur mass extinction was older than that. Thanks Harold.


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## nickvc

Having just read up on iridium and the platinum group metals I'm tempted to lean more towards the meteor impact theory but as all the platinum group have an affinity for molten iron I wonder if a very large volcanic eruption, such as a super volcano, could actually have material from closer to the core of the planet included in it? 
Meteors are basically parts of the cold cores of planets that exploded hence their higher than normal platinum group content and wouldn't a super volcano be by it's very nature be a massive explosion from deep down near, if not from, the earths core, given those circumstances the resultant material would be of a very similar nature to any meteor?
As these spheres seem to have an outer shell aren't they similar to what the earth would be like if the core became solid instead of molten, a shell formed of rock and a solid metallic inner?
Fascinating thread wish I actually knew the answer.


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## Harold_V

Certainly food for thought, Nick. 

The objects from space tend to be remnants of stars that have undergone the last phase of their progression, turning in to black holes, if I recall correctly. It is at that stage that the heavy metals are formed. That the earth contains them isn't a mystery---it is comprised of space junk, evidence of which is obvious when we observe the surface of the moon, which is heavily marked with craters. Were it not for the atmosphere we enjoy on Earth, we, too, would have the same evidence. Most of it (although not all) has been destroyed by weathering and other earthly phenomenon.

Those spheres are very interesting, regardless of their origin.

Harold


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## Arrowood

Here's an article about micrometeorite composition from meteorites collected in Antarctica. 
http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept07/cosmicSpherules.html 

The HED type spheres appear to be more like the tough micro spheres we are talking about. Heres the interesting part from the article that still makes me think these things are volcanic in origin. "The HED meteorites are a class of achondrites that are igneous rocks formed from basaltic magmas. This class represents about 6% of meteorites that fall to Earth and only about 0.5% of all micrometeorites from the South Pole water well. There are far fewer of these HED-like micrometeorites and cosmic spherules than carbonaceous chondrites."

Most of the micrometeorites appear to glass like and resist burning up in the atmosphere due to their small size mass to surface ratio.


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## richoc

My guess is that these are molydulinum, (If I could spell I would of went to a 4 year collage.)
The element is in moly grease and makes it stand up to 700 degree f in use as a lubricate.
They are super tuff little micro balls.
Looks like some I have seen in a microscope back in Chem 2 class.

Just a Guess though.


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## goldsilverpro

I remember how to spell it by pronouncing it incorrectly like this: molly-bee-denim. Therefore, the spelling is moly-b-denum


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## oldman

Hi we have the spheres in the black sand from tenn not all the same size but perfectly round and black was wondering what they were maybe I will send some to so accurate see if they can id


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## joem

:idea: I like this thread so I will follow it.


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## Richard36

Thanks for liking the thread. 
I don't post much anymore, but I'm still here and following it.


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## McPlumb

I am a long time lurker here, this is my first post so forgive my mistakes.

I have found several types of the micro spheres, the black seem to be the most numerous in this area, a glaciated area of Ohio. I have also found what appear to be some of the PGM group and an infrequent gold one, but no clear or glass type.

My tendency is to lean toward the meteor and impact created theory. One reason for this is I look at them at 100x on my 
microscope, I noticed a couple of them had what appeared to be a partial clear quartz crust. This suggest they are of great
age and have been entrapped and become part of the rock. The glacial action that released and deposited them here ground the rock to fine sand. 

These space balls first came to my attention when they were some of the last things left in the gold pan, and I put samples 
of the material under the microscope. I use a 10" pioneer blue finishing pan for this material.

The source of the material is water wells in the area, I have a state well licence as a pump installer. When I change a filter or chlorinate a well I try to save any sand that I find, I like to pan it down and put it under the microscope.

There are many sand pits in the area, and most of the older wells in the area tap into the water table there.

The presents of space balls and precious metals,and types of sand varies wildly from one well to the next.

Thank all of you for all of the great information on this site.

McPlumb


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## maynman1751

Every day our planet is bombarded with space debris (i.e. shooting stars), most being incinerated upon entry into the atmosphere. If the beads are from this source they would be found anywhere and everywhere, deposited for millions of years. Feasibly they could be found right on the surface or hundreds or thousands of feet down.


