Anyone ever heard of a translucent black arky?
I was recently messaging back and forth with an eBay seller regarding purchasing a surgical black Arkansas hone. During the conversation, he mentioned having a slab of translucent black novaculite (his words, not mine) that he could cut me a piece of. I decided to go ahead and take the chance and purchase one. It hasn't arrived yet, but I should have it by the end of the week. It may be worthless as a razor hone, but it should work great for my kitchen and pocket knives. I'll post more info about its traits once it arrives and I have a chance to use it a time or two, but I was just wondering if anyone has ever heard of a translucent black arky?
1 Attachment(s)
Translucent Arkansas is very possible.
Translucent Arkansas is very possible. Deep water springs brought a lot of minerals on the surface of the primordial sea. The result is that microscopic animals such as glass sponges, diatoms, spongespicula and radiolarian (plankton) develop explosively.
If these die the skeletons drop down to the bottom, recrystallise and form a thick "bedded chert".
Because how the stone is formed fossils are often found in the deposition.
The carbonates are chemically replaced by silica (SiO2). The color varies from white through light grey to black. In principle, all the silicon crystals same size. By compressing the space between the crystals and the crystals are reduced in size sintering to each other so that the grain size is smaller, and apparently the result finer grinding. One is inclined to trace quality to the colour what is not right. Better is to look at the density.
Quartz has a density of 2.65 kg / dm ³. The density of Novaculite ranges from: 2.25 to 2.68. See the differences in color in the picture.