Looking for help trying to identify find Options

[Woody]

By chance anyone have a clue as to what this mineral/Rock/Gem might be?

I was out this weekend rooting around in the ground and found a spot where someone long ago had dug for fluorite. I was looking though their debris pile and had found several small, low grade pieces with some purple and green showing. Often when I am out and about I will keep pieces or chunks of smoky quartz, especially if they are deep black, “Ooh Shiny”. So when I picked this piece up that’s what I thought it was smoky quartz. I never would have kept such a small piece, “it is only 1 inch wide and about 1 ½ inches long” but once I picked it up I could tell the fracture was not what one would expect from quartz. I couldn’t bring myself to through it away so I tossed it in my pack knowing I could look at it again after I cleaned it off.

So I got home and was washing all my finds off and got to this one. When I picked it up this time I did not have gloves on and immediately noticed another strange characteristic, it was unusually heavy for its size. After I cleaned it off I could see that although it looked black at first, I believe it is actually an intense red. There is one small spot that is damaged and it shows dark red. Difficult to tell though as light will not pass through it.

Additional info/Re-cap;
1. Intense black and shiny.
2. Does not fracture like quartz. It is uneven and chunky.
3. Does not scratch with good knife or file.
4. Very heavy in weight. I would say it has a specific gravity about that of iron.
5. It is extremely opaque, light will not pass through it even around the edges.
6. Small damaged area shows red.
7. It is associated with decomposing granite on one end and microcline on the other.

That’s about all I got. Any guesses? Woody

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[Woody]

I tried doing a hardness test on it but don't have anything readily available for material harder than 6.5, a good steel file will not scratch it so it goes beyond that. I wish I had a simple home test that could measure specific gravity. It is noticeably heavy in hand for such a small piece. Quartz is fairly hard, “7 or so”, but it is not heavy enough. Same thing with obsidian, not heavy enough. Galena seems to have about the same weight as this mineral. I’ve never seen anything from the garnet family up in this area but I would think that garnets are a heavy mineral.

I think I have seen this in some of the rocks I brought home before. I remember a couple of items had a small inclusion that at the time I thought was just a tear drop sized piece of smoky quartz. Looking back I remember that it was absolutely opaque just like this item. By “opaque” I mean I can hold a high power flashlight right up to it and light does not pass. Not even just a little bit on the edges, Just like onyx.

Search continues~