Rocks picked up on a California beach ignite in womans pocket. (page 3)

ziddina

"EEWWWW Pooo coated rocks..... Ban them now!!..." DarthFader

Ahem...

That would be PEE-coated rocks, not "poo"-coated rocks...

Naturally, I researched this before posting. First site was the one you quoted, Zid. But that didn't satisfy, so I did a few more. This was one --- like I said, possibility it really happened just that way.

Naturally, there could be other explanations.

http://customers.hbci.com/~wenonah/hydro/p.htm

Phosphorus. P; at. wt. 30.975; at. no. 15; valence 3-5. Discovered in 1669 by Brandt. Does not occur free in nature; found in form of phosphates in the minerals chlorapatite, fluorapatite, vivianite, wavelite, and "phosphate rock" (S. Carolina, Florida, Tennessee); occurs in small quantities in granite rocks; occurs in all fertile soil; an essential constituent of protoplasm, nervous tissue, and bones

ziddina

Yup....

That's the critter...

But definitely NOT enough in granite - or for that matter, quartzite, which is what the large rock appears to be - to ignite.

talesin

If you say so, it must be true.

And, let me see, looking around at the many pieces of granite in my apartment, that I picked up off the beach here, I would say it looks very much like granite.

whatever... like I said, it will be interesting to hear the scientific conclusions.

ziddina

Be sure to check out those links; they are very interesting.

By the way, if you would freeze-frame the video when they focus on those two rocks and then hold up your piece of granite next to the picture, I think you'll see the differences.

Granite is very "grainy" - smallish crystals imperfectly formed that make a sort of "small-chunks-congealed-together" texture. That's also what gives it a "salt-and-pepper" effect - especially with the biotite mica grains/crude crystals scattered throughout the granite.

That rock in the picture has slight layering, combined with light semi-conchoidal fractures on and just below the surface - those are the lighter grayish areas of the rock...

That is more characteristic of quartzite than of granite. Plus, I used to live in California, and there are a LOT of metamorphic rocks on the coastlines - quartzite is a metamorphic rock. Granite is found further inland, in the Sierra Nevada mountain chain. Plus, in the coastal areas, there are some segments of ancient islands that have 'slammed' into earlier coastlines, and that usually generates a lot of metamorphic rock - like quartzite.

I love quartzite, and examine it whenever I see a decent piece, so I'm fairly familiar with the way it splits off from it's surface - plus, taking into account that all the rocks the woman collected have been naturally "tumbled" by the sea and sand, that is what I've seen of semi-tumbled quartzite from stream-tumbled rocks in my rockhounding areas.

Hortensia

Used to love that beach as a kid and a teenager. It's a great beach, but . . . close to Camp Pendleton and the nuclear facility

ohiocowboy

Gives new meaning to the term "Hot box"

cheerios

clearly you are all wrong. what really happened is that Jehooby made the rocks cry out the message of the Good News of the Kingdom and when the woman didn't listen, the rocks called down fire on her pants.

So, brothers and sisters, clearly we can see that the time of the end evidently is imminent. With the increase in pants ignition from ordinary rocks, the mighty Joe-hobo-oover is preparing to close the door of the Greater Ark and drive his celestial chariot over all the wicked world, turning all nonbelievers (and nonsubscribers) into righteous roadkill.

kurtbethel

I do not favor banning rocks, but registration and a waiting period would be a good idea.

One night on a road trip through the desert near the Colorado river, I was skipping rocks across the road and they were sparking. That was pretty cool, and I wish I had kept a sample of the rocks so I could find more like that.

designs

Hortensia- San Onofre is a great beach, I adopted Trail 1 for my personal cleanup project with Surfrider.Org..

Rocks picked up on a California beach ignite in womans pocket.

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