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## Hard Rocker

Hello, I was reading this thread and I too have found these "Micro-spheres" in some of my samples. As someone said earlier in a post, these spheres are very heavy!! I am having a hard time to seperate them from the other heavy metals in my cons... Has anyone identified these yet? I have a couple of photos and will try to post them if I am able, any information on this material would be appreciated, Thank you in advance...






















These photos were taken with my digital microscope from material that was screenes to -200 mesh, I am estimating that the spheres themselves are aproxemently 350 to 500 mesh in size....


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## Hard Rocker

I would also like to add that this sample was not taken from a placer deposit, rather than it is from crushed calcite, so these spheres are not "water-worn" or "weathered". I found it really funny that this sphereical shape would be present in a crushed material....


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## frontiermetals

Hard Rocker said:


> Hello, I was reading this thread and I too have found these "Micro-spheres" in some of my samples. As someone said earlier in a post, these spheres are very heavy!! I am having a hard time to seperate them from the other heavy metals in my cons... Has anyone identified these yet? I have a couple of photos and will try to post them if I am able, any information on this material would be appreciated, Thank you in advance...
> 
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> These photos were taken with my digital microscope from material that was screenes to -200 mesh, I am estimating that the spheres themselves are aproxemently 350 to 500 mesh in size....



I too have found these micro-spheres in several different sands and ores. Eocene-era greensands (40 million years) have them as do pre-cambrian schists. The extreme density (much heavier than black sand) and brilliant apprearance suggests platinum group elements of meteoric origin. They appear to be everywhere, just not in abundance. Odd that the scientific literature makes little mention of them.


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## Irons2

goldsilverpro said:


> I remember how to spell it by pronouncing it incorrectly like this: molly-bee-denim. Therefore, the spelling is moly-b-denum



I always thought it was Molly-bend-um. :mrgreen:


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## qst42know

Anyone heard of audio pronunciation? First time I've seen it.

I haven't explored to find out how far it goes but it beats most phonetic spelling I've seen.

http://visual.merriam-webster.com/pronunciation.php?id=science/chemistry/chemical-elements/30856&title=molybdenum


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## goldsilverpro

Moe-lib-duh-numb or Moe-lib-deh-numb (Mo-lyb-de-num, just like it's spelled)

I also saw Muh-lib-duh-nuhm

Almost every online audio pronunciation or phonetic spelling I heard or saw was a little different. 

Just call it Moly (same as Molly) like everyone that works with it does.


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## qst42know

There are plenty of words I would like to hear correctly. Even after working it out with the written aid some are still a bit elusive.


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## Palladium

qst42know said:


> Anyone heard of audio pronunciation? First time I've seen it.



I found it about a year ago when i was looking up the meaning of a word. I'm dyslexic anyway.


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## eesakiwi

In NZ there are huge spheres on a certain beach & the info here may help you, if they are similar. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders

Composition
As determined by detailed analysis of the fine-grained rock using optical mineralogy, X-ray crystallography, and electron microprobe, the boulders consist of mud, fine silt and clay, cemented by calcite. The degree of cementation varies from being relatively weak within the interior of a boulder to quite hard within its outside rim. The outside rims of the larger boulders consist of much as 10 to 20% calcite, because the calcite not only tightly cements the silt and clay but has also replaced it to a significant degree


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## Irons2

eesakiwi said:


> In NZ there are huge spheres on a certain beach & the info here may help you, if they are similar.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders
> 
> Composition
> As determined by detailed analysis of the fine-grained rock using optical mineralogy, X-ray crystallography, and electron microprobe, the boulders consist of mud, fine silt and clay, cemented by calcite. The degree of cementation varies from being relatively weak within the interior of a boulder to quite hard within its outside rim. The outside rims of the larger boulders consist of much as 10 to 20% calcite, because the calcite not only tightly cements the silt and clay but has also replaced it to a significant degree



Not the same critter, I'm afraid. 8)


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## NobleMetalWorks

I have been following this thread because I am dealing with cons very similar to the ones being discussed here.

When I am able, in the next few days, I will provide pictures of the two of spheres I am dealing with. And although I am a total amateur in this, I would like to post here, my findings and what I believe it is.

I believe they are either made up of some type of silicate or quartz.

I suspect just like we are able to see in nature, that these spheres have fractures or are porous.

