I just got back from a visit with Dr. Ann Molineux, a very gracious scientist with a lovely British accent, who serves as Collections Manager for the Texas Natural Science Center's "Non-vertebrate Paleontology Lab". I had an appointment to show her an unusual little rock I'd picked up a few years ago. I wish I could remember where I found it, other than on the ground.
Close-up of the rock.
I travel very little, so I can narrow it down to about 4 possibilities; my old place out at Driftwood, my yard here in North Central Austin, the Nueces riverbed north of Uvalde near Montel, or (a very long shot) the beach at Port Aransas. Dr. Molineux thinks Uvalde is most likely, because of the string of old volcanoes that run through that area.
Wherever it was, undoubtedly I stuck the rock in my pocket and eventually chucked it into my half-assed collection of rocks, shells, fossils, and other interesting things I'd found.
Obviously I'm not a real rock collector or I would have known to label the thing. I should have known anyway...I'm the daughter, granddaughter, niece, and sister of Texas oilmen and geologists, and I remember my Dad's collection of jars of crude oil on a shelf in his office, with all the different kinds of oil carefully labeled. Some were really old, from his father's office from the 1920's and '30's.
Anyway, I'd first heard from my brother Phil's friend Laura, a geology major at San Antonio College, that her professor said it was peroditite impregnated with olivine, and possibly a host rock for a diamond! There was interest expressed in actually making a bid on the rock for their collection because they don't have one.
Wow!
So when I finally got the rock back (after it rode around for weeks in the drink holder in Phil's Acura), I emailed UT's Geology Department and described it, related what we'd been told about it, and asked if I could bring it in for their opinion.
Dr. Molineux responded to my request by inviting me to bring the rock in, so I was off to the J.J. Pickle Research Center in north Austin, an amazing place in itself. They should have filmed some of the X-Files episodes there!
Once I found the right building, I went in and was syurrounded by the most amazing collection of rocks and crystals, like being backstage at a museum; actually, I guess I was. And of course everything was perfectly labeled and bagged or boxed, some even in vaults and drawers. (I got a partial tour at the end.)
Dr. Molineux greeted me and asked me to sign her little guest book as I handed her the rock. She studied it closely for a long time, used a special magnifier, and tested it with a strong magnet as well; my refrigerator magnet at home hadn't reacted, but she said that because this rock seems to contain only a little iron, it's only slightly magnetic, so a strong magnet was needed to ascertain that.
She said it might be a meteorite but is much more likely just what the professor at S.A.C. said; peroditite impregnated with olivine; something that erupted from the Earth's mantle.
Wow!
Then she said I should really take it to a "hard rock specialist".
Being an old hippie-type, and living in Austin, naturally I pictured a musician, but of course she meant a specialized geologist, not Jimmy Page. So I'm emailing the head rock guy she referred me to, and we'll see what happens.
So...besides learning to label things, I learned that sometimes the least memorable-looking finds wind up being very special and important after all, just not memorable.
So if you've let whatever-it-is sit around on the window seat for years, collecting dust along with hundreds of other rocks, shells, etc., by the time an expert comes along to tell you whatever-you've-got is so important that a geology department wants it for it's collection, I can tell you first hand that it's a bummer not to know for sure where you got it!
Geologists, museum curators, and scientists in general just naturally need to know where things come from.
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