OK - This has had us intrigued for years, but we have never found out what it is.

We are very interested to hear more about it!

When you have solved this mystery you might want to check out former mysteries :-)
Mystery rock 2 - - - - - Mystery rock 1

The MYSTERY ... that tuff that looks like steel wool. More details below.

Brenda at the entrance to the Lava Tube where the specimen was found.

Location : Island of Hawai'i, on Kilauea, outside Volcanoes National Park.

ROUGH LOCATION : Well inside a long and large lava tube cave. It did not seem to be in the zone where roots and ground water seepage were common, though seepage could have played a role. We were there on a drier day. This was a wild cave with little foot traffic as you can probably tell by the photo of the entrance. We climbed down vines to get to the bottom of the 20 foot drop below the skylight that exposed the tube.

SPECIFIC LOCATION : On a shelf up close to the lava tube cave ceiling. It looked like a flake had partly exfoliated from the inner surface of the tube ceiling and the tuff had formed on top of it.

ORIGIN : ?????? Pele?

SIZE: It's been years since we saw it and I only have the one photo, but we think it was about an inch to two inches tall and maybe a half inch across at the bottom of the tuff.

MATERIAL : It really, really, really looked metallic. Just like steel wool. We did not touch it or collect it so I can't tell you more. It must have grown there in that spot, so maybe it was a crystal of some kind? Definitely NOT anything like lava stalagtites and growing in the wrong direction! While you are at it, any ideas on the white material near it?

Please tell us what you can about this material!
(I'll include responses at the bottom of this page as they come in)

Brenda@WoodenSki.com

Mike notes : "It’s going to be some kind of zeolite. Many zeolites are zoned and there can be more than one zeolite in these masses. I think Natrolitie is a good aproximation. I doubt anyone will call it exact without a sample in hand."

2Neat adds : The white specimen in front, especially, does look like Natrolite or a natrolith - does everyone agree? I didn't see any sample photos anywhere that were silvery, though, and the natrolite crystals all seemed to be absolutely straight instead of wiry like our silver tuft. So, the silver tuft may be something else?

Mike adds : "I suppose it could be Pele's hair."

Eugene Prohl notes : "I was looking at your "Mystery Rock" on the home page of your website and I have a photo of the same thing (see Eugene's photo below, with permission). I took the photo in an abandoned zinc mine here in northern Arkansas quite a few years ago. I believe the item in question is some type of mold or fungus because it is growing off of rat (?) feces which is laying on an old board. The mine was very damp and this area was fairly close to the entrance of the mine. ... I don't believe that this was any type of mineral growth."

2Neat adds : I think we have an absolute ID here! That upper central tuft in your photo is an almost exact match for our mystery tuft. Your photo, however, is far more interesting than ours because it has at least three variations of mold, shows the feces substrate and is clearly not a mineral since it is on top of the board. What does everyone else think - is our "mystery rock" a fungal growth?

Our mystery tuft sure looked like some kind of metallic mineral to us, but we couldn't see it all that well or get close to it and our camera was a crummy early generation digital. We just held the camera overhead and hoped for the best. In any case, it was a genuine mystery to us :-). It would have been a pretty hard spot for a rodent to get to, but not impossible.

Thanks!

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