I was shown a large (90x60x60cm) and heavy piece of rock recently which had been found in a field near Rotherham. The finder thought it might be a meteorite, but it was highly magnetic, with visible small crystals of ?magnetite and two thin parallel beds or bands running through it. It also had no ablation texture or other metoreite features.
Our best guess was that it was a lump of magnetite iron ore, possibly from Sweden (?Kiruna).
What I would like to know is why such a large lump should be in a field some distance from the nearest road or railway and at least 2 miles from the nearest steelworks (according to the finder). I would have thought imported iron ore would have been as small lumps, certainly not that size.
Has anyone any information on this - imports of magnetite etc.
Many thanks
Tim Colman
|