What is this object?
A couple of weeks back, out in the Shenandoah Valley, I pulled over to show some students the Oranda Formation (a limey shale which was transitional between Sauk sedimentation and the clastic influence of Taconian mountain-building). But in the midst of my arm-waving, an object caught my eye. On the ground amongst umpteen gazillion slabs of shale was this thing:
Now that looks like some sort of biological encrustation -- but could it just be slag? There's definitely bubble-like features. My current suspicion is that this is some automobile part that got too hot. This bubbly mess in photo #3 suggests it melted down, perhaps causing the owner to pitch it on the roadside. That sort of waste disposal happens a fair bit in Virginia.
Any ideas what this thing is? Thanks.
Labels: field trips, unknowns
7 Comments:
I am not car-expert but if it is from one then I can only imagine it to be from the exhaust and/or the catalytic converter.
Will future palaeontologists be able to figure it out?
Oh, and by the way: it's quite brittle, but scratches glass.
It is made from a kind of special ceramics I think. That would explain it being brittle.
Palaeontologist in 5,000,000AD might see it is artificial. The chemical signature would give it away - I think. (anyone know for sure?)
It's a piece of catalytic converter substrate. That's where the magic happens.
I agree with the catalytic converter idea. Check out this image of one that closely resembles the object in question:
catalytic converter
*courtesy of google images*
I work on cars, you didn't find a fossil, you found the ceramic core of a catalytic converter. They use ceramics to clean the noxious fumes. either the cat blew apart spectacularly due to back pressure, or a major accident happened and it came out.
The structure is too perfect for nature.
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