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July 2, 2003
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - As reported in my June 6 four-part Earthfiles series about scientific data emerging from analysis of the physical evidence I gathered in Corguinho, Brazil, in February 2003, x-ray diffractometry (XRD) was done at the University of Pennsylvania across the interior of one of the 75 small stones given to me from the September 15, 2002, "rain of rocks." The XRD computer analysis produced a list of minerals, starting with quartz, which is the most abundant substance in the stones, and continuing in order of quantity: Quartz, Goethite, Hematite, Rutile (which contains titanium), Albite and Cubanite. The mineral, Cubanite, is very rare and strongly magnetic. Biophysicist W. C. Levengood had discovered magnetic fields in two Corguinho stones I sent to his laboratory before the Cubanite was discovered.
After the XRD analysis, further work was done to examine thin slices of Corguinho stones on a petrographic microscope by Prof. Gomaa Omar. Born and raised in Egypt, Prof. Omar is a rock expert, published in Science, and has taught and researched at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Earth and Environmental Science for twenty-five years. He is puzzled about the origin and creation mechanism of the several disk-shaped Corguinho stones that he examined.
Gomaa Omar, Ph.D., Prof. of Geology, Department of Earth and environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: "It's very clear when you look at the cross-section here, you really can see how they are banded. See the banding here in each one of these. In addition to the football shape, really the most important thing is the banding there. This is a mystery to me. I don't see that very often. It's something that should be investigated further, no doubt about it.
YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE THOUGH, YOU HAD SAID.
No, I've never seen these particular football-like shapes and this particular mineral arrangement. I've never seen that before, no. The stone is primarily an iron matrix in which quartz crystals are embedded.
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