I have run several different experiments on these types of cons. Under a microscope I can see that there is a metallic like shell that encapsulates them. On some I can actually see where the metallic looking shell only covers part of the bead, and not the entire bead.

I have tried leaching first with HCl, then I tried some in Nitric. I used HCl/Cl on some after leaching with single acids, and some I subjected to AR digestion. All through carefully washing before I moved to the next step, each leach I let go for 12 hours. By this time I am getting down to fairly white looking spheres. Then final leaching was done with AR heated, this produced more metals dissolved in solution. At no time did any of the Stannous Chloride, nor Ammonium Chloride tests ever read positive, this was a fresh batch of Stannous tested against standard solutions.

What surprised me was the fact that even after being subjected to multiple leaches of different acids, in different combinations, the final AR leach down with heat, produced a relatively large amount of iron. I ended up dropping everything out of solution with Zn, and then digested the resulting drop in AR to test again for PMs. There was none.

However, now I have all this cloudy sulfate solution to process.

This is what I feel must be happening.

When Sulfides are heated or calcified they oxidize metal sulfide ores and leave behind metal oxides, so far as I understand the process of roasting. These spheres didn't start out round, but if they can absorb metal sulfides, and then a natural heat source such as a fire, for example, is applied, it could create metal oxides as a shell around each sphere making the entire thing look metallic. They would have weight, and color. I have actually seen these spheres under a microscope where you can see they have color, and then after leaching they have no color and their weight changes. I am using small samples, so using an assay scale is required if you are using small samples, drying and weighing between leaches can give you an idea of how much of the weight was leached off, or if any was at all.

I have been fiddling with this material for well over a week now, while I wait for other things I am processing.

I believe that each sphere in my samples were encapsulated with some type of metal oxide that somehow naturally occurred, like maybe a forest fire. I suspect this created a protective shell around the sphere that would not allow for any sulfides inside the sphere to react with oxygen, even under heat, once the metal oxide shell is formed it protects the sphere from further sulfide-oxide conversion. I can just imagine the heat expanding the material the spheres are made up of, expanding it so that the metal sulfides could be drawn out where they converted to metal oxides upon reaching the surface of the sphere where they were exposed to oxygen, under heat.

So in my sample, I leached off the protective layer, and when subject to HCl to do this, it created metal sulfides in solution because after the shell was digested, the HCl was able to react with the metal sulfides that were contained within the sphere itself. So I believe the proper way to process the spheres would be roasting first, digestion in Nitric, then wash/roasting again, a second leach in Nitric Acid, repeated until you no longer have any reaction, then digestion in AR. Each Nitric leach should be tested for PMs (Ag and Pd) and once the spheres have been digested in AR, the resulting solution tested for Au or any PGMs.

I am far from being a geologist, my knowledge of geology is very limited. But I imagine if nature is converting the sulfides to metal oxides, that the corners of the structure might either break off, or the metal shell may compact it, or both, resulting in a sphere. A Sphere after all is the perfect shape to withstand outside pressures, like holding an egg in the palm of your hand, and then squeezing it in your fist as hard as you can, you cannot break the egg. I think nature conspired to do the same in the hopes of confusing all of us. Hahaha.

Anyway, that is my amateur take on what these spheres are. I will provide pictures of what I suspect is happening with my own experiments so others can point out where I might be wrong or right. I am very interested in this, if true that means this type of material has the ability to soak up metal sulfides, which might make it useful material for collecting sulfides from stream water for example. If you put this type of material, void of sulfides, in some type of filter bag, then damn up a slow moving creek that has metal sulfides in it, it should stand to reason that they would be able to absorb the metal sulfides, and other sulfides, effectively leaching the water, or mining the water for metal sulfides. Of course this might take a very long time, and I might be speaking in a geological time scale.

For the most part this is all speculative. I was at first very hesitant to post what I suspect is happening with my own material, but the value of being corrected far outweighs any embarrassment I might suffer from lack of experience. I would like to say this, when I first started processing these cons, I should have roasted them first. I didn't with the first samples. I though that only metal oxides were present, not metal sulfides. I believe that is the biggest mistake I made, I should have roasted regardless of what I thought, although it very likely would not have made a difference, I may have been able to convert more of the metal sulfides to metal oxides.

I hope I didn't make a complete idiot of myself, but if I had I would like to be corrected on this thread so others can learn from it.

Scott


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