Ancient souls

[mareserinitatis]

One of the wonderful things about being at a university is the diversity of people with whom you get to interact. This semester, I have a Native American (Chippewa, to be exact) student in one of my classes. He really seems to be into learning about the science aspect of the world around him, while I have been delighted to have a student who

Comments

[pielology]

Huh. Perfectly ellipsoidal + extremely dense to me would indicate some kind of mafic/ultramafic bomb. Why'd you guess quartzite?

[mareserinitatis]

First, color. Definitely not dark enough to be a basalt (it was more brown-grey), and had no hints of red. Second, the rounding looked more like things I've seen in river-bed rocks. It looked like it had that shape because of weathering, not that it started that way. I tried to get more out of him about where he found it, but he didn't want to say. I had the feeling that if I were to break it, I might even be able to see actual grains...but again, not an option.

ETA: check that. I did ask him if he'd found it near water, and he said yes. So, I'm pretty sure that's what did the weathering.

[thoughtsdriftby]

something like electromagnetic induction spectroscopy (EMIS)?

not breaking something just for a tiny bit of information, I can understand that

[mareserinitatis]

I'm sure I could've talked to friends who run all the fancy lab equipment...but it didn't seem like we really needed to go quite that far.

[thoughtsdriftby]

Just a though, though myself I like to play with lab equipment.

Let's see, Michigan...andesite generally has no quartz and generally a dash of one or more ferromagnenezian minerals... field trip to find it's match? :-)
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First Nation traditions like many buried in time I believe tend to come about it the hard way. North America used to be a very different place. One thought goes that looking towards the geographic center of most expanding deserts there are signs of ancient civilizations that eventually had to abandon their city/states and scatter. The descendants often nomadic and with a system of life more balanced and sustainable with the environment. Basically that the similarity in lore and reverence for nature across North America could be traced back to a major fail(s) and migration(s).
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Sorry starting to ramble a bit